On The Legitimacy of the Occupy
Movement
I was on the road just outside of New York City, heading for the airport
after spending a week with a friend who lived upstate. My friend’s aunt was
driving. We were making small talk. She asked me about my schooling, and how I
liked the colleges in and around the Big Apple. By and by, I told her about my
senior research paper. “I’m not sure what my topic will be just yet,” I said,
“but I’d like to know more about this Occupy Movement.”
She looked at me with a sudden clenching anger that sent shivers up my
spine. “You mean those homeless bums out in the park who yelled at nothing as
an excuse to fornicate in public and not contribute to society?” Oh God, I
thought, here it comes. “Those guys were just looking for a handout. Why should
we pay for them? They can’t just take money from us hard working, upstanding
citizens. You know those unions are what’s bogging down our country? I see it
every day: these people have no sense.” Hmmm. Indeed.
After this instant tirade of right wing dogma at the very mention of
Occupy Wall Street, I recognized the gravity of the situation. I certainly had
my subject. So, what was the core, the true essence of this social movement?
And why did conservatives get defensive so quickly? What were they defending?
Capitalism? I didn’t know the particulars, but I did know that there was more
to this than met the eye, or the mass media’s camera. After my research, I drew
this conclusion. The Occupy Movement did and does have a purpose: civil
disobedience is rising because it has become painfully obvious that the system
no longer works for the majority of people, and a complete remodel is
necessary… but first, citizens have to acknowledge the problems of capitalism,
then unite against those problems.
It Started With Adbusters
On July 13, 2011, a Canadian based non-profit magazine by the name of
Adbusters issued a dare for those Americans who were dissatisfied with the United
States. “Are you ready for a Tahrir moment? On Sept. 17, flood into lower
Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street”
(Caren, Gaby). Not a month later,
a Facebook page for Occupy Wall Street was established, calling for the first
General Assembly, a meeting where supporters could converse about the state of
the nation and the world. The New York General Assembly described itself this
way:
“…an open, participatory and
horizontally organized process through which we are building the capacity to
constitute ourselves in public as autonomous collective forces within and
against the constant crises of our times” (Caren, Gaby).
This assembly to develop
their own groups of self-governed people, to oppose the set structure of
society.
My friend’s aunt might have said, “Well, what’s wrong with our society?”
And that’s a fair question that begets a very, very long answer. Adbusters’
editor, Kalle Lasn, says this: “At times, not even they (the protestors) are
sure, perhaps because their cause for being there is so vast and miasmic that
they can grab hold of any part of it and make a credible claim for anger.”
(Eifling) At any time, Occupiers have more to say than can be fitted into one
frame or division of national activity. In the 1960s when the last major social
movements took place, you had a specific few things to talk about, i.e. the
Vietnam War, civil rights, and women’s rights. Now-a-days, the protestors feel
that the problem is everything. It is
a system that’s set to fail everyone,
not just the poor. In order to fully comprehend the frustration of Occupy, a
more thorough knowledge of US politics and economics is required.
Capitalism since the Industrial Age
The famous journalist and founder of Alternative Radio, David Barsamian,
in Richard Wolff’s book Occupy the Economy, talks about the gradual rise and
final stop of the ‘real wage,’ meaning the amount of money the individual takes
home when taxes are done and the bills are paid. “Every decade between 1820 and
1970, the real wage kept rising” (Wolff, 13). Then, the real wage stagnated for
several reasons: the invention of the computer dramatically lessened the need
for workers; US employers realized that it was cheaper to hire outside the
country; US employers didn’t have to keep raising the real wage; women joined the
work force; and flocks of immigrants, both legal and illegal, entered the workforce
in search of a better life (Wolff, 14-15). In short, the fall in the amount of
jobs offered was catastrophically matched by the rise in demand for jobs,
marking the start of a downward spiral in economic status where the rich got
noticeably richer, and the poor equally poorer.
The American people had grown used to the idea that the US was a place
where the sweat of a person’s brow paralleled the money in that person’s
pocket… and as these corporate decisions (to stop raising wages, to outsource
employees, or to replace them with computers) were made in private by a small
board of directors and major shareholders, the average citizens thought that
their wages had stopped growing because they weren’t working hard enough.
Therefore, productivity continued to rise, as did the profits, yet the vast
majority of people saw no reward for their efforts. As Barsamian puts it, “…the
freedom of one part of our population (i.e. the richest 1%) deprived another
part of the population of its freedom to prosper from its own work” (Wolff 23).
