Why has the #Occupy Wall Street movement captured the popular imagination and spread like a Texas wildfire across the country? Easy. It is an idea whose time has come.
At a point where an election for a governor of not insignificant state had varely a 25% participation rate, and that governor was reelected barely in a drama that featured a 2:! advantage for the Democrats in registrations and identifications, we could say the electorate is unhappy and not impressed. The last general election was a barely 40% turnout affair in the midst of dreadful economic times. Other data supporting the discontent: One third of all combat veterans over the last several years have questioned or even stated the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a waste and the effort could have better handled another way. (More below the squiggy)
It appears the public is not enamored of the candidates, and more importantly is questioning the legitimacy of the system.
It appears the public is not enamored of the candidates, and more importantly is questioning the legitimacy of the system.
Why else would the numbers be so dreadful when the government can affect a person's livelihood, his children's chances for education, and many other things? Is it that the system is seen as fundamentally flawed and systematically defrauded with corruption and collusion to keep ordinary Americans unempowered and passive in the face of huge threats and problems to their way of life? To have little say over their future? I believe that is exactly what the vote numbers mean and the hope is turning to obvious demonstrations as more likely to get some sort of result.
Long termism means more than one day, one weekend kind of protest. It also means beyond the two year cycle where one year is the charade and musical chairs and orchestrated debates and spot ads on cable and other TV that basically blur everything into a game to identify the winner. Then the voter is "persuaded" to vote for the winner, and if he or she does, the identification with the limited game the voter plays in this system is complete. They have voted. They might have even elected a winner. Now they can go back to sleep.
Even Obama played this game. Remember the term in 2008/09 "relax, I got this." How many people waited for the various star legislative pieces that would change a lot of things to appear? It took a long, long time with the ACA health care bill. And it was watered down to be an insurance guarantee bill, not a health care transformation act for all Americans.
What happened to privacy, rule of law, eavesdropping on Americans, war crimes and the push to account for the Iraq war as a war crime and the arch villains of the piece to be brought to justify for nearly a million civilian deaths and creating 4 million plus refugees by the Pentagon's estimates?
That's right, it got dropped.
I will say the situation today is far different than 2009, or 2010. Now the obvious is here, that there isn't much going to happen at all. "Just wait until after the election".
And then what will change, supposedly for the better?
We need a direct action movement because both parties are hopelessly mired in the swamp of corruption. A movement that will spur the political landscape to adopt meaningful changes. A movement directed at the total failure to move on any agenda except the one provided for them by the very rich. Both parties are hollow shells, vehicles for installing ambitious men and women into the lower level of servants' quarters for the rulers.
Both are machines for speculating on seats in the legislature and using the spoils system, the appointments, to run the government enterprise for their own benefit and that of their associates. And we see America unable to shake off that yoke, we see the swamp suck us in deeper and deeper and deeper.
That is not a new observation. It was made in the 1880's by an English journalist and historian.
We as a nation still had child labor, no regulation of the length of the work day, and many other essential regulations were nonexistent. The political groups were rivals in running the show. Both Dems and Repubs vied for influence, but no progressive demands came from them. On the contrary it was the working class associations, trade unions, the Temperance Movement, the Utopian groups from Upstate NY that provided some spark and impetus for changes.
But that was generations ago. Now the growing disparity, and reinvestment solely in themselves by the upper !% is so blatant that we must have a profound change in the way power is exercized and applied in our country. We need Occupy Wall Street to get into the DNA of many millions of Americans and the new way of dealing with politics and demands produce a result that has not been achievable for many, many years.
Wed Oct 05, 2011 at 10:08 PM PT: I was working on this and other things and didn't get the updates of the mass march this evening that result in macings, beatings arrests.
Looking at this Mayor in NYC, I would say he is fighting for his side, the 1% he represents and advocates for. This is the fellow that broke the two term rule and ran and spent millions ro sell himself as "above politics".
His job #1 is to suppress the OWS movement. Make it go away. Make it a win for the 1% to keep their terrorism and reaction and hate directed at ordinary Americans, and indeed people around the world when it suits them intact.
This is not going to keep happening. This is a world wide upsurge and it is directed at the 1% that up until now has had immunity.
Michael Bloomberg had meetings all weekend and all day about how to
deal with this protest movement. One that really really struck a raw nerve by raising issues last week of September in the heart of the beast- the financial district. He was the one who ordered signs be confiscated.
Why on earth for? Because the chance was too great this movement would grow and develop and cause deep problems for his 1% crowd, his real friends. The audacity of stealing signs was just business as usual.
now the gloves are off and the beatings are in order. When you are NOT Welcome to Wall Street you get the kind of NYC Gestapo we have here, Bloomberg style.