Tag Archives: Occupy Wall Street

Political Rants

In the street.

While they’re all talking about the Sopranos … let’s talk about something that’s actually happening in the actual world. Like the uprisings in Turkey and in Brazil.

First, the way the U.S. press covers the government response to these protests is interesting, to say the least. I suppose they are so overcome by the loss of James Gandolfini that they have forgotten how harshly our own various municipal police forces cracked down on the Occupy Wall Street movement just eighteen months ago or so. The developing world doesn’t have a corner on repression, not by a long shot.

The only way things changeStill, it’s interesting that in both cases, the original impetus for the protest was a decision by the government affecting public services. Both Turkey and Brazil have been touted as relatively successful governments, and yet beneath many success stories there is often another story to tell, that of the poor, the working people, those left behind. You can see them in Brazil, in China, in India, in Turkey, just as you can see them here in the United States. True, the standard of living in Brazil has improved vastly over the last decade. But the people protesting increased transit fares are making us aware of the work that is yet to be done.

This did not come out of nowhere. The core of the movement in Brazil are organizers who have been working for years towards greater social and economic justice. These activists and the landless peasant movement was substantially responsible for the somewhat more progressive shift of national governments, starting with Lula’s election. (See this article in the New York Times.) I’m sure the same can be said of the people standing in the park in Turkey.

America is no different. Occupy Wall Street didn’t come out of thin air either. It was the next chapter of resistance to a society that rewards criminality on the part of the privileged and protects the powerful from accountability. From Ankara to Sao Paulo to New York, mass movements remain the best way to get our leaders to stop, listen, and act.

Feet on the street – that’s what does it, every time.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Occupatience.

This has been quite a year. Who would have thought it? One that started with massive uprisings in the middle east and is ending with a major economic justice movement in the United States – perhaps even more unlikely than the popular overthrow of Mubarak. Now we’ve seen renewed attempts to evict the protesters from Zucotti Park and other encampments across the country, but as many have said, you cannot kill an idea. The Occupy movement has gotten people accustomed to standing up again. And to paraphrase Dr. King, a man – even if he’s a millionaire – can’t ride on your back when you stand up straight.

And contrary to what is argued by Ayn Rand acolytes like Paul Ryan and (Ayn) Rand Paul, the wealthy truly do ride on the backs of working people. That has always been the case. Rand imagined the world being brought to a standstill by a wealthy, innovative class of overlords who withhold their beneficent participation in Rand’s dystopian top-down economy. The truth is, they are far more reliant on us than we are on them. Sure, the wealthy can choose to invest their capital in ways that create jobs. But where did that capital come from? How does an industrialist, a banker, an entrepreneur, an oil executive gather all that wealth? Mostly through the under-compensated labor of millions of workers.

The supply siders are always touting small businesses as the primary engine of our economy, so let’s use them as an example. Take a small to medium-sized privately held company. The owner hires people to create whatever product or service the firm sells, whether it be mint jelly or Web applications. Increased productivity means fewer workers doing more work, so the incentive is always there for small business owners to lay people off and shift their responsibilities to their fellow workers. This happens all the time, as anyone who’s ever held a job in a small company knows very well. This is the process by which fortunes can be made. If those workers refuse – if all workers withhold their labor, Galt-like, that’s what would bring the whole thing to a halt. We’ve seen owner-less factories work just fine everywhere from Argentina to right here at home. Name one worker-less factory.

The occupy movement shows that we have a long road ahead of us. But thanks to them, we can say – astoundingly – that we’ve actually begun that journey to a better nation.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Failure to add.

It’s almost November, and the occupations are continuing. With so much bad news on so many fronts, this is a little bit of good. Movements often emerge at the most unexpected times, in the most unexpected ways. And while the titanic unfairness of our economic system (as currently operated) should lead us to expect a massive uprising, I think we have experienced so many years of seeing so little reaction to outrageous assaults by the powerful that we have come to believe the response will never come. Well, the occupation movement is a response; how broadly it will resonate has yet to be seen.

I think it’s worth remembering that in Egypt, in Tunisia, and likely elsewhere, it was economics that really lit the fire under people. Torture in police custody, exclusion from meaningful political participation, persecution of minorities … abuses of every kind and character were endured by Egyptians – not without resistance, mind you, but without broad outrage. It wasn’t until Mubarak instituted substantial neoliberal economic “reforms”, opening up the Egyptian economy to greater international corporate penetration, that people had had enough. Now not only did you lack a voice in government and enjoy no constitutional rights when detained; you also could not make even the meager living you were making a year or two before. In a nation of extreme economic inequality, this was more broadly felt even then the hard end of the police baton. Everyone was affected.

Something similar has happened here. When Bush invaded Afghanistan, relatively few people stood in the street. When he invaded Iraq, the crowds were much bigger, but still not massive enough even to slow the administration down. But when our overleveraged, underregulated banking system imploded, exposing the corruption within these massive institutions, and our government’s only response was to throw literally trillions of dollars at them while millions of Americans were put out of work, that was a little hard to ignore. Now banks and businesses are sitting atop a pile of cash probably larger than any in history. Now firms are making their remaining employees do the work of two, three, perhaps four, knowing that they will not complain in this job market. Now people are seeing that without meaningful intervention on the side of working people, capitalism reverts to its core principles – one of which is maintaining a large surplus labor force to keep pressure on wages down.

Perhaps now people are waking up and realizing why the 1% is not adding any employees: because this economy works for them. It just doesn’t work for the rest of us.

luv u,

jp