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Think Occupy Wall St. is a Phase? You Don't Get It
Like the spokesmen for Arab dictators feigning bewilderment over protesters' demands, mainstream television news reporters finally training their attention on the growing Occupy Wall Street protest movement seem determined to cast it as the random, silly blather of an ungrateful and lazy generation of weirdos. They couldn't be more wrong and, as time will tell, may eventually be forced to accept the inevitability of their own obsolescence.
Consider how CNN anchor Erin Burnett, covered the goings on at Zuccotti Park downtown, where the protesters are encamped, in a segment called "Seriously?!" "What are they protesting?" she asked, "nobody seems to know." Like Jay Leno testing random mall patrons on American History, the main objective seemed to be to prove that the protesters didn't, for example, know that the U.S. government has been reimbursed for the bank bailouts. It was condescending and reductionist.
More predictably perhaps, a Fox News reporter appears flummoxed in this outtake from "On the Record," in which the respondent refuses to explain how he wants the protests to "end." Transcending the shallow partisan politics of the moment, the protester explains "As far as seeing it end, I wouldn't like to see it end. I would like to see the conversation continue."
To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped.
In fact, we are witnessing America's first true Internet-era movement, which -- unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even the Obama campaign -- does not take its cue from a charismatic leader, express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as having a particular endpoint.
Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on. Different people have been affected by different aspects of the same system -- and they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem.
Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud.
Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking's defenders and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns.
That's because, unlike a political campaign designed to get some person in office and then close up shop (as in the election of Obama), this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the Internet.
Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.
But unlike a traditional protest, which identifies the enemy and fights for a particular solution, Occupy Wall Street just sits there talking with itself, debating its own worth, recognizing its internal inconsistencies and then continuing on as if this were some sort of new normal. It models a new collectivism, picking up on the sustainable protest village of the movement's Egyptian counterparts, with food, first aid, and a library.
Yes, as so many journalists seem obligated to point out, kids are criticizing corporate America while tweeting through their iPhones. The simplistic critique is that if someone is upset about corporate excess, he is supposed to abandon all connection with any corporate product. Of course, the more nuanced approach to such tradeoffs would be to seek balance rather than ultimatums. Yes, there are things big corporations might do very well, like making iPhones. There are other things big corporations may not do so well, like structure mortgage derivatives. Might we be able to use corporations for what works, and get them out of doing what doesn't?
And yes, some kids are showing up at Occupy Wall Street because it's fun. They come for the people, the excitement, the camaraderie and the sense of purpose they might not be able to find elsewhere. But does this mean that something about Occupy Wall Street is lacking, or that it is providing something that jobs and schools are not (thanks in part to rising unemployment and skyrocketing tuitions)?
The members of Occupy Wall Street may be as unwieldy, paradoxical, and inconsistent as those of us living in the real world. But that is precisely why their new approach to protest is more applicable, sustainable and actionable than what passes for politics today. They are suggesting that the fiscal operating system on which we are attempting to run our economy is no longer appropriate to the task. They mean to show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture.
And in the process, they are pointing the way toward something entirely different than the zero-sum game of artificial scarcity favoring top-down investors and media makers alike.
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Show All"Yes, as so many journalists seem obligated to point out, kids are criticizing corporate America while tweeting through their iPhones."
Does anyone doubt that the late Steve Jobs, a visionary revolutionary himself, would have been immensely proud of this use of one of his amazing products?
Someone posted a quote sometime ago about buying rope from your adversary in order to hang him with it. I cannot remember which of our comment contributors shared this quote but I recall it was in response to the so-called journalistic wisdom you pointed out in your comment.
Steve Jobs.....Well.. that would be another discussion..I believe our cd family members pretty well exhausted the pros and cons of the life, and impact on our lives, of this very talented and aggressive salesperson.....
Thomas Gilbert-
Steve Jobs eulogized? He’s a 1%-er who outsourced his computer building to China. WaPo reports about a Chinese factory that manufactures iPods and employs 200,000 workers who live in dormitories where visitors are not permitted. Workers toil for 15-hour days for as little as $50 per month, according to the article. Steve Jobs is not up for sainthood, and we should avoid hagiographies about him.
