My Thoughts on OWS, Two Months Later.
This is probably the post that’s going to get me shivved in some parking lot, and it’s probably not as elegant or articulate as I want it to be (and it’s certainly not everything i want to say), but with the news this morning, I just needed to get something off of my chest. This is a response to both things I’ve seen on television, read on the internet and observed with my own eyes and ears in two cities in Upstate New York and in downtown Manhattan.
The “Occupy” movement, which began two months ago, is “celebrating” its two-month long encampent today with a three-pronged protest. First, to “Shut Down” Wall Street; Second, to “Occupy” all of the major Subway hubs in the Five Boroughs of New York; Third, by regathering - they were, just two nights ago, removed from Zucotti Park, but more on that later - in Foley Square just as the Lawyers and Federal workers get off of work.
Some of the details on exactly how they’ll do some of these things are fuzzy, but I’ll address these one at a time. Before that, however, I would like to make it expressly clear that I *think* I agree with some of what they want, in principle. Although I grew up just outside the city and have spent the last few years there, I currently reside about 120 miles northwest of New York City. But rest-assured, I’ve been down to Zucotti Park and the surrounding area three times since the movement started, and there’s currently an Occupy movement across the street from my apartment. It’s a significantly smaller group, but they’re out there in the 800-Square Foot “Park”, and have been camped out for well over a month.
The reason I say I *think* I agree is because I can’t exactly be sure what they want. They’re against evil corporate America who’s crushing the lower-classes with they’re stranglehold on the economy. That’s the general agenda, but, I also understand that’s too vague an idea. To get something done, a movement needs to focus its efforts. I get that, too. But that’s where I think the waters are getting muddied. With their insistence on a “leaderless” movement, the clear message gets blurred. They can blame the media all they want for distorting it, but a couple of things about that: 1) The media isn’t distorting their “message” nearly as much as they claim it is, and 2) If they’re so aware that the media is “distorting” their message, why don’t they elect a few organized spokespersons to get that message out there?
I understand that not everyone is this fringe personality that they show on the news every night. I understand that there are smart, articulate people with real and justified gripes. Let’s shine the light on them, okay?
Obviously, I’m not the first person to be writing on this, and I may be late to the game. Problem is, I’m not an activist or a pundit. I’m a regular guy who’s just trying to take his life day by day. My issues, as I assume the majority of the population’s issues, are immediate and mundane. Did I set the alarm today? Am I up early enough to get to beat traffic? Did I get enough fiber this morning? Did I forget my nephew’s birthday again? Obviously, the list goes on. When all of that is done, I barely have time to worry that my next door neighbor’s house got robbed last night, let alone the dire situation our country finds itself in.
With this rant getting longer and longer as I type, I’ll jump right into the three “movements” of today that I mentioned above, only pausing to say this: I understand this country was founded on the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. But it was also founded on the idea that one person’s freedoms should not infringe on another’s.
On Today’s OWS Agenda:
Shut Down Wall Street
Wall Street? Really? As has been noted before on many a site, I really believe this was just a silly location to start your protest in the first place. I understand that to the world, Wall Street represents the worst of the corruption of “Corporate America” (as long as it’s not Captain America…think about how that protest would go), but it’s not all Black & White. These people who work on Wall Street aren’t the “Fat Cats” people think they are. They’re middle-class employees working 50+ hours a week, just trying to make a living. The vast majority of people you’re yelling at as they go in and out of NYSE are just trying to make a living, and probably have as much trouble paying their mortgage as you do. They are *NOT* the 1%. Try the National Mall right there in front of Congress, or if you can’t travel, make your way uptown to where the actual 1% are spending their time.
Plus, Wall Street and the surrounding area isn’t populated exclusively by the Gordon Gecko’s of the world. They are residents and small businesses. Mom & Pop cafes, restaurants, bars and bodegas. You’re disrupting their way of life, too. These people are struggling, just as you are - especially since 2001, when the majority of their lunch and happy-hour business went uptown or out-of-state. Because they serve a cup of coffee to a day-trader, they should have their livelihoods put in jeopardy? You say you’re a community, but it seems as though you have no respect for those storekeepers and residents around without whom, there’d be no community to “fight for”.
The whole premise on location(s) of OWS shows a lack of understanding of the way not only how the system works, but also how to get your voice heard.
