My husband told me this morning that he had a conversation with a Mexican who doubts whether Democracy is up to the task of solving the problems in his own country.
Sound familiar?
In Europe, Asia, and, now, North America, we are crying out for change in our own Democratic governments while in the Middle East they are turning to Democracy for better answers. Are we seeing the beginnings of a world revolution powered by the people and bolstered by new methods of communication - twitter, facebook, the internet in general? Or is this just a flash in the pan?
In today's New York Times, Nicholas Kulish, ties these themes together in As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe. Unfortunately, he only tells us what we already know:
Frustrated voters are not agitating for a dictator to take over. But they say they do not know where to turn at a time when political choices of the cold war era seem hollow. “Even when capitalism fell into its worst crisis since the 1920s there was no viable alternative vision,” said the British left-wing author Owen Jones.
There are a few hints at what direction this revolution will need to take and how we can help reveal that viable alternative vision. I speak with the pronoun we even though I am not physically on the ground in NY City but I feel apart of this movement. I hope the occupiers on the ground will not take offense from this stationed out-of-country military wife.
Kulish points to the protests in London:
Protests in Britain exploded into lawlessness last month. Rampaging youths smashed store windows and set fires in London and beyond, using communication systems like BlackBerry Messenger to evade the police. They had savvy and technology, Mr. Jones said, but lacked a belief that the political system represented their interests. They also lacked hope.
A key to our success will be HOPE. Boy, does that word ever sound familiar. But the truth is we want to keep our own demonstrations viable and to keep the majority of Americans engaged in listening to the message, the demonstrations must remain peaceful, at least from the participants side of things. We have little control over how the government will respond. The moment we, the protesters, resort to the violence that the youth in London felt was necessary is also the moment that we give up any claims to legitimacy within our own Democracy. Violence will only let people know that we have lost hope in our Democracy as it exists.
This will get more difficult. As the protests gain more eyes and more attention, we will have people show up with ulterior motives. I have seen it again and again at MoveOn rallies in San Antonio, Texas where far-right extremists will do all they can to goad seemingly peaceful people into striking out, with friend and video camera nearby. The police end up up blaming the one who strikes, not the one who spoke in the first place. It will be up to those standing nearby to help in those situations, to calm and to sometimes remove folks from places that may be harmful. Please, at all costs, let us keep these demonstrations peaceful.
Many will see OccupyWallStreet as an opportunity to grow the Democratic Party. But tying an anchor to an existing political construct within the US may leach hope faster than anything else. Again, from the article:
The political left, which might seem the natural destination for the nascent movements now emerging around the globe, is compromised in the eyes of activists by the neoliberal centrism of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The old left remains wedded to trade unions even as they represent a smaller and smaller share of the work force. More recently, center-left participation in bailouts for financial institutions alienated former supporters who say the money should have gone to people instead of banks.
This revolution finds strength in not having labels attached to it. This is a movement that will benefit from support from politicians but not it they make an attempt to own it. The opposite is also true. The media are already trying to downplay the importance by labeling protesters as hippies or as wanting a world with free love. It is important that we work hard to push past those oversimplifications. Although I am all for women going topless while protesting, as long as that becomes the story, we will have a harder time finding legitimacy in the larger scheme of things. Unfortunately, our media is still largely driven by sexism and by racism. Messaging will have to take that into account.
Last week, I wrote that this movement would not take off until the memes started to come through. That is beginning to happen. Unfortunately, it took a possibly masochistic police officer to pepper spray unarmed, law-abiding young women and then to abandon them in their distress. That single incident mirrors the distress going on in countless places around the nation. Supplant the police officer with banks, with mortgage lenders, and yes, with Congress itself, and replace those young ladies with everyday Americans living without homes, without jobs, without health insurance, and it really isn't very different. The attacks came without warning, the help afterwards never arrived. A few folks stood by and documented the process. A few more attempted to give a lending hand. But, at the end of the day, nothing really changed...
Except that we have the policeman on tape. We don't have the bankers on tape, or the mortgage lenders on tape, or Congress either. It is very hard to document large corporations pepper spraying individuals. But, at the end of the day, all of them remain culpable and should be held responsible for their crimes.
I truly think that this uprising is about corrupted power. Basically, we need laws to bring us back to a democracy that does not allow for legal corruption.
If you haven't seen it already, OccupyWallStreet Coup Media Group has a website for discussing and voting on issues that should become the Official Demands of the Occupation. You can vote for or against an item, so it pays to visit each one. For example, here are the votes on "Eliminate Corporate Rights as Persons:"
Some items may not fit the meme and will only water down the message. Some items may fit the meme but are so low on the totem pole as to be useless as a starting point. Some demands are just out there. Please consider voting for those items that reflect Cleaning Corruption Out of the System. And then vote NO for those items that will only hurt the cause or water down the issue.
This is Democracy in Action. Please take part. Please help us find that viable alternative vision that the greater majority so desperately need to see.
Update:
Fellow Kossack, Maxlongstreet, felt that the existing poll had too much extraneous information. He has resonded with a poll of his own:
I put up a more focused poll (1+ / 0-)
I put up a poll on my website that asks what occupywallsstreet should be most focused on. The poll focuses tightly on Wall Street related issues. Please take a second to answer:
http://rebootourpolitics.wordpress.com/
by Maxlongstreet on Wed Sep 28, 2011 at 04:20:33 PM ART