Occupy Wall Street Notes

Now here's something that I would have been checking out if we were still living in Brooklyn. I understand that the phenomena has sprouted up all over this country, and even spread overseas, but Lower Manhattan is the epicenter, and Wall Street specifically.

The actions--sit-ins, tent cities, protest signage and chants--are all a remarkable recreation of the anti-war movement of the sixties, a decade these "occupiers" strive to emulate, and recreate.

Any anti-corporate greed/financial redistribution revolution would start like this, I imagine. The true revolutionary moment would have to be the turning violent of the occupying crowds.

So that begs the question: what's going on here? Is this a revolutionary moment, or a mass adult temper tantrum?

Philosophically I'm with the occupiers, the unchecked and mostly unpunished destructive greed of the hedge fund and mortgage securities death spiral has done immense harm to our economy, country, and way of life. Throw them all into jail? Throw away the key? Sure. Whatever...that ambivalence, though, comes from a cynical view of tyranny. To do those things--jailing all those fat-cat bastards--would be tyrannical due to our wart covered sense of justice in America.

The American economic system is based on people screwing over other people. That's the ugly truth to this whole thing. The collapse of 2008 was predicated on a system where the risks were never as risky, since there were so little legal repercussions and so much financial reward, and in America, financial reward is the only important thing.

This post isn't about free-market capitalism specifically. Forget whatever problems or love you have with/for the system. This is about the America we live in, the America where from 1980 to 2008 the fiscal policy has deeply favored the ultra wealthy and funneled money from the masses to those special interests up to the point where those greedy interests almost collapse the entire system itself. Then they get bailed out by the same people by whom they've been getting obscenely wealthy.

Absolutely, be angry. I agree.

But what are we doing here? Is this a revolution? Are we overthrowing the entire system? Are we burning down these huge financial institutions, destroying records, resetting the notion of a credit rating? Are we on the cusp of revolution?

Organizing into a union is a way that workers are able to barter collectively and earn some of the things all workers in America think they're entitled to; a check and balance system against unchecked aggressive greed.

How's the health of unions today?

Is this a revolution? Against what? We need to look in the mirror. The system, if not totally broken, needs substantial work. It's one thing to 1) preach from a soapbox in Union Square about how we need a communist revolution in America, a wholesale redistribution of wealth and total upending of society; or 2) tirelessly work a grass-roots campaign to petition the influential lawmakers in your state to start a serious discussion about a reasoned alteration in campaign finance reform (the first step); or 3) develop creative financial system solutions, publish them, get famous, and by sheer force of will (and some wild personal connections) get your ideas and voice out to the masses.

Those three things are all at least consistent. They all start with a recognition of a system, and a proscription for action.

It's not rage and anger. It's not saying "This is ridiculous. Let's set up a tent city at the foot of those buildings. That'll show them how angry we are and how unfair this system is."

That's a tantrum.

Did you just notice how bad it was? Is that some kind of revelation? Were you paying attention when we were spending a billion dollars a week in Iraq from 2003 to 2007? Were you paying attention when Clinton did the republicans a favor and dismantled the social safety net? Were you paying attention when Reagan sold weapons to Iran to fund the Contras in Central America?

People complained when certain companies closed their factories and moved their productions to Mexico and Guatemala, when call centers moved to India, when manufacturing moved to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and now--holy cow--China. But that's all it was--complaints. People demanding laws preventing that were shouted down during the boom years.

Now people are out of work and really pissed. Many of the lost jobs are unrecoverable. Obama won't be able to add many of the jobs that are gone, and neither will the next President, be it in 2012 or 2016. That won't be the President's fault, of course, but they'll be blamed for it. That's our nearly (or completely) broken system for you.

So I repeat: what are we doing? Is this a revolution?

If you could only hear my shameless snort and eye roll. Puh-lease. A revolution? A country that spends like this one does on useless crap and refuses to read ultimately doesn't want a new system, wouldn't know what to do with any new system, and couldn't possible even imagine what a different system would look like.

Maybe I'm missing something. Can someone tell me what the goal of the Occupy Wall Street action is? That message is getting lost somewhere.

I guess I'm torn. Any action that's inspiring the people who become occupiers and then watching it spread all over is awesome and volatile. The energy is pure. The anger is pure.

It needs to be channeled. Could it be a revolution?