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Occupying Questions
The Occupy Wall Street movement sparked global demonstrations of solidarity last weekend. The last such coordinated effort was more than a decade ago, when ten million people surged on to the streets in hopes of stopping the coming invasion of Iraq. Those voices were quickly lost in the violent explosions of the U.S. bombs of the Shock and Awe campaign.
Lost, too, was the belief that putting our bodies on the streets mattered. It seemed that governments were able to move without concern for the opinions of those they governed. Over the decade, protests against war, an ever shrinking public sphere, the spoiling of precious natural resources, the turning back of legislation and ideas that held the aspirations for a more just union for all, seemed of little effect.
photo: Sharese Ann Frederick
Today, inspired by the Arab Spring and the growing efforts of people from Athens, Madrid, and London and around the world, questions long buried at the edges of our consciousness are bursting back into public life. Public actions are sparking renewed hope in our capacity to create a better future.
The Occupy Wall Street Movement has focused the discontent people feel about the kind of country we have become. This discontent is deeper than any single issue. It is a new opportunity to look at who we are and what kind of people we want to be.
Much of the reaction by the mainstream media has complained that there are no clear demands emerging from the various occupations. The mainstream media loves to quote people saying things like, “They may be well intentioned, but they’re not doing anything.” Or, “They are just pointing the finger at somebody else who is doing something. You don’t get anything done that way except to cause envy.” Some want to label it class warfare. Others, especially our own Nolan Finley of the Detroit News, call it a push for big government over big business, endangering our “freedom.”
All this commentary misses the depth of concern for our country echoing through these streets. We have watched this concern grow over the last decade as wars, not supported by the majority of people, continue unchecked, becoming ever more brutal. Policies to support corporations’ greed advance in spite of the protests. Corruption in business and government has become normal. Meanwhile millions have become homeless, more children face hunger than at any time in decades, and young people face a future distorted by debt, unemployment and increasingly unsupportable ways of living. We are more unequal today in the U.S.A. than either Tunisia or Egypt.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has given all of us the opportunity to ask ourselves new questions. What kind of relationships do we want with other nations? What kind of economy should we have to sustain us, our communities and our earth? How do we make not just a living but lives of meaning and joy? How do we develop our children and our communities? Are we only after jobs for ourselves on Wall Street? What does democracy look like in action? How can we organize ourselves into compassionate communities?
These are not easy questions. But these are the questions long buried under the corporate domination of our collective imagination over the last decade. Now, unleashed into the public sphere, they will not fade away with the tents and tarps of the “Occupiers.”
At a public meeting in Detroit of community based activists searching how to best support the local demonstrators, Yusef Shakur said, “I have trouble with the whole “occupy” Detroit name, but I know we should be worrying about what we have allowed to occupy our minds.” That occupation is ending.
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7 Comments so far
Show All"That occupation [of our minds] is ending." This of course is the crux of the matter, if it is actually true, and it seems to come from an academic distance that is part of the problem. A few lights blinking on, here and there and collectively, is a terrific start, but only if the blinking spreads to populations whose hearts and minds have been closed down by pervasive corporate propaganda (well crafted by very smart people) and by religious, economic, and political dogma. Dogma is the channels and avenues people's minds have been trained to march through unquestioningly. Such channels are very resistant to change, and do change only through a magical confluence of reason, social support, and bursts of empathic understanding. Epiphanies are the opposite of brainwashing, and are hard to come by. They seem to require an impactful crisis. We will have to be prepared to commandeer the "Shock Doctrine" that Naomi Klein has written about and turn it not to increasing profits, but to the rescue of masses still in the dark. Shea Howell is certainly in the right field, i.e. communication, and I hope she is wrestling with the most formidable communication challenge of all--reaching minds closed to everything but money and spectator sports. The Occupiers are the shock troops of the new shock and awe that is coming to America. May they learn about communication, which is ultimately about genuineness, not propaganda.
P.S Technical question: I know how to set paragraphs off, but how do you get a space between them? Thanks.
I'm probably not understanding your question, but in articles in the "Views" (and "Further") section like this one, paragraph breaks can be made by simply leaving a blank space, e.g. depressing the "carriage return" key (↵ or enter) twice.
To create paragraph breaks in "News" article comments, type this pair (i.e. you need to use two) of HTML tags where you want the break, like this:
< br >< br >, or < p >< p >
Don't put the spaces between the angle brackets "< and >" and enclosed letters included in the above example for display purposes.
Hope this helps.
The Corporatist backlash is coming soon enough and then we'll see what stuff this movement is made of. So far I don't see the flexibility and adaptations necessary to survive the winter in most of these cities. The elite will just sit a wait for old man winter to smash this if most of the Occupiers think they're tough enough to sleep out in tents in places like Chicago and NYC in Jan and Feb. If I had to put my $$ down on whether it will survive in these places as an outside event in those months, in all honesty I'd have to say no.
I just had a terrible realization.
If it is true that 9-11 was in any way an inside job, then in the near future they'll do it again.
To some extent, I must apologize for the following because I'm not even sure of what I'm saying.
Lincoln's wishful thinking,
"Government of the people, by the people, for the people"
is commonly accepted as a description of democracy.
So, when anyone talks about shrinking the government, they are talking about reducing the number of people who
have a voice in government,
are represented by the government, and/or
benefit from the government.
The vast majority in both corporate parties in this nation and seemingly in parties in many (if not most) other nations are working for the reduction of the size of government (people's voices, representation, and benefits) because they do not believe (nor is it stated in the constitution of the United States) that there is a need to be a democracy.
This nation is supposed to be a re-public (a public thing), but it is not even that.
The lie of so-called free market capitalism has become the state religion and this belief system worships individual and corporate privatization and monetary profit above any notions about the public, much less democracy.
In a real democracy, the government gets larger with each new birth because each person is a part of the government.
In Free Market Capitalism, people are just one of many resources to be exploited for monetary profit.
This is not a new problem, but it is now worse and getting worse.
The questions asked in this article have always been here, in varying degrees. Keeping them in the forefront is the hard part because many people think the questions are unnecessary within the religion of Free Market Capitalism.
"What kind of relationships do we want with other nations?"
Partnerships in support of the people's better interests, i.e. universal enlightenment, equity, justice.
"What kind of economy should we have to sustain us, our communities and our earth?"
A distributive/localist economy, i.e. limits on enterprise size, and property ownership, to the equivalent of one hundred man-powers at first, ten man-powers within ten years.
"How do we make not just a living but lives of meaning and joy?"
Via the type of economy described above.
"How do we develop our children and our communities?"
We change the school curriculum, we stomp out anti-social propaganda, and, in a nutshell, follow our hearts/minds instead of following "dear kapitalist/klassist thug leader".
" Are we only after jobs for ourselves on Wall Street?"
No, we're after control of production and policy.
"What does democracy look like in action?"
Public control of production/policy.
"How can we organize ourselves into compassionate communities?"
Give Das Kapitalist thug elites the boot and follow our own hearts/minds. Compassionate communities extend naturally from mass self-determination.
Visual things work. May I suggest an additional way to occupy?
A decent symbol for the 99% is the bare base of the PYRAMID from the Great Seal on the back of the dollar bill. No cap/eye, just the base.
Find square cardboard boxes, cut and tape them into that shape and let them sprout up all over the country... it's OUR pyramid with the plutocracy whooshed off the top. Public property. Might help give the movement a little focus, too.