Sam Seder went portable today and had a truly informative show at majority.fm. He went to Zucotti Park near Wall Street and interviewed a bunch of people who were there for the Occupy Wall Street protest. Aside from proving the flexibility, portability, and effectiveness of MajorityFM, Sam and crew gave us a unique and valuable opportunity to learn about the event:
A lot of the people there still aren't sure what it's about. Now, I'm not sure, either.
The first guy Sam interviewed, when asked what it was about, had no idea. He said that other people would decide. Another guy said that the purpose of Occupy Wall Street -- quite literally -- was to decide what it was about, and that the process could take several weeks (one wonders if he knows how cold it gets there in winter). It's a "movement" or something about something having to do with Wall Street. Reverend Billy was great: He knew why he was there and what he wanted. But the rest of the people made clear one thing:
The right-wing has the only clear and concise message about Occupy Wall Street that is available to the media: "Hippies".
Make no mistake, however: what the people in Zucotti Park are doing is wonderful. It takes a lot of courage and dedication to do what they're doing, and I am very grateful that they are carrying our voices. But we want our efforts to be effective. Diluting the message with too many issues or giving a muddled message cannot help any cause.
Humans form and structure communities so that they can accomplish their common goals. Without structure, nothing can be decided and nothing can be done. Occupy Wall Street may not need ideological leaders, but they do need organization and to take the control of the message -- what ever it is -- back from the right wing.
I suggest to participants that, until they think of something better, whenever they see a microphone, they repeat these words: "I am protesting corporate control of my government. I want the money out of politics, and I want my vote to count."
The last I heard -- weeks ago -- that's what it was supposed to be about. But I could be wrong. No one has said anything since then except that there are a lot of hippies and police there.
UPDATE 3:34 PM PT: I know that the OWS General Assembly is working on this problem, but it's getting complicated. Several different interest groups are trying to get their messages heard at the same time. The result is that all messages will be diluted.
Everyone who supports a particular issue must get a turn at the microphone, but not all at the same time. That has been a consistent failure in left-wing political practice that the right-wing has learned to avoid. It's one of the reasons that they're kicking our asses.
The left is a coalition, but so is the right. When you look at how the right wing conducts business, you see that every interest group gets a turn at the microphone. When they do, no one tries to steal it from them, and everyone gets behind them.
On the left, however, groups are often told, "Sorry, but we just can't do that now. It's not politically possible. You'll have to wait for a better time." Then, when someone does get to the microphone, others who are by then desperate for attention try to jump in to get their issue heard. The result is always ridicule by the right and failure.
Everybody must be heard, but only one at a time, and we've got to go all in for whoever is up at the moment.
OccupyWallStreet was supposed to be about corporate control of our government and about political corruption. Now we've got peace activists and others -- whose issues are no less important -- trying to push their issues. We must and will help them, but we can't do them all at once. We must never tell people that they must not speak to their issues because it "just isn't politically possible". We must MAKE their goals politically possible when we agree with them. But we also must focus on one issue or a group of closely related issues, at a time. Peace and corruption are not issues that can be combined without diluting the messages of both and without resulting in failure of both groups to achieve their goals.
Peace activists must support finance reformers who must support feminists who must support civil rights activists who must support environmentalists who must support health care advocates who must support political reformers who must support unions who must support pro-choice advocates who must support small businesses who must support peace activists. (If I've left anyone out, and I know that I have, please let me know and I'll gladly include them in the list).
All of us generally support all of those issues, but we can't present them all at the same time. The media won't stand for it and they won't cover it except to show how our opponents think we're nuts -- because we ARE nuts when we to try to do everything all at once.
Let's do one thing at a time, and let's do it well. Then we'll do the next thing. And we'll win.