We use the tools we have. And we don't have to pay homage to the tool maker.
"He’s a 1%-er who outsourced his computer building to China."
Dwyer,
yep...Same guy....
Thomas Gilbert-
Wish you could give me the source of that WaPo article. 200,000 workers in one factory does not sound right. Neither do 15 hour days. And fifty dollars per month--let's see--six days per week, 15 hours per day--that would be 90 hours per week and 360 hours per month. That would come out to 14 cents per hour. I do not believe these numbers.
Is Apple the guilty one, the Chinese contractor, or the Chinese government? If you could give me accurate figures for Apple's transgressions, it would be easier to respond to them.
At any rate, your statement comes right out of Julius Caesar: The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. Jobs accepted a salary of one dollar per year. He is much more than a salesperson as some here would maintain. He made his devices user-friendly and he had a fine eye for design. You would write him off as just another rich guy, dismissing him in the same way the Koch brothers dismiss teachers in the state of Wisconsin. You want to create a new society? Then treat ALL human beings with dignity--especially if they make a whole-hearted effort to make the world a better place.
"Jobs accepted a salary of one dollar per year."
Damn, I didn't know you could buy acres and acres of property up in Hillsborough or Woodside or Atherton or Los Altos Hills (it's one of those his family is now to occupy/inherit,) with the additional salary leftover to demolish the old 5K s/f house on it to build a 15K s/f brand spankin new house, on a $1/year salary to qualify for the $25Million loan to buy/build the palace?!?!
$1/year is all everyone needs to live like Kings...really? Who knew? Apparently, people who don't: http://my.firedoglake.com/amghru/2011/10/06/f-steve-jobs/
I didn't say that he didn't own stock in Apple. Why should he not? He founded the company.
Apple actually does an audit on this sort of thing and there are a lot of violations:
http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Reveals+Child+Labor+was+Used+to+Build+iPods+iPhones+and+Macs/article17818.htm
That quote comes from Vladmir Lenin at the time of the Russian revolution: the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we hang them.
PP,
Thank you for bringing back the quote. If I am not mistaken it was you you applied it to one of your comments?
Thank You Again
Thomas Gilbert-
Voyage From Yesteryear by James P. Hogan
Obama sides with the financial sector concerning OWS and gives the people of America lip service.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/10/7/headlines#3
OWS renders Obama irrelevant.
hue_sir_name,
Absolutely correct...
Thomas Gilbert_
Seeing corporate media news personalities visibly flummoxed by OWS engenders a strong measure of schadenfreude. One can only hope this is the beginning of their irrelevance in terms of their being part of a fading media paradigm similar to the music industry circa 1998.
Exactly what is on my mind, how utterly irrelevant this fading paradigm is. I found myself wondering, who even listens to the mediabots anymore? It's all just noise.
Just as the major drivers of the aforementioned decline of the music industry was the under-30 demographic, eventually bringing along the rest of the population with them, so too OWS counts amongst it's numbers the young, as they are most screwed by the Banksters. And most disturbing for the media outlets employing these flummoxed ninnies, the young audience is ignoring these channels like the plague -- so instead, they go the Fox Noise Channel route and squeeze as much revenue out of their greying audience for as long as they can even though they are in the inexorable pull of the law of diminishing return.
Rushkoff's articles often appear on a website called www.realitysandwich.com. In the foreword to a book called What Comes After Money, one of the founders of Realitysandwich, writer Daniel Pinchbeck says, in regard to one of the crucial factor necessary to successfully transcending the old paradigm, it is__________________________________________
"...the shift in awareness, the change of consciousness, necessary before a truly equitable global society can emerge. This change is already occurring on many levels, some visible and some subliminal, throughout our increasingly interconnected world. We are developing a thoroughly evolutionary perspective, one that sees human cultures, relationships, and social systems as expressions of an evolution of life and of a consciousness that is perpetually ongoing.
