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May 20, 2013
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 It’s Time to Occupy the MajorityPosted on Nov 20, 2011BOSTON—Everyone on the left side of American politics, from the near end to the far end, has advice for Occupy Wall Street. I’m no exception. But it’s useful to acknowledge first that this movement has accomplished things that the more established left didn’t. The problems of growing economic inequality and abuses by the masters of the financial world have been in the background for years. Many progressives longed to make them central political questions. Occupy realized that the old approaches hadn’t worked. So it provided the media with a committed group of activists to cover, a good story line, and excellent pictures. Paradoxically, its unconventional approach fit nicely with current media conventions. And its indifference to immediate political concerns gave the movement a freedom of action that others on the left did not have. The breakup of some of Occupy’s encampments signals a new phase for the movement. This does not have to mean its end. On the contrary, it is an opportunity. Let’s first dispense with a kind of narcissism that exists among Americans who lived through the 1960s and insist on seeing Occupy as nothing more than a rerun of the battles over Vietnam, Richard Nixon and the counterculture. Advertisement Notice that this is an effort to bury the movement’s apt criticisms of the financial system beneath a pile of stereotypes. The Massachusetts Republican Party is reinforcing the message with regular “Occupy Wall Street Incident Reports” about anything bad that happens at demonstrations around the country. They run under a logo casting Warren as the “Matriarch of Mayhem,” in honor of her statement that she had created “much of the intellectual foundation” for the new movement. To her credit, Warren has not backed off her support for the core ideas or goals of the movement. She has, however, emphasized that the demonstrators should obey the law. That is good advice—as a general matter, but also as a political matter. If the Occupiers need to battle right-wing efforts to turn them into Abbie Hoffmans and Jerry Rubins (whom many of the Occupiers never heard of), they also need to resist a lefty sort of nostalgia. It’s not the ‘60s anymore. The protests of that era were rooted in affluence. Too often in those years, the left cut itself off from the concerns of the white working class and disdained its values. That’s the history the right wants to revive. In fact, the Occupy demonstrations are precisely about the concerns of Americans who have been sidelined economically. This in turn is why polls show broad support for Occupy’s objectives of greater economic equality and more financial accountability. Thus the question going forward: Will the Occupy movement play into the hands of its enemies by living up to the stereotypes they are trying to create? Or will it instead move to a new phase that builds on its success? Ongoing violent demonstrations will simply not help the cause, and Martin Luther King Jr.‘s lessons on nonviolence are useful here. This movement is about something much bigger than “occupying” a particular space. Occupations proved to be a shrewd tactic. They are not a cause or an end in themselves. Focusing on holding a piece of public land simply makes the movement a hostage to the decisions of local officials, some of whom will inevitably be hostile to its purposes. More importantly, the movement should remind itself of its greatest innovation, its slogan: “We are the 99 percent.” This is an affirmation that it is trying to speak for nearly everybody. Its tactics should live up to this aspiration by building support among the vast number of Americans who will never show up at the encampments. It should also want to help political figures such as Warren, who understood far earlier than most the costs of inequality and of the abuses of financial power. The last thing this movement should want to do is create fodder for the ads and emails propagated by Warren’s foes. The occupations have done their work. Now it’s time to occupy the majority.
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By gerard, November 23, 2011 at 10:26 am Link to this comment
May I point out a couple of self-evident facts:
Report this1. So far, Occupy Wall Street Movement has been very creative, devising both messages and methods that are unique and widely appealing. They know what they are doing a lot better than most of us. (Did any of you see the video of the signs flashing on the side of a tall building when the Washington-bound contingent was leaving the City? Inspiring, and then some.)
2. They are the 99%‘s very own children—most of them, and they have aunts, uncles, cousins, parents.They have media savvy. They have a wide response of contributions and good will. They care about people and know the evils of exploitation.
They are crossing a lot of barriers their parents (we) put up to keep them from being courageous. (Go to the Occoupy Wall Street.org site and read the very clear, human diary of one girl on the march to DC if you want to know what spirit motivates them all.)
By EmileZ, November 22, 2011 at 1:31 pm Link to this comment
@ Mekhong Kurt
Propaganda attacks should certainly be countered by good journalists and others, but they will continue regardless, as I said before.
Mr. Dionne, it seems to me, is suggesting that OWS no longer engage in acts of civil disobediance, out of fear of attacks from the right-wing, or negative corporate media coverage. I disagree.
