Occupy Wall Street One Year Later

-- by Tom Phillips

The anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement has come and gone, and I didn’t take part in any of the commemorative protests.  Why not? 

 

That was last year, and this is this.  The middle-class moderates who were mad enough to take to the streets in 2011, made our points and moved on.   The broad participation in last year’s protests made for a new political dialogue.  No longer is it dangerous for candidates to talk about raising taxes on the rich, or to campaign against the abuses of the financial industry.   

Today’s middle-class protesters are where they ought to be in a democracy:  interested and involved in an election year.  Thanks to Mitt Romney’s “inelegant” remarks and his choice of an Ayn Rand acolyte as a running mate, the campaign has driven home the main point of OWS.   It has exposed the present-day conservative movement for what it’s been from the start – an attempt to roll back 100 years of reform and turn this country into an “ownership society,” where power is equated with wealth.   

We have a long way to go, to claim back the wealth, power and privilege that the "owners" have seized for themselves in the last 30 years.  But I believe the worm has turned.   And it started a year ago with Occupy Wall Street. 

 

Maybe he saw my sign

 

                                          Rev. Debra Given at Zuccotti Park, October 2011

 

Copyright 2012 by Tom Phillips