Occupy Wigan Pier: an Op-Ed on the State of Occupy Seattle

I have written supportively of Occupy Seattle in the past, and while I stand by those comments, the protests that gave me so much hope a week ago have become a source of frustration and anxiety.

This movement started because broad swathes of the public had become fed up with specific trends in our society: the influence of wealth in our political process (particularly from large corporations and financial institutions), and an unequal economy that has been stagnate at best for all but the wealthiest. But rather than get behind the sudden, popular push for reform on these issues, Occupy Seattle is frequently distracted by a cacophony of niche concerns and generic desire for confrontation with any convenient representative of "the establishment."

When I went to my first big protest in 2003 against the invasion of Iraq, I was shocked to see how many protesters seemed to be at the wrong event. There were signs and slogans against capitalism, marijuana prohibition, American involvement in Haiti, the war in Afghanistan, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, racism, and police brutality, to name some. Many of the causes I saw championed were worthy ones, but few had more than a tangential relationship with the imminent war. At every protest I've attended in the subsequent eight years, regardless of the issue, I see signs, banners, entire scenes that remain absolutely unchanging, and I can't help but wonder how many potential sympathizers and supporters take a look, think "standard protest freak show" and never bother to notice the actual cause of the march. It's particularly heartbreaking when I see this happen to a movement claiming to represent nearly all Americans, and which polling suggest majorities of the country would be inclined to support.

Thinking over these frustrations brought to mind a quotation from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier:

...there is the horrible- the really disquieting- prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words "Socialism" and "Communism" draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

Obviously, most of the occupiers wouldn't call themselves socialists, and many of those words don't have the connotations in the USA in 2011 that they did in Britain in 1937, but the sentiment was enough to make me re-read the book over the weekend, and I found it shed more light on what's going on at Westlake (and all over the country) than any cable news rant or glib editorial.

Orwell's book describes the horrible conditions in the coal-mining towns of northern England. In Orwell's time, it was only the socialists who promised to alleviate, or even bothered to address such miseries, so it perplexed Orwell that the miners he met weren't ardent socialists. Aren't we liberals asking ourselves the same questions about Occupy Seattle? How are there only token crowds at many Occupations, when large majorities of the country are disgusted with corporate America's greed and corrupting influence on our political process, and frustrated by economic inequality?

One conclusion Orwell reached is the socialists themselves did very little to reach out to the people they claimed to be helping, and activism (as practiced by the British left of the 30s) actually deterred more supporters than it attracted. Too often, I see the same dynamic at Westlake. I see a segment there for whom this is more about rebellious self-expression than achieving any reforms- about rejecting society rather than rejecting certain harmful aspects of our society. A movement that's about reforming our politics and economy, and represents 99% of Americans needs to be winning people over and getting skeptics to get past their cynicism listen to a message that is broadly appealing. Turning the Occupations away from their original goals into a counterculture crie de couer is the fastest way to get the vast majority of Americans to write you off as a gang of kooks. The conservatives consistently win over middle America by caricaturing the left as wavy-gravy weirdos, why do we insist on doing their work for them?

I'm not suggesting some people stop being involved with the movement, or trying to make any dictates, but the fewer people are staying with the occupation every night, and the city is largely indifferent- something is wrong. Once again, I'll borrow the words of a more eloquent writer

The only thing for which we can combine is the underlying ideal of Socialism; justice and liberty. But it is hardly strong enough to call this ideal 'underlying.' It is almost completely forgotten. It has been buried beneath layer after layer of doctrinaire priggishness, party squabbles, and half-baked 'progressivism' until it is like a diamond hidden under a mountain of dung. The job of the Socialist is to get it out again. Justice and liberty! Those are the words that have got to ring like a bugle across the world. For a long time past, certainly for the last ten years, the devil has had all the best tunes.

I don't think we should be fighting for socialism- we have our own gem of justice and liberty to extricate from our own dung heap. Occupy Seattle could be a powerful force for good, but it's time to start digging.

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By Everett Rummage in News on October 27, 2011 4:15 PM 0 Comments

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peacegranny

People have been unhappy for a long time, especially as more and more are abandoned by the promises made by those who claim to lead. Participatory democracy is what the Occupy movements are about which means the most marginalized will be there among those newly whapped by the growing reality of coporate takeover of everything. Sadly, the solid basis that will keep the movement going is the terrible financial struggles most are faced with and some, at least 40%, have always been mired within. I do believe the originial call put out is one that failed from inception to be inclusively articulate about who is impacted most severely. If room is made to educate and be educated, i suspect unity could blossom in powerfully unexpected ways. My first experience participating in a meeting at Occupy Seattle was called by a young Black man wishing to educate people how to deal effectively with media notorious for misrepresenting and twisting what people say. A circle was formed comprised overwhelmingly of white men. Soon they circled tighter closing out the women and some of the men. I asked twice for people to keep it open enough for all to hear and participate.

I will summarize by saying that a self appointed white male with a laptop took notes and decided all by himself than anything about cross cultural awareness would be eliminated as being "too controversial". I kept my mouth shut as i was not about to drag my points on being new to the methods being used. Well, these methods, old and past usefulness, apparently are dominating at most Occupies across the country. Equality is mere lip service.

If no effort is made to grapple with why people are there, why they came, what has happened to them, what can be done about it and most significantly, how all of us are directly impacted by corporate take over, then confusion will rise out of the fog of righteous frustration. Some, primarily People of Color and the very poor, have been shoved into the mire of hideous circumstances due to corporate profiteering which utlizes the isms that divide us to maintain separation instituted since European invasion. And it is the more and most privileged who claim that talking about it is what is keeping us divided. So insane.

We must hear the stories of Peabody Coal Company strip mining the lands of traditiona Dineh (Navajo) people in northeastern Arizona since 1966. Lehman Brothers, the first big financiers to go down heralding the beginning of the current crisis, was the main shareholder in Peabody. Over 14,000 Dineh people were forcibly relocated over 25 years. Half of them are dead from stress related illnesses, homicicde, suicide, cancer , etc. That needs to be known by those who have been saddled with student loans, no jobs, forclosures, loss of their homes, etc. There are myriad such hidden horror stories. Camping all night should give people time to hear a decent sampling.

How do we learn the stories of what has happened to people in our respective communtities so we can pull truly together and take care of each other on these crucial frontlines where all these potent gatherings of very harmed people are happening? Oakland, which has a long hsitory of police abuse directed at People of Color, especially African Americans, will be illuminating more and more it's story after the unprecedented attack by riot police dawn of October 25th. We need to sieze these opportunities to learn the spectrum of impacts by corporate greed and how it is shaped according to communities based on racism, classism, sexism, ablism, elitism and all the oppressive dynamics that harm us all. We have a unique opportunity to tease out some of the kinks and atrocities that have kept us segregated from what is truly going on as a result of hidden and blatant corporate greed. It is what ultimatley ties everyone of us together. We are all in the same sinking boat.