Collectively, as a country, we have believed that self determination is
boundless; that, as in Game Theory, to work for one’s interests can never be a
bad thing. However, there is strong evidence to the contrary.
Figure
1: A graph showing the gap in growth between the highest and lowest classes
after taxes. Data from “Trends in the Distribution of Household Income,
1979-2007: Presentation to the National Tax Association 2012 Spring Symposium” (Congressional
Budget Office 2) Web, 7 Dec., 2012.
Figure
2: Another chart, showing the average total income before taxes. Chart
generated on the World Top Incomes Database, “Average Incomes, United States,
1970-2010” Web, 10 Dec., 2012.
The
charts above are drawn directly from the Congressional Budget Office and The
World Top Incomes database. Notice the growth in the household income of the
wealthiest .01% and .1%, where the bottom 90% of incomes reached a flat-line
average of around $30,000 annually (the standard deviation is about $1,000). As
you can see, the majority of wealth isn’t even distributed somewhat equally
between those in the 1%... instead, .01%
of the population, or about 31,159 individuals, possessed roughly 76.5% of
the United States’ money in 2007. The discrepancy is staggering, especially if
all our recent economic chaos is taken into account. Even during the 2008
crash, the average person belonging to the 1% made $1.137 million.
Since the 1970s, we as a nation have catered to the “needs” of these
CEOs and stock holders, despite it not being in our best interest. Barsamian
said of the Obama stimulus plan, “We did have a recovery, from early 2009 to
2011, but only for banks, insurance companies, large corporations, and the
stock market… for the majority of Americans, there was no recovery” (Wolff 24).
Both Democrats and Republicans, and right wing movements such as the Tea Party
(the very antithesis of Occupy), campaign vigorously for the renewal of the
system that, by the books, no longer works for most people. It’s as if they
feel that giving money to the cause of the problem will somehow miraculously
fix the problem. Why? It would seem that there is a stigma against questioning
capitalism. And such a strong stigma that though “between 1979 and 2007 the
share of income of the bottom 80% of the population fell between 10 and 30%,
while that of the top 1% increased by 130%” (Trudell), capitalism persists
today in much the same fashion.
The Tyranny of ‘Being Right,’ and the Tea Party
In fact, as in an Orwellian nightmare, Americans choose to shut out
opposition to a system they only think
is right. They build a protective wall around capitalism to avoid difficult
thinking. As Barsamian says, “Those few who have dared to raise questions or
criticisms about capitalism have been either ignored or told to go live in North
Korea, China, or Cuba as if that were the only alternative to pro-capitalism
cheerleading” (Wolff 7). I’ve seen this demonstrated personally, by my friends’
aunt, my hyper-conservative Evangelical Christian aunt, my much-loved
grandfather (all of whom are oppressed by the very systems they defend), and
countless politicians such as Mitt Romney, and Wisconsin’s governor, Scott
Walker (who assaulted workers’ rights in 2011) (Bauer).
The danger of the Tea Party is that it formed in order to manipulate the
masses to push for a strict interpretation of the Constitution model of
government, allowing a temporary escape for Corporate America, at whatever cost
to public rights. Tea Partiers masked this goal by proclaiming themselves a popular
movement over the mass media. They utilized two ingenious lies to pull
supporters in from the generally languishing public.
One: the
Tea Party is a grassroots movement that spreads because of public outrage. Indeed,
“The (Tea Party) movement grew rapidly, but it was not as spontaneous as it
appeared on the surface; it was heavily promoted by two right-wing
organizations, FreedomWorks and Fox News” (Berg 5). Participants who either
weren’t aware or refused to become aware that the news agencies were in the
back pockets of wealthy promoters took the reporting at face value and assumed
that the Party was growing because it was a legitimate movement.
The
second lie: government control is the root of your problems, so let’s stop
them, as “The idea of a group of ordinary citizens coming together
spontaneously to demand that government get off their backs resonated
powerfully in American popular consciousness” (Berg 5-6). Coming from the
background of once being ruled by a harsh British Monarchy, it is apparently
easier to believe that any difficulties arise because of improper governing.
This plays right into the hands of the wealthiest Americans who, finding their
standard of living in decline along with the economy, advocate for the
loosening of the free market to their own gain, while enforcing austerities on
a public that is blinded by faith in the American Dream.
