Worse, as stated, the problems are now too big, too pervasive for traditional politics to comprehend. The political system is largely compromised by the massive flow of money, media, and a weak, feckless centrist party masquerading as the opposition. An important lesson of the failed Wisconsin recall election is that while we must continue to be politically engaged, we do so at a distinct disadvantage so long as we employ traditional political channels, where we must play the game on the plutocracy's terms.
According to a growing number of knowledgeable observers, our nation is pregnant with revolt. The popularity of Occupy Wall Street was a shock to those who think they know the score, and in spite of a concerted effort to downplay its effectiveness and even its continued existence, it remains a latent, powerful force. It will be back.
Fiscal Disobedience
One segment of the Occupy and related movements has been the use of direct action to keep fraudulent foreclosures from going forward. Protests against illegal foreclosures, or even against foreclosures of any kind where the banks have failed to work with the client are not new. Even before the American Revolution there were mass protests against unfair economic practices. Protesters would occupy debtors' courts and disrupt the judicial proceedings. They would physically block roads to keep local officials from repossessing a home. There were instances of breaking into jails and rescuing prisoners held on debt charges. Sitting on juries in a debt trail, they would refuse to convict. This is part of our collective heritage. It deserves a wider, deeper revival.
A stunning counterexample to the inexorable rise of corporate power is the success of driving advertisers away from hate-radio jockeys such as Rush Limbaugh, corporate legislation "bill mills" such as ALEC, and "think tanks" like the Heartland Institute. Shining light on their mission and nature has had profound effects. Limbaugh has lost millions in advertising, ALEC and Heartland's power and credibility is much lower than it once was. While they can disband and reform under new names, they are still vulnerable to the same tactics, especially if it becomes clear that they are just the same emperors wearing different clothes.
In the corporate mind, money is the medium and the measure of all things. If you can cost them money, you've found a weakness.
Fiscal disobedience means loudly and frequently calling out the wealthy elite on their hypocrisy, their cheating, scams, criminal behavior, and disregard for anything that isn't making them money. They crave deference, ironically, even from the smallest of us. Don't give it to them. Treat them like the pariahs they are. Learn how they game the system, and educate those around you relentlessly.
Fiscal disobedience refuses to play along with the rules we are given. If the Barons of Wall Street can flout rules, so can we. If you are unemployed or underemployed, conventional wisdom holds that your new job is to find your next job. Yes, do look for work to the extent that it makes sense, but your real job is to bring down an unjust system and replace it with something better. While the plutocracy unravels the very concept of the social and the public commons, fiscal disobedience means weaving it back together. Local organizing, whether it is to form a protest or plant a vegetable garden or start a reading club or common security club, strengthens our ties to each other.
To engage in fiscal disobedience is to flout a mentality instilled in each of us over many years at great cost. We must rebel against a culture and convention even more than breaking unjust laws, particularly when that resistance keeps money from moving up and outside the local business environment. We must continue to support local, county, and state actions that dispute the legitimacy of corporate personhood or the ability of corporations to disregard local welfare in their pursuit of profits, even when they have the law on their side. The virtual dictatorship that has emerged in Michigan based on corporate-sponsored legislation is an example of this, and must be fought.
Small scale, worker-owned businesses, publically-owned enterprises are making a quiet comeback in America. Once a taboo subject, ownership by local governments to the benefit of the public is an attractive alternative to corporate options. This is a vital and inspiring development, so far mostly overlooked by the mainstream press. If you are out of a job, this may represent more potential for job stability than anything in the corporate world where workers are considered to be so much overhead. Gar Alperovitz has written some excellent stuff on this new and possibly saving trend.
A wonderful example of blowing off the established way of doing things is in the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden, which has planted vegetables in every available flowerbed and empty space it can find as part of their quest to become completely self-sufficient in vegetables. It seems to be working. Townspeople can pick what they want, when they want it, for free. They also plant what they want in their front yards, and if someone else wants them, they take them or share them. Along with increased food security, Todmorden is realizing other benefits, such as a stronger sense of community and greater overall quality of life. There is no reason why similar experiments can't work in other parts of the world.
Disobeying Discontent
We are all dupes, you and I. The advertising industry has learned over the years how to apply the findings of psychology to manipulate us all en masse into buying things we don't need or even want with money we don't have. Money buys elections. We can claim that we're too smart to be duped, that we are different, but we aren't. The power of mass marketing to sway populations is a proven, reliable investment for the very rich. What can we do in this media-saturated world?
Create ad-free zones around you. Turn off the television for at least a week. Get your name removed from mailing lists that send you junk mail. If you find yourself in a diner that has televisions hanging on the wall, get a TV-Be-Gone and use it. Learn how advertising works and how it plays on our desires and amplifies our fears. Learn to recognize it when you see it. Teach advertising resistance to your children.
One of the most subversive things you can do is to learn the art of contentment. Slow down. Sell or give away what you don't need (but keep or share or borrow what you do need). Clear spaces. Find pleasure in experience rather than things, which psychologists tell us is usually how it works anyway. Learn how to distinguish when you do or don't need something, and if you do need it, look for an imaginative or cheaper way to obtain it. Knowing how to be content while a multi-billion dollar industry manufactures industrial quantities of discontent may be one of the most potent of all forms of fiscal disobedience. The purveyors of discontent and corporate excess are responsible for most of these problems. It makes no sense to look to them for solutions.
Another careful look at Occupy Wall Street reveals its greatest sin in the eyes of its detractors. OWS not only pointed out the obvious stain of economic inequality, it spoke to the complete failure of their economic policies and philosophy to create a healthy society. As a final insult, the community that formed at Zuccotti Park said, in essence, "And here's how to do it right!" They formed a community; with a clinic, food services, a library, and dozens of other services. They did it without corporate help, and even spurned the aid and sanctions of large political parties and their surrogates. They demonstrated something that the elites could not abide: they demonstrated that the powerbrokers of finance and their political allies are unnecessary to form working, healthy communities.
Here are the points: Keep your money local where you can benefit from it, even after you spend it. Power to build a new society is ours, even if it's something simple and small. Make your obsession the creation of a stronger, more diverse society, starting with your own neighborhood. Jam the system whenever and wherever it does damage. No act of protest is wasted. Contentment is where you find it, not necessarily where you buy it.
We have reached a point where to act according to the better angels of our nature is to be disobedient. The world is ours, not theirs, but only if we remember our common lot, and our common fate if we let others divide us.
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