I've been at Occupy Baltimore every night (except sunday, homework) for the last 9 days, and so far the movement has ben extremely encouraging. I have been politically active since I was 13 (so, ~12 years) and for all my effort and idealism, I lost steam a few years ago. I got out of college, things went pear shaped, and I wound up unemployed. I moved back in with my parents, got a job at a grocery store, and found myself questioning whether spending 4 years in school was worth it. I wound up getting an office gig (nothing I particularly like, but that's hardly worth griping about these days) and going back to grad school. My activism had petered out as I found my time at a premium. But occupy is different, it lets you go and protest whenever possible, because it is 24/7. It feels different than the anti-war marches, the WTO protests, its nebulous and persistent, it is everything and nothing. And that is why I love it.
So, that's why I'm here, that's what got me here, but what will keep me here is the people who are scared of us and want to shut us down now. The fact is, bodies in the streets are powerful. People addressing widespread anger with mocking and derision is to be expected, but now politicians are scared. Majority Leader and professional incompetent bumbler Eric Cantor calledus a "mob" who turns americans against each other. But we're working our asses off to be inclusive, all who have grievances are welcome, we want this to be something unique. Then there's Erick Erickson and Herman Caine. Erickson is, as many already know, a sad excuse for a human being (in addition to being a goat f***ing child molester). He decided to start a new campaign in response to the 99% website listing various people's stories. He created a site called 53%, which included people in similar settings to the 99% images, but they included condescending bullshit about how we should stop whining because their taxes help subsidize us. Herman Caine was recently on television and said that people who are poor or unemployed only have themselves to blame, not the Wall Street looters.
Well guess what, we're winning. This is how the come at you when you have a winning message. They want to demoralize, to tell you essentially, get back in line, know your place. They want you to stop being uppity because what you're saying conflicts with their carefuly crafted world view. They want you to feel like your class is your own fault, that macroeconomics is a moral failure on your part, not a failure of government and business together. They want you to sit down and shut up and take it, because that is what they're used to. This is the language they adopt when they want to turn us into petulant children instead of agrieved constituents. We haven't won anything yet, but we've got their attention. This is the time to press our advantage. Dig in, build connections. Go into neighborhoods, do good. Establish your occupation as a force for positive change. The more good will we engender, the more their attacks will roll off our back.
One final thing about the unemployed. Frankly, this goes out to anyone who's ever used the phrase "get a job," if you aren't hiring, then shove off. There are dozens applicants to every job, unemployment is 9.1% and under employment and discouraged workers are probably another 8%. One in 8 people aren't able to find work, so either suddenly people got lazy in late 2008, or decades of policies pushed for by the likes of Herman Cain and Erick Erickson have finally caught up to us. These cretins should be appologizing, they should have no validity in the public square. Ignore them. Their stupidity will not save them from the changes that come as the old die off and the young and revolutionary step up.
Update: a few minutes after I posted this, a friend put this on my facebook wall: http://www.businessinsider.com/..., which is a fairly comprehensive but of data from Business Insider as to why we're pissed. Not everyone is going to bring a coherent message to bear when dealing with this crisis, but that's part of why the group is not making specific policy demands. One month in to Occupy Wall Street, and one week into Occupy Baltimore, we are pushing to have our pain be heard, not just paid lip service to.