No one knows what difference Occupy Wall Street will turn out to make.
This could be the start of something big. Maybe the burgeoning sense that something is not right in America will reach a critical mass. It's already showing up in the polls. Maybe more and more ordinary Americans will wake up and smell the plutocracy. The consensus will grow that the only way that income distribution could have become so out-of-whack is that the power in Washington isn't in the hands of the people we elect; it belongs to the big corporations and Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers who have the country by the short hairs. We're at the beginning of a tectonic shift in our politics, our culture, maybe even in our governance.
Or the movement fizzles. The demographics of the demonstrators don't keep expanding. Unemployment and foreclosure turn out not to be the contemporary equivalent of the draft's role in mobilizing broad opposition to the war in Vietnam. Winter, and shrewder policing with less blowback, take a toll on the encampments. Occupy becomes just another tale of the fall 2011 media scrum, alongside the Conrad Murray trial. In retrospect we realize that our political elites have grown so dependent on our predators that the whole corrupt system is immune to challenge. Occupy goes nowhere -- there's no wave election, no campaign finance reform, no re-regulation or rule of law for the financial sector, no increase of progressivity in the tax code, no infrastructure rebuilt by no jobs program, no course correction for the American dream.
Since no one really knows what Occupy's impact will be tomorrow, there's a contest going on today, a battle for control over how the story is being told right now. And the way it's framed could actually determine the way it will play out in real life.
The right's strategy is: If we don't build it, they won't come. So its narrative is: These people are lazy, losers, hippies, stooges, drug-takers, a mob. They don't know what they want. They want to destroy capitalism. This is no Tea Party. Move along, there's nothing to see here.
It's a bit incoherent, but they're sticking to it, and their intention is to prevent any more of their pigeons -- the 99 percenters -- from figuring out how deeply they've been shafted by Koch-era robber barons and their political puppets.
The left, on the other hand, hears the strains of "Something's Coming" in the air. Its aspirational narrative sees the pendulum swinging the other way. A moral confidence is stirring. Yes, the political system is dysfunctional, but the urgency of protest will not be paralyzed by pragmatic cynicism. We really can do it. We can reclaim our country from the oligarchs. We can recapture what America used to be about. These Occupy encampments spreading from city to city? That's what it looks like when hope shucks off the victim script.
The arena where these warring narratives are slugging it out is in the media. Fox, which has been the publicist, cheerleader, speakers bureau and enabler of the Tea Party, is of course relentlessly dismissive of Occupy. Over on MSNBC, police bungling fuels support, and the messages on the demonstrators' hand-made signs provide a counter-narrative to the corporate triumphalism that has dominated public discourse for decades. CNN's account of Occupy is whiplashed between the false equivalence its brand requires -- kabuki pundit combat, always ending the same way: "We'll have to leave it there" -- and the need to hold eyeballs during commercials, which mandates you-won't-want-to-miss-this alarmism. The prestige press needs to play it both ways, in an only-time-will-tell frame, though it's always safe to go meta: "Every Movement Needs a Logo" was the title of a New York Times gallery of graphic identities proposed by designers, while New York magazine asked an ad exec and a PR pro to give letter grades to the occupiers' protest signs.
Social media, whose importance to the Arab Spring has become a benchmark of subsequent protests, is atwitter with people talking directly to themselves; it's an organizing tool, and a gauge of popular sentiment, that doesn't require the dots of the story to be connected in prefab patterns. But no matter how immersed we may be in virtual and mediated reality, Occupy is an essentially offline phenomenon. It has required real people in real places -- not viral videos or Facebook pages -- to give it credibility. It is as local, grassroots, bottom-up and non-hierarchical a movement as they come -- the antithesis of billionaire-funded astroturfing by the likes of FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. No one sleeping in those parks and plazas has a clue how this will all turn out. But their sheer physical presence gives them a narrative authority that the media and the chattering class lack.
Every day brings a fresh blizzard of data about the world. But which information gets our attention, and how it acquires meaning, depends on the story-in-progress at the time. A Congressional Budget Office study of income distribution can be the usual one-day story, like other CBO studies, or it can get massive coverage because Occupy put the topic on the nation's front burner. Record-breaking oil company profits can be framed as just another business story, or it can be reported in the context of the industry's climate change denial campaign, and the hold its lobbyist have over Congress, and our political system's imbecilic failure to address our direst global problem. Wall Street's escape from accountability, its capacity to thwart even the most modest attempts to rein in future recklessness, can be a story about the regulatory process, or it can be a warning that there are dangers to democracy that our Founders' checks and balances were unable to anticipate.