_________________________________________________________
We are not passive observers of this process, but active participants. We are the coming-into-consciousness of the Gaian mind, and our actions and intentions-as individuals and communities-determine the trajectory of our future culture."
In other words, "One World" is not just a concept, it is a transpersonal visionary experience, a direct experience of the "open channel" that connects all life, the Anima Mundi or World Soul.
"Yes, it's part and parcel of "everybody all at once" wherein decisions can no longer be made without taking the impact of everyone, most especially the least amongst us, into consideration. This idea of a new moment is well argued and Transmitted here: www.da-peace.org. Anima Mundi yes..........
The high-level, somewhat Jungian, perception you offer is borne out repeatedly in a variety of disciplines, from historical records to the hard sciences. The 2006 book, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations" is particularly pertinent to phenomena such as the Arab Spring and OWS.
It is in the nature of the spiders (plutocratic oligarchs) that control Wall Street and and their servants in government that they are committed to the structured hierarchies that have enabled their ascendance with lies and illusions. Further, they are naturally and admittedly insatiable so they have little grasp of the limitations and vulnerabilities of the hierarchies upon which they depend. Thus their success has tripped the trigger of resistance. The spiders are expert at dealing with other spiders and their hierarchies - they first identify and then co-opt (Obama) or eliminate (Kennedy) the leadership. But when confronted with the likes of OWS that has many contributors instead of a few leaders and an open communal network instead of a rigid heirarchy, they are bewildered. The spider has met the starfish.
The first response of the spiders and the media they control is to deny the starfish exists, but the starfish isn't listening. Then the spiders attack the starfish physically (NYC cops, Arab soldiers). But when you cut a starfish in half, what you ultimately get is two healthy and growing starfish. The starfish is a leaderless, decentralized affiliation of independent entities that is fundamentally invulnerable to the only tactics spiders understand. And the more aggressive the spiders become, the stronger the starfish becomes.
Specific events are anything but predictable but the math is inescapable and, perhaps, it's beginning to dawn on some folks in the spider's towers. I saw a video on MSNBC this morning (Up with Chris Hayes) showing upper story windows at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where someone had posted signs reading "We are the 1%". Damned right you are - and how do you like those odds?
This article very clearly explains why the OWS movement is something new.
This newness is what gives me hope because none of the old "solutions" seem to work anymore. I also appreciate the comments of Kitaj.
The Occupation Status Board in Liberty Plaza states:
Making “Demands” puts your happiness under someone elses control, and navigate by a point on the horizon. This is not a place to get to–but it will always steer your actions.
I asked one of the occupiers: “What is the navigation point by which you are guiding your actions?”
He said: “A society that values each human being.”
I then challenged the notion that they were speaking for or representing the 99%. I indicated that a significant portion of that 99% were vehemently opposed to socialist ideology and some of the signs held by the occupiers implied an adherence to socialist precepts.
After the briefest of nods he said: “We have to get past labels that make people angry, like socialism and capitalism. Nothing is that black and white.”
I could appreciate that. I have always been uncomfortable with other people categorizing my thoughts and actions. It’s a power move. If it can be labeled, it can be put in its proper place, like a pretty moth pinned for display…in a museum. Resistance to systematic branding can be thought of as struggling for life. Yet the inertia of the social order, manifest in the desire of the mainstream media to catalogue the story, is like gravity.
I asked him about the relationship between the more youthful occupiers and the veterans who most certainly were involved with struggles dating back to the ’60s.
He said: “The Underlying emotions are the same as the ’60s. There is a general recognition by people, that the system isn’t working for them and a hope that we can make a new system that does.”
The occupiers are navigating towards a society that values each human being in a vessel constructed of their hope.
Join the occupation! Bring the strength of your life. The movement, in its infancy, needs nothing more than support. The beginning of life is delicate and vulnerable to contagion. Simply come and nurture the kernel of optimism, and gently breathe into the embers of hope. Let it Grow!
outlierideas.com
B
Beautiful comments all.....if movement continues to grow, the establishment will begin its own escalation to shut it down. Are meetings at the highest levels of government alteady taking place? I would bet they are, that they already beginning to formulate strategies.