The Santelli Rant
The name
“Tea Party” came from a speech by Rick Santelli, known as the Santelli Rant
(Berg 2), in response to a provision in the ARRA that would help homeowners in
mortgage-related financial crisis. He famously said, “This is America! How many
of you people want to pay for your neighbors’ mortgage that has an extra
bathroom and can’t pay their bills? … President Obama, are you listening”
(Rosenthal)? It was an ironic statement, considering that he himself made
enough money to have more than one spare bathroom, and most likely his entire
audience had that many bathrooms too. Yet Santelli maintained that his audience
was “a pretty good statistical cross section of America” (Zernike 21), “with
average incomes of equal to 366% of the average for the US as a whole (down
from 409% just before the crash)” (Berg 3). He was dishing misinformation,
which began and sustained the Tea Party’s campaign against the modern worker.
As Berg notes, “the Tea Party tells a story of a nation collapsing under
the weight of people who demand government support, rather than earning their
keep through their own efforts” (Berg 3). There is another irony here, because
the facts prove that no matter how hard a middle class person works, their
wages won’t rise, yet their wages aren’t enough to pay their mortgages.
Disregard those (of which there are millions) unfortunate enough to be laid off
from a specialized position—they have to get a low-budget job, or they won’t
have any source of income whatsoever, if the Tea Party philosophy were made
government policy.
Another
problem is the limited number of low-budget jobs, considering that since the
1970s, women, immigrants, and computers have entered the work force. Plus, how
demoralizing would it be to work at McDonalds after losing a high paying office
job with benefits?
Supporters
of the Tea Party therefore have a very limited perspective on the origins of
foreclosure and poverty, and a forced inability to change.
The shortsightedness affects every aspect of American culture, as Berg
postulates,
“Once these mental categories have
been established, government policies from health care to the bailout can be
framed as taking from the deserving to give to the undeserving. Democrats (or
perhaps “socialists”) want to take your money to give to irresponsible people:
poor African Americans who live in a culture of dependency, overpaid
bureaucrats, and a variety of contractors who have learned to get federal
subsidies for shoddy goods, ineffective services, and “bridges to nowhere””
(Berg 4).
America’s
problems are ignored, shifted by politicians, distorted by the mass media, and
ubiquitous none-the-less. The statistics show that the wealthy are consistently
favoring themselves over the common man (World Top Incomes…). So what of the
massive unemployed or meanly employed population and those who lack the ‘three
H’s,’ (heat, home, and health care for themselves and their families)? They
have find a voice and express dissatisfaction for themselves, and Occupy is the
first step.
Occupy: Rebels in Autonomous, Holistic Free Thinking
What can be done when the entire system seems bent on objectifying the
average worker? Occupy’s answer is simple: come together, and through peaceful
means, display your solidarity. Using peaceful protests, the Occupy movement is
effectively directing the center of attention away from petty bickering in
politics to the natural rights of citizens in a modern society. Dan La Botz, a
teacher in Cincinnati and active member of Occupy, reported on “labornotes.org”
that in November of 2011, an assault on worker’s rights to bargain for wage
change, collect dues, and go on strike, was prevented by Occupiers and local
unions (La Botz). The Occupiers in the major cities of the West Coast teamed
with dock workers to shut down every port in December of 2011, to remind the
government and sea-faring companies of who they were meant to serve (Trudell
8).
Also, on
that same day in December, Occupiers gathered with the employees of Walmart to protest
its many infringements on human rights around the world (Trudell 9-10). This is
what the Occupy Denver General Assembly had to say about the issue: the relentless
pursuits of higher profits by corporations like Walmart have damaged the work
force at home, and ignored the natural rights of countless foreigners.
Therefore, we must organize on December 12th to shut down Walmart “in
support of the actions taken across the US, especially those on the West Coast
against Goldman Sachs and other bankers” (“12/12 Walmart Action…”). Protests
are still being staged by Occupy in Colorado. The most recent one was on Black
Friday. Walmart actually tried to deter participants by convincing them that
their actions are illegal. As Walmart has never directly addressed protesting
organizations like ‘OUR Wal-Mart,’ it is evident that Occupy’s philosophy has
spread enough to pose a threat (Greenhouse, Clifford).
