It was certainly an upbeat, warm and effective first night of the Democratic Convention. If the next two are as smartly done, and if any of America's 12 undecided voters are tuning in, the Democrats are helping themselves, a lot.
The buzzwords and constituency touches were carefully and thoroughly done. The Identity Interests were welcomed, mentioned and thanked. Gay, female, Jewish, Latino, black, veterans, small business, youth, seniors -- the list goes on. Yet one special constituency was carefully omitted: Occupy Wall Street. None of what happened last night would have been credible had the movement not begun last year.
Cast your mind back a mere eighteen months. The reigning political narrative was debt reduction and reduced government spending. Put aside whether it was good economics or bad. There really was no competing worldview that easily explained out situation. Obama and progressives were badly on the defensive, with no real counter explanation or program. The Tea Party and austerity ruled the world and swept the 2010 election.
Then, bubbling up from the concrete at Zuccotti Park came a new explanation, a new world view: Corporate dominance and the concentration of wealth had pitted the privileged 1% against the 99%. Again, put aside whether it's accurate or fair. It became the counter view to austerity and anti-government anger, and the counter organization to the Tea Party. It went countrywide and worldwide, spilled from the Park to the streets to campuses, attracted support from old and young, used the internet and social media and changed the discourse forever.
I was on the periphery of the movement and shared many of its views to be sure. But the point here is not to argue its merits: It's to point out that Occupy Wall Street gave voice to a different, progressive vision of the world and politics. Obama and other politicians were able to ride the pony, in the method of LBJ and the civil rights movement, Bobby Kennedy and the anti-war movement, or Nixon and anti-communism. The specific policy proposals that emerged after OWS, like a millionaire's tax or increased regulation of Wall Street, reduced interest on student loans were all the offspring of a widely shared view that government and the wealthy were benefiting at the expense of everyone else.
But still, there wasn't a word about it last night at the Democratic Convention. That's kinda understandable in cold political terms. There was a concerted right-wing effort to marginalize OWS as lazy hippies and malcontents, and OWS itself has taken a much lower media profile since the end of the Zuccotti Park occupation. Gratitude is a commodity in short supply in either party.
So let the thanks come from here and elsewhere as people are moved to remember what actually happened to change the political dynamic. OWS gave voice and form to the human consequences of thirty years of anti-government, pro-corporate policies that concentrated wealth and power in a very small number of Americans. If Obama can pin that image and resentment on Romney, and he's certainly trying, his path to re-election is much easier. If Obama wins, it will be on the shoulders of OWS.
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The REALITY is that it diverts attention away from the problems and solutions that will save this country, and us, from financial disaster.
The conclusion is that the Occupy movement, at least in New York, has been taken over by the rich and powerful who have a lot to hide --- enough, in fact, to put them in federal prison the rest of their lives.
All my posts, exposing the Federal Reserve as a private corporation, controlled by the richest family on earth, the Rothschilds, have been rejected.
Until the American people learn that it's the Federal Reserve's stockholders who are behind all the greed, the national debt, our wars, etc. they don't know who they're worst enemies are, and can't fight back.
THIS IS URGENT! Very soon we won't be able to fight back, for example, when hyperinflation hits.
Your opinion is based on so much bias that you can't deal with this issue intelligently.
The REALITY is that Occupy was making a great difference until the attention was diverted from fighting treason to dealing with every stupid little issue that came up.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER is how the Rothschilds are going to defeat the American people.
All those who are too lazy to research this issue from links at 'legal parasites net' deserve to be dominated by the elite.
Well, what does one USUALLY do with completely stone cold "DEAD" * bodies ?
Would you prefer that it be "cremated" or something, instead ?
* which in the case of the ALWAYS [from start to finish] utterly pathetic "Occupy Wall Street" thoroughly self-embarassing FIASCO, was in fact simply entirely "DEAD [from the neck up, at the very least] ON ARRIVAL" !
And that of course was from its' very FIRST totally MOCK "spontaneous", monumentally LUDICROUS entirely pre-planned & orchestrated appearance, on the supposedly " 'with it' progressive scene" [Haha], however many most eminently forgettable months ago THAT was.
I'd love to see a third party make a difference, I REALLY would. And not the Tea Party or the Libertarians, since both of those are nothing but the right wing's leftover whackos. At least Occupy has some cogent points in what they are railing against, and they do represent a completely different ideology as far as getting money out of politics, stopping war and the takeover of the police forces by the military industrial complex, which is a really big expense not only in dollars but in civil liberties.
But the reason the last line needs to be stricken is that, here we are 2 days after this article was published and there are now (if mine makes it through) nine comments, with only ONE outspoken supporter of OWS. This is not how a successful "movement" should be represented.
All you have to do is look at the stories HuffPo has printed about any protests....oops, good luck finding any stories as they're essentially nonexistent.
Occupy hasn't even managed to make a presence within any of the convention protests. In Tampa, they were outnumbered at every event, including a protest by seniors, for pete's sake. When you have convention headlines that say "dozens of protesters", it shows just how dead all the protest movements are.
It's not exactly like any of this was unexpected. When you start a movement with no coherent goals, no leader, no spokesmen, no coherent message, and a complete unwillingness to engage in politics to affect change, does anyone actually think somethings going to be accomplished. Public support for Occupy has dropped like a rock.
Sept. 2011- MONTHS AGO!
We'll get the President they want you to have. They'll change the laws to protect themselves, not you.
I can't believe HuffPo still has a page for OWS. The stories are months old. Discussions used to attract tens of thousands of comments. What do we have on this day old story here, 4?
Oh, please.
We didn't need OWS to know that greedy banks are screwing over the middle class and the poor. Politicians didn't need OWS to clarify issues or give momentum to anything. We all know what's going on. We all see the effects of high unemployment, reduced buying and borrowing power, etc.
And if (when) President Obama wins a second term it will be because enough people feel his administration is headed in the right direction with the economy and foreign policy. It will be because too few people think Romney's approach makes any sense for our country. It will be because, at the end of the day, more people simply want Barack Obama rather than Mitt Romney in the White House.
OWS certainly galvanized a lot of people and brought a lot of attention to issues. But as time has gone along, it's become apparent that sit-ins and marches aren't going to get the right people elected, aren't putting more people back to work, and aren't going to solve the problems of the day.