Yes -- The Powers are thinking this through...
Some of the comments on here make it sound like if The People just speak up things will change.
Well, I'm actually in favor of The People speaking up and of things changing, and this is step #1, but there are several steps to go through yet including perhaps:
1) The Powers try to assign "leadership" to the movement and buy it off.
2) The Powers KILL everyone who stands in the way of their profits, clear the bodies away, and dare us at the points of their guns to do anything about it.
3) Civil war if The People are truly serious.
We'll see.
-- Zagone
"Yes, there are things big corporations might do very well, like making iPhones."
with slave labour in China.
That's right - this is the stupidest sentence in the whole piece. Just because
modern corporations produce products doesn't mean that must be produced in the they are.
Nor does the fact that we must live in the environment we are born into mean that things have to be like they are. If I use a car its because that's what's used in the culture
I was born into. I happen to be crazy enough to think their are better and more sustainable arrangements than car culture.
Sorry for haste - "products don't have to be produced in the way that they currently are."
Cheap labor = big $$ for billionaires. That's all. And our consumerist culture also means big landfills, health problems, global warming, crying injustices and a coming crash so big it will make 2008 0r 1933 for that matter look like paradise.
Forgot to add, above mentioned foreword appears as an article on realitysandwich right now. It is worth reading.
http://www.realitysandwich.com/impossible_alternative
Reality Sandwich is a site I visit regularly, and I particularly value the contributions of Charles Eisenstein. His online book, Ascent of Humanity, which you can read for free (he also accepts contributions) is powerful. One of the landmark books of our age. After I read the online version, I bought three copies and gave them to friends. Peace.
This is all very well, but I keep asking: What effect will it have if the Elite do not listen? The rich are not interested. The meagre-few politicians that do mention OWS give it mere lip-service. The politics of corporate lobbying will not stop. How then will change occur?
People don't have a choice. We know why we are in a depression, we got ripped off by an out of control finance sector. The normal avenues of seeking redress (our government) have proved themselves incapable of help. That's where these protests are coming from: people with no other avenue left BUT protest. The Tea Party was similar, as to the level of grassroots anger, but it was manipulated by the Koch brothers.
So, my prediction is they will be ignored, and they will disperse. And then, in a few weeks or months, they will coalesce again. Not because they want to, but because they must. Eventually, they will grow into something that can no longer be ignored. I see this as more of an organic response to criminal activity at the highest levels of society. And like any organic response, it has to grow until what is making it grow goes away.
Beware of the DP:
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/pers-o08.shtml
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
by NYC General Assembly
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
Letter to the Ruling Class
You control our world.
You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat.
We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you.
You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed.
We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence.
You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings.
You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions.
You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living.
You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame.
We are hit … we are bleeding … but we ain’t got time to bleed.
We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!
Sincerely,
The Serfs
http://weaintgottimetobleed.com/
The Rebellion IS now ! The forces/ energy that drives the Revolution are much stronger than can be seen ! It is all part of the collapse of the fascist amerikan empire !
Viva La Revolucion !
The rightwing media has made great fun out of pointing out how disorganized the Occupiers are. But, as others have pointed out, they are no more disorganized than Washington DC. DC comes up with solutions to WallStreet that aim for everything and hit nothing, despite the very real suffering going on in MainStreet. So, if the Occupiers seem, sometimes, like the Keystone Cops, it may be because they took their cue from our government. They wouldn't even be in the streets if the government had done its job.
"We have been here before and we know where it got us."
The prophetic words of Ashley Sanders spoken in 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPbJY2rs0QI
Finally a writer who gets it !
"Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet."
They don't need to be exact. Because the problem definition isn't and will never be exact. Exactness is an idea abused, when convenient, by/for predatory elites preying on people/planet.
But the problem definition is very simple, actually. The problem is predatory elites preying on people/planet. The solution is to stop them. Damn - it's so simple! You discover how simple it is after you think it through. Go ahead. Take a walk on the far left side.
