-- by Tom Phillips
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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
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Rev. Debra Given at Zuccotti Park, October 2011
Copyright 2012 by Tom Phillips
well said, tom. I'm sure he saw your sign.
ReplyDeleteHey Dad,
ReplyDeleteI like your post, and indeed that's where I've wound up too. But in Humboldt County it hasn't died quite so quietly, and I wonder if one sentence in your post doesn't get at why: "The middle-class moderates who were mad enough to take to the streets in 2011, made our points and moved on." Not that the middle class moderates have abandoned them, but that they are not middle-class moderates who are able to return to their homes feeling they have accomplished something. I don't mean that we should stay on the streets with them, but I wonder how the anniversary of the beginning of the Occupy movement passed for them, and if they had a similar sense of having moved on.
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Good point. I think I wrote this in part because I felt slightly guilty about not continuing or even commemorating the protest. But on the other hand, I do feel we accomplished something and the action has now moved into the political sphere...at least for the middle class who have a stake in the system working properly.
ReplyDelete