"We are the 99%" could turn out to be a popgun, or it could be the shot heard round the world. Just don't let anyone tell you that the answer is already a foregone conclusion.
This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
Today we have even greater divergence between the goals of the corporations and the needs of the workers because of the recent acceleration of outsourcing and automation which started four decades ago. If governments are going to do their job and protect the common good they need to have as job one the growth of worker purchasing power, for without that our economy will continue to be undermined until collapse takes workers and corporations down together.
This is a global problem as all developed countries are challenged by outsourcing, automation and dependence on imported oil. The US has two additional burdens -- a health care system which costs twice that of other developed countries and our military protection of the world oil supply.
Steps which the US can take to grow worker purchasing power include phasing in a tariff of at least 30% on all imports except food, clothing and non-strategic raw materials, moving to a four-day work week of nine-hour days and massive private and public investments in natural gas and electric transportation along with renewable energy.
The "99%" will finally make the connection between actually participating in the electoral process and the results that are produced by our government, and they, collectively, will acknowledge their major "mea culpa", with this most recent election cycle and the refusal to accept President Obama's call for support at the Inauguration.
People will finally take the responsibility for not only participating during the election process and having their say registered, but also the responsibility of being active participants in the governing process, even after the elections. Folks will finally get off their backsides, rather than sitting at home, foolishly believing that camping out in a city park, in and of itself, will lead to anything being done.
Then again, count me in the camp of folks who don't expect the "protesters" to make that link. Hope they have fun camping out through the winter.
Well, the little publicized person, the last prophet Elijah, was deported back into the USA to begin his study of the American Jurisprudence, AJS and Constitution which he has not formulated how best to eliminate corporation's controlling the US government. http://www.change.org/petitions/eliminate-capitalistic-military-regime is the means where he has named himself as the person to replace Obama when he finally obeys his oath protecting the constitution "With His Life" as did congress, judges, military and police. Elijah's the man the Bahi religion announced would bring peace into being.
Since MLK was his "preparing the way messenger" (Malachi 3:1), the Occupy Wall Street Movement will end with Elijah suddenly coming into his temple (US Presidency) ushering in world peace (Isaiah 2:2-4) which grants everyone the right to be world citizens or citizens of a particular nation. That's how OWS will end.
It's all rigged, and THAT is the problem.
And they are not bratty kids hurtling bottles and rocks at cops; cops are out in force attacking THEM, there are many both old and young, and the OWS decorum and organizational skills are exceptional.
Mmm, the Tea Party isn't a party; it's a movement of individuals, nationwide. And the Koch brothers do nothing more than Soros does for the leftie efforts he supports.
The Tea Party isn't a party but a movement of individuals. And the Koch brothers are free to put support behind one of the organizations, just like Soros does with the Left.
>>>And they are not bratty kids hurtling bottles and rocks at cops>>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHlHiNEZ1wA
The concept that someone will trademark the name Occupy Wall Street means that it will either be cashed in for commercial exploitation (doubtful) or it will evolve into more of a cohesive organization going forward.
Pols, MSM, etc are all part of the 1%'ers and are defending their turf and we can not expect anything from them but FUD. The establishment, sad to say some are 99%'ers, likes it just as it is. For the reset of us we either take part or support OWS or we agree with the establishment and like it just as it is. In either case sitting on the sidelines does not cut it this time around.
What the TP did was just that and like it or no, they have made an impact on Washington.
Impacting Washington is the ONLY way this movement is going to make any changes but now that it's boiled down to the usual left/right clash, I doubt that's going to happen.
In fact, there has been a 39 percent decline in the number of American millionaires since 2007. Among the so-called super rich, the decline has been even sharper. The number of Americans earning more than $10 million per year has fallen by 55 percent. Perhaps someone should tell the folks at occupy wallstreet. Inequality is actually declining. So bottom line we are all getting poorer together thanks to the governments failures. But remember You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich."
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Sure you can.
You cannot reward failure and punish success and increase innovation and the quality of life. It has never worked and will not work if you change the name to "progressive."
Of course there are differences in intelligence, skills, knowledge, abilities, attitude, willingness to work and other factors. Each and every one of those creates differences in contribution.
In a fair society, you are compensated for your contribution. The liberal idea of equal wealth distribution ignores the differences in contributions and is doomed to fail.
The mistaken belief that government can create equal outcomes is foolish. The result of liberal’s attempts is to bring civilization down to the lowest common denominator. It happens every time you try and create social justice. The only way for liberals to succeed is to punish success and human nature then creates poverty and misery.