Report thisBy Mekhong Kurt, November 21, 2011 at 11:28 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
EmileZ, I was taken aback by your argument that Mr. Dionne’s fear of right-wing propoganda attacks is stupid. How *else* is he—or any of us—to counter the lies and distortions and the hate-mongering if we don’t insist of shoving the truth front and center? Isn’t that what the civil rights movement ultimately accomplished? And the anti-Vietnam War protests?
I’m not trying to be rude, nor to attack you—but I’m utterly asea regarding what you might suggest in leiu of countering the propoganda.
Report thisBy the worm, November 21, 2011 at 6:21 pm Link to this comment
FIVE (5) WAYS TO BALANCE THE BUDGET
1. Corporations have record profits and record cash in the bank and dodge the
real tax rate, reducing the amount they actually pay be about a third the published
corporate rate.
2. The top 1% has rising income levels and the lowest taxes in memory.
3. No taxes are levied on what the hedge funds bring in; they call it ‘carried
interest’ and by doing so escape all taxes.
4. No transaction tax is levied on rapid-fire stock trades that send the market into
wild gyrations and threaten your pension.
5. Capital gains (the way most of the wealthy get their ‘income’) is taxed at 15%.
So, there are five ways to bring our budget into balance without cutting middle
class programs.
If the Republicans wanted a ‘balanced budget’, they should not have passed the
Bush tax cuts for the wealthy when we had a balanced budget and should not have
gone to a war based on lies and refused to pay for it.
If the Republicans wanted a ‘balanced budget’ now, they could easily have one.
A ‘balanced budget’ is not the Republicans’ concern.
This ‘battle’ is about the Republicans’ desire to maintain and accelerate the
transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper 1%.
That’s what this battle is about. That’s why it’s important for House and Senate
Report thisDemocrats (actual and nominal, elected under the Democratic banner) to hold the
line – even nominally Democratic President Obama.
By gerard, November 21, 2011 at 5:14 pm Link to this comment
Dionne: “The occupations have done their work. Now it’s time to occupy the majority.” Like that’s news?Like it’s not self-evident? And specifically, how to move the 99% people who have not had the guts or the smarts to counteract what’s been going on for decades?
Report thisFrankly, I hope I’m dead wrong—but from reading these columns for a year I haven’t seen much in the way of creative suggestion or heartfelt participation and challenging behavior coming from us, to my regret. I’m looking to these brave young (mostly) people for new ideas and new actions that will move the machinery of decay out of their way and usher in a new age of democratic participation, and that as non-violently as humanly possible.
My advice to Occupiers? Try to renounce and forget violence. Try to love and respect and protect each other. Try not to hate the police, reactionary officials, and stupid, short-sighted financiers. Work above and beyond them, for you are the only future worth living for.
By oddsox, November 21, 2011 at 2:47 pm Link to this comment
“Occupations proved to be a shrewd tactic. They are not a cause or an end in themselves.”
—EJD
“the movement should remind itself of its greatest innovation, its slogan: “We are the 99 percent.””
—EJD
Looks like Dionne has been reading my TruthDig comments on earlier articles.
Report thisThis column is much the better for it.
By objective observer, November 21, 2011 at 2:35 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
powderhornpops:
this “occupation” will end when the powers that be decide they have had enough. the “occupiers” have neither the will nor the ability to resist other than marching around and beating drums. USAtoday had an article about how the general public doesn’t know or care about the OWS thingie. it is slowly becoming a non-issue.
Report thisBy balkas, November 21, 2011 at 1:00 pm Link to this comment
the SYSTEM in u.s, in order to exist, must be fed.
its feeders are all judges, ?all professional politicians, army
echelons; nearly all schooling, private information; police,
fbi, private ownership of production/minerals/much of
nature.
i do not think that the SYSTEM can be changed by working
inside of it. one must step outside of it.
a protest, any protest, is part of that SYSTEM; i.e., the
SYSTEM ALLOWS IT because every protest held thus far in
u.s had strengthened it.
the SYSTEM in u.s also possesses only one ideology and
one political party [in my language, one educational-
politico-idelogical-economic party]
one steps outside the system by simply establishing a
second ‘political’ party with an ideology that is antipodal to
the ideology of present political party; its main feature
being the right of a person to own another person.
and one is owned if 0001 to 10, 20, 30% of americans
utterly control money, army, police, fbi, cia, congress, WH,
judiciary, schooling, information, etc.
let’s, in this connection, take just cia agents? don’t they
enjoy free education, healthcare; obtain very good
pensions; can retire at age of, say, 45; then double dip,
etcetc.
