Having left the Occupy Wall Street folks alone until now, their eviction from parks around the country creates an opportunity to reflect that I would like to address. Squatting in public places is a good attention getter, but alone, it is not going to accomplish anything.
Not every opinion spouter offers full disclosure, but I do. Therefore, I admit that I have not attended a demonstration since 1969, although I did march in a union picket line a few years ago. And, to be honest, in ’69, I was on the other side as a Military Policeman.
That perspective inspires my first point. The police are part of the 99%. Embrace them. (Not literally, of course, that could get ugly.) I’ve heard several protestors on the news say things to the effect of “Now I’ve seen a police state.” That is a bad direction to go. For centuries, the rich and privileged have pitted groups of the oppressed classes against each other. When the French peasants stormed the Bastille, they could not have succeeded except for the soldiers who were sent to crush them and instead joined them.
That may be a little too dramatic to expect on American streets, but think of staging a day of protest in defense of first responders—police and fire and EMTs—who have seen their numbers cut, their pay and pensions cut, and who still go out every day, often risking their lives for the rest of us. Tell the cops that “We’re doing this for you.” Some won’t appreciate the gesture, but some will.
The thing to remember is that cops don’t like disorder. In part, that’s why many of them joined the force—to bring order and sanity to a brutal world. More than that, every cop knows that losing control of a situation can cost him his life. And, we’re not being hyperbolic as in, “I got killed in the stock market.” So, tell the nice policeman what you are planning to do. Apologize for making him arrest you but explain that you need the publicity to fight the bastard bankers who are screwing with his retirement savings.
And, remember the Bastille!
The other lesson to take from the French Revolution is what happened after the Bastille fell. The Committee of Public Safety couldn’t agree on much except that there were always more heads to cut off. That chaos led to the rise of Napoleon.
So, the movement needs to coalesce around some basic goals and then do what it takes to achieve them.
Allow me to offer a few: 1) Re-instate the Glass-Steagall Act which was instituted after the Great Depression to prevent a recurrence of financial collapse—and it worked right up until it was repealed. Bring it back. Get the hot dogs out of banking and make that industry dull and reliable once more. 2) If you or I went into a bank and took one of their chairs we would be arrested. Bankers have taken entire houses from people who never missed a payment on their mortgages. Insist that the Attorney General employ the RICO statute to prosecute the conspiracy surrounding those thefts. Put the offending bankers and their bosses in prison. 3) The reason Congress is a mess is because financing for campaigns has become more important than votes. We need some tough campaign finance reform. Money is inherently corrupting. Separate the financing from the politicians. 5) In line with that, let’s have a Constitutional amendment that defines a person as an individual, biological human being. Corporations are not people. They do not have the same rights and privileges.
There you have it. Treat the police as brothers and sisters, and pursue five simple goals. Getting there won’t be easy, but forming a community in a city park isn’t easy either.
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