Notes On The Occupy America Movement

We owe the demonstrators a debt of gratitude for changing the narrative of this increasingly bleak political moment. Ridiculed by the media as hippie, pot-smokers, and by the conservative punditry as people who don't know how the real world works, the demonstrations across the country have focused clearly people's attention on the current unfairness of America's economic situation and the excesses of Wall Street. The Christian Science Monitor printed yesterday a column that suggested that this type of populism goes back to Thomas Jefferson who feared the almost monarchical powers of banks and corporations. From local radio shows, the overwhelming sentiment of people middle-aged or older is sympathetic to the demonstrators.

Some on the Left complain there is no clear agenda of the protestors. But what if they had simply gathered and sat silently for ten days outside of Wall Street firms? Would not a silent witness generate also stimulate the debate we are now having? Why do the Occupy Wall Street people need any agenda? They're not running for office.

With the trade union movement coming in strong to defend the demonstrators, I thought it was healthy for the OWS people to accept the support but insist that the unions could not take control of the movement.

Poor comparisons have been made with the teabag movement. The teabaggers could never mount a two-week occupation of anything ,let alone stimulate simultaneous demonstrations nationwide. Once the libertarians who were the original teabaggers were run out of town, the teabag movement became an astroturf corporate funded entity controlled by people like Dick Armey, the Koch Brothers and the Nevada casino owner Adelson. Unlike the Occupy Wall Street people, the teabaggers had a television network that sponsored their every rally and exaggerated their importance. Through polling, we know that the teabaggers were almost exclusively the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party and were demographically 55 or over. It was the revenge of the Baby Boomers who did experience the first counter-culture.

The demographics of the OWS , according to a New Yorker poll, consist primarily of those between the ages of 20 and 25. Politically, they cover a loose range of affiliations from independent to the new new Left. The primary critique of the movement is that all our politicians are bought and sold by corporations and the very wealthy and that nothing that benefits the American people can be done through out political system. Unfortunately, this has led many of the participants to argue that one shouldn't vote. (There are such things as reproductive rights, gay rights, etc. that are also decided through the ballot.)

But one difference I've noticed about this movement from others that the Left has embraced in recent years is the lack of identity politics, which I think is a good thing. The other thing is that it is not ostensibly anti-war, although this element is in it. The problem with anti-war demonstrations ,I've written before, is that they literally have no effect on any one in Washington or our military-terrorist-intelligence complex.

Media critics of the movement complain they criticize the American economic system. Yet, isn't it fair game to complain as taxpayers about bailing out non-productive elements of our economy--the Right does it about the poor--who give themselves $150 million bonuses and salaries? Think about that for a moment. The bankers and Wall Street ,who basically created the global economic crisis, are rewarded for absolute and utter failure by getting a bonus that is equivalent to three generations of wealth in just one tax year! Don't you think someone should at least comment about this? In fact, the demonstrators assert their belief in capitalism but not in unjust practices.

The Occupy America Movement has inadverently turned the narrative in Washington around. It's as if the whole movement to elect Obama in 2008 had been disarmed the last two years and now has re-emerged as a separate political force. I think it is a good thing that there are no leaders to the Movement and that they are not linked to whether President Obama wins or doesn't win the 2012 election. What they have done is reinforced both the President's jobs agenda and also put attention back onto the Republicans, who are obstructing anything going forward. Mitt Romney tried to weigh in by calling these demonstrations" destructive and dangerous class warfare." But then everyone becomes aware that Mitt Romney only pays a 15% tax rate on his vast income and that only frames the economic questions more in President Obama's favor.

Republicans have wagered that they can get mileage out of denouncing the demonstrations, harkening back to the authoritarian responses to demonstrations during the Vietnam war. The silent majority will oppose these people. But preliminary polls show that a sizeable plurality of Americans support the demonstrators. This is in sharp contrast to the miniscule % who support the teabaggers. Fully embracing bankers, hedge fund managers and large corporations is seen by Republicans as a winning formula.

President Obama this morning and Joe Biden yesterday voiced sympathy for the demonstrators and their frustration with the economic situation. Here there is a dialogue. While tone-deaf John Boehner declared this morning that the President's jobs bill will not even come up for a vote in the House and it's dead on arrival. But an interesting to note is that the President held an open press conference to discuss this, while the Republicans have not.

Perhaps it's the death of Steve Jobs triggering thoughts about what he has meant to our universe or the rumors about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature (he was robbed at the last minute) but I don't see any there there in the Republican future. I can see how they could win in 2012 using a very deterministic model but from a salient point of view they have no future. This movement is of another generation, one that is mmore inter-connected to the rest of the world.

What the Occupy America movement has done is put the train of progress back on track. And they have put a spanner in the works for the austerity crowd. It's good for the country to be reminded that our society can be unjust and that everyone should share sacrifice to make it better.