Occupy
web pages are loaded with ideas and printable fliers for advertising community
action. Far from dead, the Movement seems to have moved from the city parks
primarily into the land of social media and impermanent meeting places. Special
attention is given to Facebook and Twitter. I ‘liked’ Occupy Wall Street’s
Facebook, and now I receive daily updates on every subject from the economy to
the progress of legislation that could potentially affect the rights of the
99%. The dates and locations for General Assemblies are listed online, so that
people can still gather and debate in person.
Occupy
survives as autonomous groups of concerned individuals who refuse to be reigned
into any political party. They disbelieve in the legitimacy of any
“pseudo-leftist” groups like the ISO (International Socialist Organization),
the American division of which actually assists the Democratic Party (Beams 1).
Doug Singsen, a writer for SocialistWorker.org and effectively a representative
of the ISO insofar as point-of-view, wrote a clever piece to convince Occupiers
that, as true autonomy is impossible unless we revert to the Neolithic Age, and
real change is virtually impossible in society as we know it, Occupy should
just strive to make changes in the system as it stands. He claimed that revolution
began with demands that were met by the authority; that power was claimed,
historically, bit by bit (Singsen). But that’s entirely false. Take our own
independence, for example. We claimed all of our freedom at once, not one piece
at a time. We didn’t bother to fix a flawed system then, but instead disavowed
and redefined a good system entirely. The only difference between then and now
is the weapon. Occupy doesn’t need physical strength, but solidarity: peaceful
retaliation in the form of civil disobedience.
Nick
Beams of the World Socialist Web Site (or wsws.org) says that if Occupy
admitted to Singsen’s so-called ‘realism,’ any expression of dissatisfaction
would be turned into “so much hot air aimed at turning youth and students away
from a struggle in the working class and bringing them back under the wing of
the Democratic Party” (Beams 1). The Democrats have proven themselves unable to
pull through on their promises for reform, and Occupy refuses to become
involved any more. They network and protest, and the numbers of conscious
individuals can only grow. Even in the time between when I ‘liked’ the Facebook
page for Occupy Salt Lake City and now (about an hour), twelve more people have
‘liked’ the page.
In a
short two years, the Occupy Movement has grown from a single event in New York
City’s Zuccotti Park into a worldwide opposition to capitalism, a general
longing for some higher societal standard. It is not like any movement in our
history, because everything we know is under question. But the future of the
world is still in our hands. We can choose not to prolong the global economic
collapse and rip off the bandage of the 1%. It is my hope that the struggle
will stimulate the evolution of mankind, a growth into greater spiritual
kinship between all human beings. Perhaps when the dust settles, people will
camp in the parks for fun instead!
Works Cited
Bauer, Scott. “Scott
Walker, Wisconsin GOP Poised To Cut Worker Rights In Budget Fix.”
Huffington
Post, 15 Feb. 2011. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.
Beams,
Nick. “Critical political issues raised by the Occupy movement.” World
Socialist Website,
22 Oct. 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2012.
Berg, John C. “Occupy
Wall Street: Does Changing the Story Change Votes?” Suffolk University., Web. 26 Nov. 2012.
Caren,
Neal; Gaby, Sarah. “Occupy Online: Facebook and the Spread of Occupy Wall
Street.”
University of North Carolina. 24 Oct. 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
Eifling,
Sam. “Adbusters’ Kalle Lasn Talks About Occupy Wall Street.” The Tyee. 11 Oct.
2011.
Web, 28 Nov.
2012.
Greenhouse,
Steven; Clifford, Stephanie. “Protests Backed by Union Get Wal-Mart’s
Attention.”
The New York Times. 18 Nov. 2012. Web. 29 Nov. 2012.
Rosenthal,
Phil. “Rant raises profile of CNBC on air personality Rick Santelli.” Chicago
Tribune.
23 Feb. 2009
Singsen,
Doug. “Autonomous Zone on Wall Street?” Socialist Worker. 11 Oct. 2011.
Web. 2 Dec. 2012.
Trudell,
Megan. “The Occupy Movement and Class Politics in the U.S.” International
Socialism:
The Occupy Movement and class politics
in the U.S., Issue 133. 9 Jan. 2012.
Web. 7 Nov. 2012.
2 Dec. 2011. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.
Wolff,
Richard. Occupy The Economy: Challenging
Capitalism (in conversation with David
Barsamian). Open Media
Series, City Lights Books, 2012. Print.
Zernike,
Kate. Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party
America. BiasAlerts, 2010. Print.
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