It is Day 10 of #occupywallstreet. Protesters are still there, despite heavy police intimidation and some real violence.
This diary is for all of us, but especially for those of us at DKos who have been looking at the #occupywallstreet protest and thinking, saying, and commenting things like “this will never work because of X.”
If this protest fails to get results, it will not be because of lack of organization, or failure to have a coherent message, or because people didn’t wear the right clothes, or there were too many college students, too many inexperienced white kids who haven’t really suffered, too many dirty fucking hippies.
It will be because enough naysayers did not get up off of their sorry asses and get out in the streets.
Look, I understand hesitancy. I understand wanting to get it right. I understand negative critiques. Hell, look at my comment history. Look at my profile. Notice the fact that I rarely write diaries (a total of eight since May 7, 2004)—because I generally talk myself out of it saying they just won’t be good enough to make it worth it. And I’m an ex-newspaper editor who currently teaches writing. Around my house I’m often referred to as “Mr. No-Not,” as in “No, we are not going to [insert action x here].” I get it. I really do.
If you don’t agree that the system is broken and that the 1% are unfairly, illegally, and immorally destroying what’s left of American prosperity and the few opportunities left of those that the vast majority of us fought to gain over the past 250 years, then it’s not your problem—yet. But I suggest you do some serious thinking and figure out if you’re in the 99% why you think you’re not being taken for a ride by the rich. Do you really think the system is going to self-correct? Do you really think the Democratic Party is going to get its shit together? That gradually we’ll push back and everything will be okay, without getting into the streets and making it happen by standing up and demanding change with our physical selves out there, visible, vulnerable?
But if you know that the system is broken, then it is your problem and it will be your fault if these protests fail, because the system is never going to change if we wait until we all agree and we all have a coherent message and we all behave like nice churchgoing grownups.
It’s going to change because too goddamn many of us are in the streets pounding on the doors of the elite and they are really scared, so scared that we force the ones that have a shred of decency left to help us, and the ones that don’t we force out of power.
Or you can sit around and wait for it to get worse. Because if you know all the things you know about income disparity and oligarchy that I know you know, it’s going to get worse. The system is not self-correcting if good people do nothing. Progress happens because people put their bodies and their lives on the line.
If you need a message, it’s: “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.” No, I don’t know if that means we’re looking for parity. It’s a complicated issue, but that slogan is a pretty damn good expression of what happened and what many (most?) of us feel. If you think that’s not good enough, get down there and start talking to people and craft a better one. Posting your idea in a comment on DailyKos is like pouring dye into a small estuary and hoping it colors the ocean.
I know, I know, that’s basically all I’m doing. I’m not saying I’m better than any of you, I’m saying I’m one of you.
I get it. Look, I have two little kids that need constant supervision. I split childcare duties with my wife. I have multiple other part time jobs that I need desperately to put food on the table (and despite best efforts still may fail to keep the roof over our heads if things don’t turn around). It would be a serious hardship on my little family if I were to be arrested and held even for one day.
I’m still trying to figure out how to clear my workload enough and get some more childcare support so that I can get out there. We should have been in the streets decades ago.
If you can’t get there, watch, donate, post, tweet, make the world witness through social media and force the corporate media to pay attention—they don’t want to, and they don’t want anyone else watching. It’s a small thing, but do it anyway.
To those of you who are already there—thank you. Thank you to all the Kossacks who are already making the effort and those of you who have witnessed and diaried over the past 10 days, especially UnaSpenser, War on Error, MinistryOfTruth, AoT, HankNYNY, Horace Boothroyd III, whoever I forgot, and everyone in the comments. Keep it up. If you’re there, tell us what we can do better.
This could be the moment. If it isn’t it’s not because of anything to do with the people who are already there. It’s because enough of us don’t make it so.
If we wait for the moment to be perfect it will never arrive. The moment is already here, right now, now, now, now…
It’s always the perfect moment.
Links to help out whether you can or cannot get there:
NYC Occupy Wall Street
Occupy in other cities
Donate to help the occupiers—NY General Assembly donation page (links to general and media funds)