don’t you think they’d defend the SYSTEM with their lives or
any method whatever???
true, a second political party may not change much, if
anything, even in a decade. it may take decades to obtain
some changes [perhaps even centuries/millennia?]
however, i cannot see any other way to pare down not only
american supremacists’, but also world supremacists’
enorm military-econo-monetary-politico-educational
powers.
a power must meet an opposing power in order to stop or
Report thisdiminish it. it’s a natural event. it is as natural to be a
master [utter or not or to any undesirable degree] of war
and people as not being owned to a degree that you don’t
approve of.
tnx bozhidar balkas vancouver
By PowderhornPops, November 21, 2011 at 12:44 pm Link to this comment
This article seems to take the assumption that many do about the movement - it’s a left/right thing. It’s not. It’s a change thing. There are many ideals form the movement that line up with ideals of the “left” as well as those of the “right”. The movement’s ideals will inevitably occupy the majority. It’s just a matter of time (current policies will need to make a 180 to avoid it). Again and again and again it is said that the movement isn’t political in terms if left v right or dem v rep or red v blue. People can’t get their head around this. This is a civil rights movement if any label needs to be afixed.
A quick look at headlines shows the future of the movement. In Spain the 99% stayed away from polls in record numbers due to the lack of viable choices. In Egypt the democracy by the people that was fought for was obviously not going to come and the people have returned to the fight.
This movement will not stop until democracy is handed back to the people. Whether it is delivered from the left or the right is up to the left or the right - the seeds exist in both sides. However first, both sides need to come to their senses and enable this one simple demand - People before Profits.
Report thisBy objective observer, November 21, 2011 at 12:39 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“success”? what success?
as far as stereotypes, what about the vitriol cast at the “teaparty” by the left end of the spectrum
Report thisBy EmileZ, November 21, 2011 at 10:51 am Link to this comment
@ Troy Davis
Sorry, that was a bit severe, but I do think you should reconsider.
Perhaps there could be a statewide march instead, visiting all the towns and cities, ending in the capitol.
If you are going to go what is it 5000 miles, you might at least consider making it a bike ride.
How about when Vermont gets its single-payer system up and running, everyone converges on the capitol via whatever means of transportation, walking, biking, train, etc. (at least carpool if you can’t take a bus) and has a huge celebration followed by a teach in so people can take the organizing and other relevant knowledge with them back to their own states.
Report thisBy EmileZ, November 21, 2011 at 10:12 am Link to this comment
@ Troy Davis
I think your idea is underwhelming.
It engages nobody.
It would be more like an occupy death march.
It has nothing to do with ideas.
Why did the chicken cross the road??
To get to the other side.
What then???
Report thisBy Troy Davis, November 21, 2011 at 10:05 am Link to this comment
EmileZ:
I am completely underwhelmed by your response to my suggestion.
Your response offers nothing of value and merely allows you to vent irrationally against an idea whose time has come.
Occupy America.
If you have something of value to contribute as an alternative to my Occupy America proposal, I would be interested in hearing it.
Otherwise, you’re justing wasting my time.
Report thisBy balkas, November 21, 2011 at 9:48 am Link to this comment
dionne:
“the problems of growing inequality and abuses by masters of monetary usage” is
not the only problem for the 99% [or, perhaps, 70 to 80% of u.s pop].
the ultimate problem is the system, itself. and even the “growing inequality” may be
viewed as a planned and willfully executed systemic policy and thus not growing at
all, but solely planned and willed, nay, commanded, by the system/constitution/all
u.s laws. [and not to mention clergy, plutocrats, army echelons, cia agents, judges,
MSM, most ‘educators, et al]
in addition—whether due to lack of spac-etime or whatever—dionne does not note
also [and what seems to me] ‘growing’ inequality of some of the ethnic groups in u.s
and ‘growing’ carnage/oppression/threats against some ‘aliens’ on this planet and
their insecurity.
from time to time—and not often enough to be of much value; especially if causes
for it are not posited or postulated—it is reported that ‘jews’, anglosaxons are the
most affluent voelker in u.s and canada.
now, is this systemic or not? i think it is. or does this just ‘grow’, and like a tree.tnx
Report thisBy truthyouknow17, November 21, 2011 at 9:00 am Link to this comment
OCCUPY WALL STREET SHOULD CALL FOR
THE 99% TO CAST THEIR VOTE FOR
THE RE-OCCUPATION OF LIBERTY SQUARE
We congratulate Occupy Wall Street for its demonstration of the potential power that resides in the 99+%.
