Fri Oct 14, 2011
posted under General
They call themselves the “occupy wall street” movement and more recently the “ninety-niners” because they are the vast majority of tax payers. They carry signs that demand “fairness” and “equality” and they want relief from the burden of student loan repayment or housing foreclosures. Watching their demonstrations, one is impressed with the largely nonviolent nature of their behavior and the compatibility with most of the police they encounter. The question still remains on what specific action they want taken to satisfy their demands.
In the 1960’s the demands of the protesters were to stop the draft and end the war. In that time they attacked draft offices and drove the military recruiters off college campuses. They marched down freeways and disrupted commerce. They chanted “hell no we won’t go” and they greeted returning service people with chants of “baby killers.” Their goals were simple and direct: stop the draft and end the war. More recently the Tea Party movement has demonstrated with great vigor against government in general and President Obama in particular. Their demonstrations have been more focused on Democratic Lawmakers, spitting on some black Congress people and calling them angry names with racial slurs. Their goals are easy to identify, less government and fewer Democrats.
The current demonstrations do not lend themselves to easy analysis. They talk about fairness and equal burden sharing, concepts that do not easily reduce to catchy one liners. In fact, this is the most intellectual of demonstrations many of us have ever seen. Politicians first thought it was frivolous and a temporary fad without significance. Some political leaders called it a mob remincient of the French Revolution and threatening anarchy. But soon they changed their minds and began to look for ways to use the demonstrations for their own political gain. But these demonstrators are not easily captured; they have drawn up their own charter and act with consensus. They are collegial decision makers and not subject to being co-opted easily.
When looking for a common thread one can see an intellectual connection to Massachusetts Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren. In her campaign rhetoric Warren stresses the commonality of purpose the rich and the poor have in our Democratic society and the need for all to participate fairly in paying for the upkeep of our governmental/social structure. Of course it sounds a little like a pre-school classroom (“teacher we want you to divide the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches fairly”)
However, the real message of the demonstrators is that no one should have the deck stacked against them. They saw the banks bailed out after the bankers drove their own businesses to the verge of failure and Wall Street firms rescued from similar catastrophe. To top it off both groups rewarded themselves with huge bonuses for just being there.
The question the demonstrators ask is “why not us?” Perhaps the 1968 Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy comes closest to the goal of these demonstrators when he said “Some people see things as they are and ask why. I see things as they can be and ask, why not?”