This past weekend, Occupy Wall Street demonstrations were held in over 951 cities in 82 countries as people around the globe joined in an international day of solidarity against the greed and corruption of the 1%.
The media, trying to discredit all the demonstrators, say we don't know what we are for, only what we are against. So I believe there is much to be gained were we to embrace the following 20 second sound bite for "what we are for."
Ok, it was two minutes instead of 20 seconds, but we deserve that amount of time.
Strategy?
For direct action, we need to begin non-violent sit-ins aimed at disrupting the normal operations of those corporations that have acted illegally and immorally, but gotten away with it because their friends control the Democratic Party as well as the Republican. We can't just occupy parks, we need to escalate our activity in a totally non-violent way.
For a longer term strategy, we need to run a candidate or a series of candidates (different ones in different states) to challenge Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries, else the power-brokers will continue to ignore the progressive sentiments of the American majority, telling themselves that since we have no electoral alternative, we'll always be there for the Democratic power brokers no mater how badly they ignore the needs of the 99%. Unless we have a presence in the electoral arena in 2012, our voices will be totally marginalized and the already-far-to-the-right discourse in American politics will shift even more in that reactionary direction. But we have an amazing opportunity: we can use a challenge to Obama in the Democratic primaries (NOT the general elections, where many of us will end up supporting Obama and not making the mistake of 2000 in claiming that there is no difference at all between Dems and Republicans), to do in the Democratic Party what the Tea Party did inside of the Republican Party: push for a worldview that is coherent and clear, and policies that embody Our New Bottom Line.
The big problem facing us is how to take the millions of Americans who are ready to move in this new direction to work together coherently. Yet we can rejoice the first step has been taken: Americans coming out of the closet of despair and calling for a world of justice, peace and caring for each other and for the planet.
I'm particularly proud that young Jews participating in these demonstrations have created Sukkot, the temporary huts that Jews are supposed to live in for 7 days (the holiday started Wednesday night October 12) to symbolize detachment from the material security provided by our homes, to re-identify ourselves as a people that has mostly been homeless for most of our history, and to remind ourselves that all the accomplishments of material security are meaningless unless shared with everyone else. Tikkunista Jews (tikkun means healing and transforming the world) are challenging the establishment Jews, some of whom run the very institutions that all of us supporting Occupy Wall Street hope to see replaced by a more just order. Though right-wingers have followed David Brooks' attempt to smear the demonstrators as anti-Semitic, the truth is that the Jewish world can be proud that a high percentage of these demonstrators are Jewish -- and challenging the establishment Jews who have a disproportionate presence in the community of bankers and investment brokers.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine and Chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. Author of the New York Times best-seller, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right (Harper, 2006), his next book forthcoming in November is Embracing Israel/Palestine: A strategy for Middle East Peace. RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org
Follow Rabbi Michael Lerner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rabbilerner
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The #1 problem for all of us, whether we call ourselves conservatives or progressives, is that our candidates are up for auction in 2012 with all the power of Citizens United behind that auction. That means that Tea Party fanatics as much as unions have no real representation in what was, supposedly, OUR government. It is now owned by aristocrats -- almost lock, stock and barrel. What good is it to vote someone in who will wind up working for Wall Street and not Main Street.
All the things the Rabbi mentions are noble and right goals; but they will slide further and further from our grasp without separating business from state. We will wake up in a feudal state, if we aren't already there.
Of all the myriad of themes from the occupy wall street movement - the common one seems to be 'get money out of politics"
I think they should stick to that.
Check out Table 1 on Page 9 and Table 3 on Page 12. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/08intop400.pdf
But since you brought it up by commenting without reading the article, let me point out that "special interests" are actually the people of this country. The "main interest" of our political systems are the concentrations of economic power and wealth that have severly injured our democracy.
Just so you know what we're up against.
Secondly, your proposals sound like the lyrics to a 60's folk song, not a real policy. Who will decide whether Ford and IBM have delivered enough "love and kindness, generosity and caring..?" You think the U.N. will join us in a chorus of "All you need is love?" Would Iran's and North Korea's leaders succumb to our love bombs?
If you want to help the world's poor get out of poverty, then encourage their governments to allow free trade and respect private property. The 2000's have seen a record in the world's population emerging from poverty (China and India, for instance). No government redistribution policy has matched the capacity of free enterprise for delivering people from poverty to middle class.
No offense Rabbi but you may as well say "we demand Utopia!" Peace, love and understanding is wonderful but what we need are fair laws and the removal of corporate money in campaign funding.
Simply make campaign contributions from anyone other than and individual illegal. Limit the amount one can donate to a candidate to $2000.00 times the amount of dependents one claims. Overturn the idea that money is speech and that corporations have the same rights as individuals. Have the federal government match the amount a candidate gets from his supporters (using criteria based on the amount of money he/she gets and the diversity of the states it comes from) and get it on.
If $2000.00 is the most "speech" an individual can buy, if you have 10 dependents you can donate $20,000.00. This will force candidates to appeal to the needs of many ,not just those with big money.
If the OWS movement starts to demand that people start to love one another and the planet they will be thought of as irrational hippies and dismissed.
We need policies the make people act responsibly to each other and the world. The OWS movement is protesting the systematic repeal of all those policies and laws over the last 30 years that have lead to the mess we are in.
I applaud the Rabbi's thinking. I disagree with strategy.
Awesome idea. I have a hunch that BP would find it difficult to stay in the game under such a requirement.
You're assuming that investors will factor everything that matters into prices. But what if you force investors to actually have a close look before they do that? That's all the proposal is saying.
Of course some activist investors might not like it. And they might bring about a lot of jury trials. But then it would be their fault. Other than that, firms would simply make sure they don't pi$$ off citizens and that would be all.
Don't you see the point? If investors and markets are as smart as everybody claims, then it simply won't make a difference. So WHAT are you afraid of? I don't know. But it's probably precisely what you SHOULD be afraid of.