Report thisHowever, Wall Street and political elites now seek to destroy the movement for change America can truly believe in.
We are engaged with an adversary that chooses to destroy us rather than negotiate.
That leaves us with only two options:
To capitulate and be destroyed or to rise up and fight back.
Occupy Wall Street is now facing that choice.
Fighting back is an easy decision when faced with destruction.
How to fight back is also easy.
We will call upon our families to turn Black Friday White.
Every American can and should close their pocketbooks and wallets and stay at home or participate in a cultural event or worship at a place of their choosing the God that America proclaims to trust in.
The American business community deserves to make $0.00 dollars because it has chosen to let the 99.9+% be wiped out while the less than one percent live as if they were in pre-revolutionary France.
We urge the Occupy movement to respond to the aristocracy with a call for a national boycott –White Friday, to begin on Thursday, November 24, 2011, at noon and continue through Friday, November 25, 2011, when the 99+% will cast their vote supporting Occupy Wall Street’s return to Liberty Square.
We will vote to SHUT DOWN THE STORES.
This will be the first step of the 99+%’s NATIONAL SHUT DOWN CAMPAIGN.
Dr. Danielle Pritchett
Emanuel A. Towns
Occupy Wall Street Supporters
By EmileZ, November 21, 2011 at 8:37 am Link to this comment
@ Troy Davis
I am sure Forest Gump would be proud.
Fuck Forest Gump!!!
Report thisBy Troy Davis, November 21, 2011 at 8:15 am Link to this comment
The solution is as simple as it is complex from a logistics standpoint.
Occupy America!
Start in California with a “March Across America”!
Begin on the Pacific [no pun intended] Ocean and march to the the Atlantic.
March through the southwest and deep south in the winter and move up the Atlantic coast to Washington, D.C. arriving in the late spring.
Then move back across America during the late spring and summer traveling through the “heartland of America” back to California.
There will millions of people who will join the Occupy America march and tens of millions will converge on the Capital in D.C. in late spring with a massive protest that will be larger than even the “million man march” or the speech Martin Luther King, Jr. gave there, too.
The logistics need to be worked out but it can and should be done.
Occupy America.
Report thisBy m@earth, November 21, 2011 at 7:41 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
But, in a movement of the 99%, where is the camera when the picture is being
Report thistaken? Yes, it is not the 60s anymore. But. The work OWS, has indeed picked up
is the unfinished business 1968 bottled up, buried, beat down and killed. The call
MLK held out for economic justice. That note is the one which really resounds
between the two generations. Wall street, and its corporate citizenhood have
tipped the scales of justice too far in their direction, and have (legally) gotten away
with it for far too long. We, the people, know that. It is as plain as day. Some
cities, and its populations and their industries know it far better, and have in turn,
worn it far worse than others.
By Joseph Couture, November 21, 2011 at 7:29 am Link to this comment
People were wondering why the poor weren’t showing up to support the local Occupy protesters where I live. So I asked a homeless man to explain to me why he hadn’t been there. His answer will break your heart.
Read “Preoccupied in Hell” at http://www.josephcouture.com
Report thisBy Proteus, November 21, 2011 at 6:44 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Mr. Dionne:
What people’s revolution are YOU watching?!?! Nothing about OWS and the international movement in sympathy with it “[fits] nicely with current media conventions.” The mainstream media, which couldn’t be bothered even to mention OWS for most of the first month of its existence, continues to complain that the group has no leaders and no specific goals. It continues to focus on drum circles and young people sporting unconventional piercings and hairstyles. It loves inarticulate and clueless folks fumbling for an explanation of why they dropped by an occupation for an afternoon, but seems oblivious to the numerous published statements of OWS or the eloquent enunciations of its principles by its core participants.
The media also does NOT show cops pepper-spraying seated, peaceful protestors screaming in agony; it does not show cops arriving in the dead of night with saws-alls, batons, and sound canons to remove citizens from parks and public squares that their tax dollars have paid to maintain. It doesn’t point out that the dozens of cities around the country where occupations have been “dismantled” seldom enforce the ill-fitting or irrelevant ordinances that they cite as their authority for destroying private property and to justify the use of chemicals, sound, and blunt force trauma against those whose most aggressive action is to shout “shame on you!”
