There's an aphorism somewhere to be found in the irony of participatory history-making. Those who wind up embroiled in moments that get written about rarely realize the significance of their actions to the wider picture of everyday human events. The two times I found myself smack in the middle of history, I certainly had no notion that those days would be chronicled and plowed over by elite academics and Hollywood actors. They didn't seem too particularly different from the other days that made up the rest of my time. I wonder if the kids throwing themselves between the kleptocracy and the rest of us even realize how profound a thing they do today appears to many of us peering in from the outside. I can't imagine they do.
The everyday concerns of the kids in Liberty Plaza revolved around bug spray, water bottles, coffee grounds and cups, and staying warm after NYPD officers steal their tarps and tents. They're discussing strategic eyewash stations, asking for pails of apple cider vinegar and rags in case they're assaulted with pepper spray again. And yes, they're devoting a lot of energy to drumming and screaming and dancing and generally making great big pains in the ass of themselves. God bless them all.
They are taking place in big fat historical moments, despite it all. And the way that you know this is, they're being ignored, abused, and censored. They're being mocked by fatass ballcap sporting white guys from Arizona, screeched at by Tea Party mavens from Florida, sneered at by liberal elites from Boston, cheered on by oppressed human rights activist from China, and watched -- oh how they're being watched! -- by an entire world baffled at the slimy collusion between a morally bankrupt American government and a nearly bankrupt kleptocracy casting about for someone else to steal from now that the American middle class is no more. I know these things are happening, and consequently that history is unfolding three blocks up from Wall Street, because a little birdy told me so.
I spent the weekend reeling from double ear infections. My balance is shot, disgusting things are gurgling, cracking, and popping just out of reach of the Q-Tips my wife won't let me have, and getting off the couch seemed just a bit too much for my depleted reserve of gumption. Man, what a lucky break for me. If I hadn't been sidelined this weekend, I would have spent the day prepping the propterty for winter and shuttling the kids around to enjoy the early fall weather in downtown. Probably would have been at OMSI to hit up the video game exhibit before they bring that ghoulish Body Works thing back. Instead, I got to watch great events unfold in real time. I spent the weekend reading tweets.
I had my doubts about Twitter. I'm not sufficiently narcissistic to have a Facebook page, and what blogs I've ever written were generally group affairs organized around a corporate theme. I don't tend to think that I'm all that interesting, so the notion of putting any effort into a missive of 140 characters seemed...pointless. But I did it anyways, probably because I wanted to see what all the fuss about Arab Spring was. Maybe because I was curious to see how this thing hadn't collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity by now. Whatever, I have a Twitter page, or feed, or whatever it's called. I have one. Thank God.
So I spent the weekend reading, writing, feeling part of something that I could never be a part of. I can't march in New York City. The closest organized sister event is in San Francisco. I can't ditch work and join a drum circle. I have bills, a mortgage, insurance payments, credit cards, medical bills. I can't raise up and occupy Wall Street because they own a big chunk of my life, and so I must work to keep them from putting me out onto Main Street. I am, in effect, a shackled slave watching with dimmed eyes as the free people set about deliberately provoking my corporate owners, and a brief, fluttering hope stirs my heart that perhaps they might have some capacity to loosen my bonds, if only a little.
So to that fatassed Teabagger in Arizona who blamed poor people for the economic collapse and then shuffled off muttering when I gave him a link to the Wall Street Journal that said otherwise, they're doing this for you.
To that douchey von Mises droid who figured the existence of Freddy and Fanny were the cause of all our economic woes, despite the evidence that 88% of all subprime loans were issued and backed by private lenders, they're doing this for you...and they'd love to kick you in the junk.
To that sneering New England cocktail liberal, oh do shut up; you haven't done one goddamned thing about the dissipation of the middle class. The fact that the only thing you can do when faced with an actual liberal grassroots movement is to say, "You're doing it wrong," is evidence that you have no answers worth listening to, yourself. Maybe chanting "We are the 99%" isn't going to soften the cold lump of coal where LLoyd Blankfein's heart used to be, but it's certainly better than sitting back waiting for President Obama to make it all better.
Maybe nothing will come out of Occupy Wall Street. Maybe the NYPD will start killing people, Syria style. Maybe they'll get tired and go home. Maybe the weather will sweep through Zuccotti Park and push them out. But they're there now. They're chanting and drumming and dancing and, goddammit, they're doing something. In the face of the faceless corporatocracy, in the very belly of the beast, they're doing something.
What are you doing?