The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) meta-movement has been going on for more than a month now with no sign of a slow down. It continues to get stronger day by day, week after week. Just last weekend, demonstrations were held in 951 cities across 82 countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa. This
global phenomenon transcends borders because what the people are up against are a handful of trans-national corporations of which Wall Street has become the de fact symbol.
The grievances are obvious and justified morally, politically, and economically. Sufficiently informed citizens (who are in the 99%) would have no problem choosing the side of OWS. Calling it a no-brainer is an understatement. In fact, in the U.S. alone, in a recent TIME Magazine poll, a whopping 54% of Americans are in favor of the OWS protests. As Glenn Greenwald said:
“Anyone who expressed difficulty seeing or understanding what motivates these protests revealed many things about themselves. None is flattering. The only thing that’s surprising is that these protests didn’t happen sooner and that they’re not more widespread and intense.”
No wonder politicians and corporate news media in the U.S. continue to downplay its significance by deriding it as a movement with no specifics. As the old adage goes, “You don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.” And Wall Street has been the generous goose.
But what makes me sad, however, are ordinary citizens who, for some reason, are not in favor of OWS. I believe that they are either too uninformed and detached from the socio-political arena, have been thoroughly brainwashed by politicians who are wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate overlords, and/or they just continue to dogmatically cling to their political ideologies despite all the overwhelming facts to the contrary.
So I’ve put together this list of solid evidences that I believe will convince the doubters, naysayers, and critics, beyond any reasonable doubt, that they ought to be on the side of the majority of the people in support of OWS.
Exhibit A: The Middle Class is FUBAR by Weapons of Mass Exploitation (WME)
Ravi Batra, the economist who successfully predicted the downfall of communism, wrote a very detailed and specific analysis with a nine-point list of economic measures which had devastated the middle class. He then made another bold prediction: “…monopoly capitalism will go the way of Soviet communism by 2016.”
“In 1978, to the laughter of many and the derision of a few, I wrote a book called, “The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism,” which predicted that Soviet communism would vanish around the end of the century, whereas crony or monopoly capitalism would create the worst-ever concentration of wealth in its history, so much so that a social revolution would start its demise around 2010. My forecasts derived from the law of social cycles, which was pioneered by my late teacher and mentor, P. R. Sarkar. Lo and behold, Soviet communism disappeared right before your eyes during the 1990s, and now, just a year after 2010, middle-class America, spearheaded by a movement increasingly known as “Occupy Wall Street (OWS),” is beginning to revolt against Wall Street greed and crony capitalism. Will the revolt succeed? It surely will, because the pre-conditions for its success are all there.”
For the sake of us in the 99%, let’s hope that Batra’s words become prophetic.
Exhibit B: It takes a woman to clean up, kick ass, and fix this sh*t
Many, if not most, people who have voted for President Obama are by now faced with a rude awakening: that talk is cheap, and that compromise and playing nice are not the virtues of a good leader. A true political leader is someone who listens to the majority of the people who got him elected; someone who will fight for the collective interest of the majority and will mop the floor with those who will stand in his way. From the way things have been going, it looks like it will take a woman to do a President’s job. Enter, Elizabeth Warren. This excellent article in Vanity Fair spells out in detail why Elizabeth Warren is the most promising political champion of the 99%.
“Millions of Americans hoped President Obama would nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the consumer financial watchdog agency she had created. Instead, she was pushed aside. As Warren kicks off her run for Scott Brown’s Senate seat in Massachusetts, Suzanna Andrews charts the Harvard professor’s emergence as a champion of the beleaguered middle class, and her fight against a powerful alliance of bankers, lobbyists, and politicians.”
No wonder Wall Street hates her guts. All the more reason for us to support her all the way to 2016.
Exhibit C: Political labels are meaningless. It’s the issues, stupid!
Political pundits and talking heads love to box us with politically-charged labels (e.g. Left/Right, Conservatives/Liberals/Progressives, Republicans/Democrats, Socialist/Communist/Corporatists, etc.) so they could pit us against each other. But Occupy Wall Street transcends political lines and simplistic labels. When actual issues are put on the table and the people are asked to pick a side, most, if not all, reasonable and sane people will make the right choice.
Case in point: Here are Chris Hedges and Alan Grayson hitting a home run and shutting down the loudmouths. Classic.
Another case in point: How do you tell the real grass-roots Tea Party from the corporate-sponsored astro-turf? Simple. The real Tea Party supports Occupy Wall Street.
Exhibit D: Corporations are [not] people, my friend!
Mitt Romney’s famous quote says it all. In a short sentence, Romney described the sorry state of our political system, thanks to Citizens United. This is one of the biggest mistakes the Supreme Court has made which will continue to undermine our democracy and political system. When corporations can spend as much money as they want on political advertising, the corruption skyrockets to epic proportions.
But anyway, if corporations are people, then shouldn’t the government be prosecuting them for dodging taxes?
And by the way, those who say that OWS is anti-capitalist probably don’t know the difference between a capitalist and a corporatist. Here’s Cenk Uygur putting it very succinctly:
“I believe in the capitalist system. I think it makes sense and it is attuned to human nature. People do not work to the best of their ability and take only as much as they need. They work as little as humanly possible and take as much as humanly possible. Capitalism helps to funnel these natural impulses in a positive, hopefully productive manner.
But in order to have capitalism we must have choice. If consumers do not have different companies to choose from, if the markets aren’t truly free and there is no real competition, then you kill capitalism. Corporations are a natural byproduct of capitalism, but as soon as they are born they want to destroy their parent. Corporations are the Oedipus of the capitalist system.”
There’s nothing explicitly anti-capitalist in the “official” demands of OWS.
UPDATE (10/19/2011): Serendipitously, Cenk Uygur just kicked off Wolf PAC which is proposing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Corporations are not people. They have none of the Constitutional rights of human beings. Corporations are not allowed to give money to any politician, directly or indirectly. No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.”
And I’m all for it! This is Sparta!
Exhibit E: Don’t go the f**k to sleep. We’ve just lost our Republic!
And as I mentioned in my previous post on #OccupyWallStreet, for those who still don’t understand the essence of what OWS is all about, do yourself a favor and watch this lecture by Lawrence Lessig.
Now you be the jury.
Having said all of that, if for some reason people still don’t get Occupy Wall Street then the last option would be to explain it to them like we would explain it to a six-year old.
In the meantime, don’t wait for the 21st revolution to be televised. It’s already playing all over the internets.
Occupy the World: 65 Videos of Global Protest Day
Al Jazeera: In-depth Coverage of Occupy Wall Street
RT.COM: In-depth Coverage of Occupy Wall Street
Alternet.org: Special Coverage: Occupy Wall Street
The Huffington Post: Occupy Wall Street (some news is so big it needs its own page) Coverage
And when everything is said and done, when we’re tired of raging, ranting, cursing, and occupying, it helps to keep our bearing and be aware of the present moment… remembering the maxim: Kick ass and be still….
(This article was originally posted at C4Chaos' personal blog, which you can access here)