Occupy Major Subway Stations of all Five Boroughs
Are you kidding me?! This is New York City. Even without the tourists, the bridge-and-tunnel crowd and the commuters, you have a city of 8.5 Million people being moved around by the largest and most complex mass-transit system in the world. Add those other groups, and you’re talking upwards of 12 million people on a busy day, 10 million minimum. I don’t care if your protest is the most peaceful protest the world has ever seen (it’s clear it won’t be), your sheer presence could distrupt the system in a way its never seen before, and become more dangerous for the every day commuters than you could possibly imagine. Trains shut down, people trapped in subway cars for hours underground.
What about people trying to get to work? You think that a boss who’s already struggling in this economy gives a shit that his employee was late because of “protests” slowing them down, assuming they can get to work at all? He doesn’t. People will be fired, and don’t think that won’t happen if your presence severely screws up a 100-year old transit system already falling apart. How does that help your fight at all?
I absolutely believe that their intention is not to prevent people from going to-and-from their destinations, but in groups this big, not all of them will be “calm and collected” and even they could be, the immobile crowds alone will cause a serious, and dangerous problem.
Take Foley Square/March Across Brooklyn Bridge
Like this action’s intent, my problems with it are a combination of the first two scenarios. Add to it, Foley Square itself is pretty damned small. It’s the convergence of about five different streets with a huge fountain in the middle, right in front of the Supreme Court. Your occupation of the square will most assuredly spill over into the street, stop traffic and create another potentially ugly and dangerous scene. Your March across one of Manhattan’s few means of pedestrian evacuation (and its oldest) also doesn’t sound like the safest way to get your point across.
But, maybe that is your point? Maybe you’re doing this just to get on the news and show the crowds and hopefully get a few photos of cops dragging people off who are maybe getting too boligerant to the innocent law clerk who’s just trying to get home at the end of the day.
You want people to see the crowds. You want them to see the protests right in front of them as they go about their daily business; to show them you’re here and standing up for your beliefs.
But then what? Someone comes out of the Subway at Union Square and sees another protest, someone walks out of work from the City Clerk’s office and sees the massive crowd stopping. Have you appointed a spokesperson? Do you have a leader to make your demands, to clearly and concisely let all of these passers by know what you’re “fighting” for?
No. You want a leaderless movement. You think that’s the way to get things done. You don’t want someone to take charge because it … what? It goes against the whole point of this thing?
How has that worked throughout history? Name a major socio-political movement that has been successful in the past without a clear message and a person (or group of people) through which to focus that message. How did the Civil Rights movement do before it got a leader in Martin Luther King Jr? How did the suffrage movement do until it got a leader in Susan B. Anthony? Freedom from the English in India? Mohandas K. Ghandi.
Whether literal or figurative, movements need a leader or leaders. They need spokespersons and a clear argument. Someone to make their case (preferably one at a time), to convince the rest of us, who are just trying to get a coffee from the street vendor or take our kid to daycare without being accosted with bullhorns, confusing signs or pointless drum circles.
And please, for the love of all that is sacred in this world, do not show me another video of how OWS is so much like the uprisings in Africa and the Middle East. To compare the corporate and government corruption in this country to the outrageously oppresive regimes is to show a complete disrespect and misunderstanding of what is happening in both this country and those; it does a disservice to whatever it is you and your neighbor are trying to do.
Is there corruption in “Corporate America”? Of course there is. Is there corruption in this Government? You bet your sweet ass. Of course things need to be fixed. But I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish or how you’re going to accomplish. “Storming the Castle” is just going to make you look like violent luddites. Not just because you’re not actually storming the castle. You’re storming the servants’ barracks trying to get to the Manor houses, while the Kings and Lords sit in their castles miles (and countries) away, going about their daily business hearing news reports (those very news reports you claim are skewing your message), but never actually seeing any of the uprising villagers. How much do you think that gets in their craw? Not as much as the diner owner on the corner who has seen his business tumble in the past eight weeks. I don’t think he’s who you’re mad at.
What bothers me, I think, even more about this is the attitude. The same people years ago who were incensed when the President of the United States made the blanket statement, “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” are the people who, at least in my perception are saying this:
“We’re fighting for you! Unless, of course, you’re not actually fighting with us. In that case, go fuck yourself!”
Without a specific voice, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and as of right now, the squeaky wheel is a topless hippie covered in blood who hasn’t showerd in two weeks chanting about Verizon Wireless and the legalization of Marijuana.
