Since the Occupy movement began with the efforts of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, there have been questions about the movement’s purpose. But the questioners are a bit disingenuous, because it is obvious that the primary reason young people are camping out all over the country — including downtown Minneapolis — is because they are dissatisfied with this country’s unequal distribution of wealth.
And the protestors have given their reasons. They have come with a grab bag of issues, but they primarily center around the complaint that the captains of industry, the corporations, the ruling wealthy families, Big Banks and Wall Streets — in other words, the richest one percent, the ruling class — has too much.
Some who have lent their voices are also protesting the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, environmental degradation, racism, police brutality, anti-immigrant scapegoating, lack of quality public education, the high unemployment rate, bank foreclosures, the high cost of secondary education…and the list goes on.
And of course the variety of issues leave the protestors open to be initially ignored and then made fun of by the comfortable, and especially by the mouthpiece of that one percent: the Big Business press.
From their perspective, it’s better to ignore or obfuscate protesters’ demands than to face the truths of their discontent. From where they sit, it’s more important to remind us that some of these folks have protested before; some are from children of the well off; some have nothing better to do, since they are unemployed; and some are from organized alternative organizations. Some are Social Democrats, socialists, anarchists and (oh my) hippies.
The proper and only response to this criticism is: They ain’t wrong!
Ironically, they are being taken serious by some in the center wing (the Democratic Party) of the two parties that for all practical purposes represent the top one percent. Some of the more liberal members of Congress have given the action its props.
Of course, the Dems have figured that if they embrace this expression of discontent, they can then co-opt it. They hope to convince the young people that the system is self-correcting and that through voting for one of the parties of the ruling class they can get these problems solved and work to create a more fair and equitable society.
Ironically, while the Dems are trying to convince the young people that the system works, it is a Democratic administration that is being protested. It has become more and more apparent to the protestors and the rest of us thinking people (when we are honest) that the two parties of the ruling class don’t really work on our behalf, but on the behalf of the very folks these young people are protesting.
While the protestors have recognized that at bottom the system is at fault, they have not come to grips with where their protest will have to lead if indeed change is going to come. And to borrow from MLK, a radical restructuring of society will have to occur before the rich stop bailing themselves out with our money.
A real radical change will have to happen before the rich stop using our treasury to fight their wars. Real change will have to occur before everyone in this society gets a shot at real equal opportunity, real justice, real economic fairness.
If nothing else comes from this long-running demonstration of the discontented, it is definitely apparent that a new spirit has been unleashed.
Something is indeed in the air, and it behooves us to catch up with it.
There is definitely something happening here, and it’s absolutely clear what it is.
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