Why "Occupy Wall Street" is Important

I’m sure there are many who don’t agree with me on this, but I think the OWS movement is important. Why? Because it:

• States public dissatisfaction with the effects of Wall Street greed over the past 20 years
• Points out the failure of government regulations
• Identifies favored classes of people protected and coddled by our very own society
• Tells the story of poor being demonized
• Shows how victims are being blamed for their own situation
• Demonstrates how the middle class has been neutralized

Of course OWS has many others climbing on the bandwagon. That’s when the message gets laden with unintended content. But then, this is a group/mob leadership dynamic, not a well thought out organizational structure with clear leadership roles identified. Until that emerges the movement moshes along trying to keep focus on the primary arguments.

Will it develop staying power to be around long enough to make a difference? There is no way of answering that question at this time.

There are powers stacking against it. But there is a surprising resiliency that has kept OWS in the public eye much longer than some would have supposed. Even me?

The movement, if we can call it that, recalls the anti-war movement of the 1960’s. Then that movement was laden with ‘flower power’, Haight-Ashbury themes, the street drug culture, and much more. The music and dress of the time was bizarre but refreshing. And from this environment came the sexual revolution which changed the American social landscape forever. All of this was fascinating. Some of it was scary. Even disturbing. But necessary I think for the USA to grow up and become more adult about the social intersection of self and public. The taboos of puritan America kept healthy sex drives in the closet. And those were the heterosexual drives. But from this milieu the Gay Pride movement was born. That was a healthy development. Our gay brothers and sisters were finally recognized as ‘normal’ and we all got on with the business of living.

Seems to me if a movement is truly a movement, a few pieces have to be in place:

1. A wrong has to be clearly identified for public acknowledgement
2. A sense of what caused the wrong to become one has to be present; not necessarily judged fully yet, but becoming such over time
3. A sense of public responsibility for the wrong and a need to correct it
4. Maybe an emergent sense of ‘who is to blame’ but this is not really needed; just a sense that all is not right in some arenas and correction is needed
5. An argument for social justice swells with growing clarity
6. Change begins to be engineered with those in authority

If the movement swerves too far from its intended path, it becomes fractured and increasingly ineffective. Leadership changes may resurrect it but that’s iffy.

America was founded by movements. Even revolution. And it was messy and disturbing. But time has found it to have been right.

It is too early for us to judge the Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s time is just beginning.

The real cause for alarm is our willingness to listen, to pay attention. It seems we have or else the movement would be over already. So perhaps enough of us are listening to give credence to the movement?

If so, who is against this movement? Clearly the Wall Street denizens who refuse to accept culpability for the failure of markets, regulations, and overwhelming greed which has nearly led the American economy to its grave! And the world economy, too! Let us not lose sight of the exported American greed which has severely damaged the Common Market.

But also local mayors and governors are fighting the movement. Apparently they see this as a threat to public order, their order. And they are loosing police squadrons on the demonstrators washing them with pepper spray, stun guns, riot shields and batons, in addition to the at times deadly use of force, rubber bullets and propelled smoke grenades. This in America. The land of the free and free speech. The right to peaceably assemble. The right to redress government wrong. The home of the brave, too. What’s going on here?

This is not government leadership or enforcement. It is more like police thuggery.

We had a time in the ‘60’s like this. Remember when it got out of hand? Some people were scared by the apparent lawlessness. But nothing of today’s movement even comes close to those developments back then.

Are we listening? Will we listen? Do the people have a point that needs society’s full attention and redress?

I’m not sure. But I’m more than halfway there in agreement. Where are you?

November 18, 2011