You say “ongoing violent demonstrations simply will not help the cause.” Again I ask what people’s revolution are YOU watching? You have NOT seen a single “violent demonstration.” You have only seen violent suppression of peaceful protest. The fact that you spread this meme (concocted by the media you say understand us so well) tells anyone who has shivered in the cold with a sign, been clubbed by a cop for peaceably assembling to petition the government for redress of grievances, been pepper-sprayed, been dragged by the hair, been disoriented by LRAD sound canons, or arrested on false charges that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Your advice is to take a page out of MLK’s notebook? Seriously!? You haven’t seen the signs quoting him? Haven’t heard occupiers remind each other each time the Darth Vader wannabes line up and point their truncheons at them to stay peaceful, to take the moral high road? This sort of patronizing and ill-informed characterization of what Occupy is all about is why you and other members of the mainstream media have NO credibility with us. Your notion that the best thing Occupy can do now is get involved in conventional politics tells us you have missed how utterly corrupt and corrupting the current system is.
The primary symbol of the grievances that this protest is highlighting is the homeless person’s daily life on the street. As more and more citizens are forced from their homes by illegal foreclosures and as part of the fallout of criminal activity in the financial, banking, and real estate “industries,” the tent, the burn barrel, and the misery of living out in the weather is less and less symbolic and increasingly lived reality.
For a fraction of the cost of hiring private paramilitaries and paying cops overtime and hazard pay to suppress protest, cities across the country could have supplied porta-johns and a few extra dumpsters if their actual concern was that occupations are unsanitary. The fact they didn’t tells anyone with eyes what is the ACTUAL motive of this seemingly coordinated national effort to “evict” protestors from public spaces: to intimidate them into shutting up.
Report thisBy IMax, November 21, 2011 at 6:01 am Link to this comment
“Demonstrators should obey the law.”
“That is good advice—as a general matter, but also as a political matter. If the Occupiers need to battle right-wing efforts to turn them into Abbie Hoffmans and Jerry Rubins (whom many of the Occupiers never heard of), they also need to resist a lefty sort of nostalgia.”
“Thus the question going forward: Will the Occupy movement play into the hands of its enemies by living up to the stereotypes they are trying to create? Or will it instead move to a new phase that builds on its success?”
It’s long past time for an actual plan.
Report thisBy amongthepeople, November 21, 2011 at 3:48 am Link to this comment
Reposted from Truthdig’s Occupy Wall Street Dig:
If you’re a STUDENT JOURNALIST and you’re into #OWS,
you should go to Top40-Charts.com and click the youth
power ad banner for the sake of unity.
Be prepared to think in terms of the 100% and not
Report thisjust the 99% because the youth power movement is
practical and determined to succeed fast where
divisive movements struggle indefinitely.
By karenmillen, November 21, 2011 at 1:48 am Link to this comment
I hope it won’t be too difficult for you to separate the fact from fiction or to try to muster up a bit more enthusiasm for the movement and the broad, systemic change it is hoping to achieve.
Report thisBy EmileZ, November 21, 2011 at 1:27 am Link to this comment
I think Bernie Sanders “filibuster” speech on the senate floor late last year was a harbinger of what is now unfolding.
The OWS movement has little if any power to effect political change, it is a consciousness raising movement. I am confident (or at least optimistic) that it will not only not go away, but more focused organizing will begin to emerge, both on specific issues (this is already happening to some extent), and around ways to replace bought-off corporate politicians who really don’t have a clue what they stand for or what they are doing, with decent people (like Bernie Sanders) into more and more elected offices at both the national and local level. These are long term goals.
It has only been two months. Right now,(and perhaps for years to come) I still believe they should try to mobilize as many people as possible.
I think Mr. Dionne’s fear of right-wing smear attacks is either stupid or disingenous, as they are going to occur anyway. Remember ACORN Mr. Dionne. The fodder you are so afraid of will be manufactured whole-cloth regardless.
I hope it won’t be too difficult for you to separate the fact from fiction or to try to muster up a bit more enthusiasm for the movement and the broad, systemic change it is hoping to achieve.
Good luck.
Report thisBy public takeover, November 21, 2011 at 12:34 am Link to this comment
EJ EJ EJ. The integrity of OWS is in responding accurately to the will of the direct participants.
The general assembly, the movement’s organizing and communication tool, doesn’t give a mike check to pundits, opinion-peddlers, politicians, lobbyists or would-be influential outsiders.
It’s about real democracy for real, grass roots citizens, not profiteers and professional Democrats and Republicans.
Start a general Assembly in your community and put everything you have into strengthening it now.
That’s OWS’s advice to you, and to all of us.
Report this