Paulson concluded by scolding the growing number of angry commoners who have the temerity to confront the one-percenters: "Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them." The occupiers themselves could not have written a better expression of why and what they're protesting than this arrogant, ueber-rich, tin-eared Wall Street plutocrat delivered in his press release.
In the same vein, former congress critter Steve Bartlett, who's now Wall Street's top Washington lobbyist, told the New York Times that "We [don't] see ourselves as the target [of the protests]." After all, he explained, Wall Street "has to be well capitalized and well financed for the economy to recover." Steve's idea of recovering is to kill Wall Street reforms.
"Occupy Wall Street" is more than a slogan. It's a call to action that's tapping directly into the pent-up anger within millions of ordinary Americans who find themselves dismissed, disrespected, and disenfranchised in their own country. That's why it is surging. No less of an established figure than Al Gore gets it, calling the movement a "primal scream of democracy."
2. The occupiers are too vague--a successful movement has to start with a manifesto and a list of specific demands.Oh, you mean like the founders did with the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights? But golly -- didn't those come years after the Revolution began? Yes. The USA actually evolved from a very amorphous and disjointed movement at the start (it didn't even have a clear starting date or event). Various colonies and groups of colonists within them began protesting about different grievances they had against the arrogant, aloof, and abusive aristocracy of King George III -- very few of them even thought about breaking away from England, nor did they have any specific governmental structures in mind.
Essentially, they wanted to be treated better and have some sort of say in how the Crown and such royally chartered corporations as the East India Trading Company dealt with American colonies. If anyone had demanded that this disparate bunch begin by signing on to a concrete set of reforms, the movement would've collapsed at the start. It was not a draft of proposed laws or an organizational chart that spurred the rebellion, but the passion, articulated outrage, and visionary hope of pamphleteers like Thomas Paine, rowdies like the Sons of Liberty, and other mutts and mavericks.
So, give the mutts and mavericks of Occupy some room, time, and respect. In fact, several Occupy cities, including the Wall Street group, have already formed a "Demands Working Group," but they will pursue a deliberate, democratic, and slow consensus-building process. Meanwhile, they know there is no shortage of specific policy ideas for shrinking the plutocracy and advancing democracy (see 10 years worth of monthly Lowdown s, for example). Progressive groups, media, think tanks, conferences, academics, websites, and so on constantly spew out a torrent of excellent "what-to-do" materials and routinely issue specific demands. But [IMPORTANT FACT AHEAD] practically no one in power has been reading, watching, or listening to them, much less acting.
The so-called "unfocused" young instigators of the Occupy movement have forced the establishment media, politicians, and Wall Street itself to take notice that masses of Americans are deeply pissed off. Polls have long showed that people despise the scratch-my-back collusion between corporate and governmental elites, and they're furious about the subsequent exclusion of the workaday majority from its hard-earned share of prosperity -- but nothing changes. That's why these kids have taken to the streets, putting faces to those poll numbers and roiling the waters of the comfortable class. By literally seizing the public square, Occupy has seized a place in the national debate, putting the issues of fairness and justice onto the political agenda. They've done more in a few weeks to advance the progressive cause than several years' worth of our well-reasoned position papers have produced.
3. The occupiers are a chaotic, anarchic, socialistic band of hippie squatters.This stereotypical depiction of Occupy Nation's encampments emanated from such professional fright-mongers as right-wing commentator Ann Coulter. Branding the movement the "flea party," this harpy screeched that the protesters are "wingless, bloodsucking, and parasitic."
All it takes to dispel such idiotic loathing of fellow Americans (who're merely practicing democracy) is to go to some of Occupy's tent cities and visit them, as I've been doing. From a distance, the camps can appear to be a disorderly motley collection of political vagrants. Come closer, however, and you'll find a remarkably well-organized democratic space, functioning on an Aristotelian model.
Zuccotti Park in New York, for example, has a designated "front door" entry point, a welcome desk for visitors and supporters, a general assembly space, a media center, a legal desk, a library, and an arts area, as well as such necessities as a medical clinic (with health professionals volunteering their services), kitchen, sleeping area, and comfort desk (where protesters get such basics as toothpaste and sign up for showers and laundry facilities provided by area residents). Tasks are divvied up into more than a dozen working groups, ranging from a direct action committee to a sanitation committee (yes, they regularly clean up after themselves). And -- while social media has allowed them to self-organize and communicate directly with the world -- they also publish The Occupied Wall Street Journal, a well-written, four-color, four-page broadsheet that's financed through donations, put together by volunteer print professionals, and distributed free by volunteer barkers on New York streets.
Food? They've not had to purchase any, for New Yorkers regularly bring food donations to the park, and people from anywhere on the globe can order pizza, tacos, paninis, and other carry-out foods online from several area eateries that deliver to the protesters (one pizza place even offers an "occu-pie" special).
There is no "leader" or governing committee. Rather, decisions are made by the General Assembly, which gathers twice daily and is open to all occupiers (a system akin to the one used this spring by Egyptian occupiers of Tahrir Square). All voices and ideas are welcome, and proposals are adopted by "modified consensus" (approval of nine out of 10 participants). This can be painfully slow and frustrating, but it engages and empowers everyone for the benefit of the whole group -- which is what democracy is supposed to do. If only Congress could make such a claim!
Support the movementDespite the L.D.P.O.'s feverish efforts to mock, demonize, and otherwise make ordinary Americans fear, despise, and reject the Occupy movement, quite the opposite is occurring. An October National Journal poll found that 59 percent of Americans agree with what the protesters are saying and doing. That includes 56 percent of the white working class, a group that Limbaugh, Fox, the Kochs, and other corporatists always target to foment cultural resentment, which they then twist into political energy for whatever game the moneyed class is running.
But not this time. Why? Because the occupiers are saying what's demonstrably true: America's bankers, bosses, big shots, and BSers don't give a damn about working people, fairness, and justice, or America itself. The moneyed and political elites are out for themselves, everyone else be damned. That undiluted, authentically populist message -- so long missing from America's political discourse -- is uniting downsized workers with debt-burdened college students, fans of rapper Lupe Fiasco with those of Willie Nelson, union members with tea partiers, etc.
Yes, tea partiers. The Washington Post reported last month that the Establishment's worst nightmare is coming true -- rank and file tea party members, dismayed that their movement has been captured by Wall Street and its Republican lackeys, are reaching out to the Occupy camp. "I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy," declared an October internet posting by "a former tea-partier" from rural Minnesota.
Of course, the elites will get much uglier and play much rougher as they see that the Occupy movement has staying power and growing appeal. We can expect infiltrators, sabotage, media gut jobs, police sweeps, and so on. That's why you and I must stand up. When I went to Occupy Washington's Freedom Plaza camp last month, an occupier said that the thing they needed most right now is for more people to come visit them. "You don't have to sleep in a tent or join in a march," she said. "Just come have a conversation with us, see what we're doing, then tell other people about it."
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