Notice that elites covers militarists, missionaries, corporate executives/shareholders, anyone who participates in building/operating any organization/system that overrides the self-determination of innocent people. Notice that the elites are not innocent, so organizations/systems that effectively defend the people from elites are far left in nature.
The far left is the side of the people. It has nothing to do with liberalism, big government, communism, etc. Those things are euphemisms for yet more levers of exploitation, albeit less obvious. The far left is the political pole that represents the people's better interests, which includes first the truth, enlightenment, then universal equity/justice, which covers the rights of people, all other lifeforms, and all the elements to exist as is, without being plundered/enslaved by the thug elites.
There are many false beliefs among the protesters and commondreams posters. I don't think anybody is complaining about the digital cameras and smart phone manufacturers. They are protesting on wall street because they intuitively understand what is going on. The federal reserve is running a printing press and the benefactors are the wall street banks. They can buy any profitable venture in the US at near zero percent interest. This gives them incredible power. This is why Ron Paul is correct. We were better off with a gold standard. By giving the federal reserve the power to set interest rates we made ourselves slaves to wall street.
I am sure I will get replies to this, many of which will be angry and nasty.
But I keep remembering that "they" own the courts, congress, the police and the armed forces. Our overlords will not hesitate to unleash all of them when they decide it is time.
I want to believe that this wonderful rebellion will turn out differently from so many I have participated in during the last 40 years. But as I keep getting emails about "demanding" this or that, I keep wondering who we are talking to and how much good "demanding" anything can be from those who -- I repeat, own the courts, congress, the police and the armed forces.
I do have a reply.
Well stated.
They don't get it? Neither did Tzar Nicholas. That was in October also.
If Tzar Nicholas had tazers, pepper spray, rubber bullets, automatic weapons, tear gas, machines which make sounds to break ear drums, or deadly drones -- perhaps he would have survived . . . . . I think our oppressors have a little more firepower than the fabled Tzar.
Wow!
Excellent - entirely new perspective for me.
Thank you Douglas Rushkoff!!!
All about sustainability - by example - like the Internet - Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Write more - I'll listen attentively.
Manysummits
=========
To my mind, the enduring image of our elites--perhaps of all elites since the dawn of what we call civilization--once one strips away the veil of illusions they use to mask their true nature, is that of a caveman with a club. Capitalism is their club.
So how do we fight back and win? I'd like to offer for your consideration the thoughts of a dissident voice still with us, a first-rate mind and a careful student of American history: Gore Vidal. He thought our improvement, if not our salvation, might lie in the calling of a Constitutional Convention. I agree. Think about it.
We could start with the proposition that corporations are not people and insist the Supreme Court does not have the authority to overrule our, o-u-r, elected representatives. Then we can take it from there.
He concluded one of his many wonderful essays with this admonition: "I am tempted to enjoin the movers and shakers of this world to recall the Greek doctor's oath: 'Above all, do no harm.' Hippocrates also wrote--and this goes for the moved and the shaken of the world--'Life is short, but the art is long, the opportunity fleeting, the experiment perilous, the judgment difficult.'" We should all be a little--or a lot--more humble. Don't you agree?
An Article V convention has been properly called for for over 100 years.
http://foavc.org
It is our Congress that is remiss, in ignoring their Constitutional duty to convene such convention. What else is new?
This is more reason for OWS.
We will all need to come together with one voice. This movement needs no demands, no coherence, but only a show that most of us will no longer tolerate the influence of money to make us slaves for the most powerful. Believe they are very scared in the hallowed halls, because the only power they have is your fear.
I agree with Militantlibrarian, last 40 years. I'm not old enough to remember it, I think this will be different. Singing groups used to help out, singing social/political protest songs. Here's one that really fits, the Chi-Lites, "(For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People." At the beginning there's a siren, then lyrics, "For God's sake, give more power to the people, there's some people up there hoggin' everything, tellin' lies, givin' alibis about the peoples money and things...people don't have enough to eat...why they run out of power, the world's going to be a ghost...they know we're not satisfied they give us promises and throw in a few more dollars, up goes the price of living and you're right back where you were..." you can look at their youtube video of this song.