2012: Occupy the Planet
BY BRIAN MCCORMACK
Perhaps, it has begun. The mass awakening. Up in the ivory towers, the elites are getting nervous. They are starting to take notice. You can accomplish a lot with the lion’s share of the world’s wealth, but there is one chink in the armor of the affluent: we outnumber them. 99 to 1, so it seems, and it has been a well-kept secret. Until now. Just when you thought civil disobedience was dead in this great nation, the unkempt majority are finding their voice. It isn’t a singular voice flooding the airwaves with a list of demands, however. It isn’t one specific ideology tempting to suppress the opposition. It certainly is not a moement that can be pigeonholed, and damn it, if you aren’t a part of it yet, you should at least be supporting it! Support what?
The Occupy Wall Street movement, that’s what. Because despite what the commentators on the right desperately want you to believe, this is not a just a group of hippies latching onto an excuse to form a drum circle in order to drive the establishment crazy. This is a ballsy, determined group of Americans (and their international supporters), who will brave the cold, forfeit the comforts of bitching about the state of our country on the internet, and endure the seemingly endless bouts of police brutality for the noble cause of bringing these grievances to the front door of the perpetrators. What started as a buzz on some social networking sites culminated with thousands of protesters swarming New York City’s Zuccotti Park last September, which has since become a sort of unofficial headquarters for the movement that has now swept through dozens of major cities, hundreds of communities, and taken root in metro areas as far away as Malaysia. The widespread support to fight economic tyranny and systemic corruption leading to social inequality is proof that this is not the simple, usual flareup of discontent, but a bona fide wave of anger sent to wash over the oppressors.
When pushed though, the establishment pushes back. Certain mainstream media cowards have tried to marginalize the protesters. They want those uninvolved to believe it’s just a rag-tag group of miscreants with nothing better to do than cause trouble for the fabled job creators. They want you to believe that it is simply a gang of thugs, hanging out in the streets troubling the honest citizen on his or her way to work. Smoking pot and engaging in casual sex. (Can you blame them?) The police have been on 24/7 notice. Standing by with cans of mace, just waiting for anyone to step over an arbitrary line so they canrationalize the use of force against citizens for exercising their Constitutionally protected rights. The real thugs, apparently, are theones we have entrusted with badges and guns. With few exceptions, those who have taken to the streets have upheld their vow of holding non-violent demonstrations. From most firsthand accounts, the police are the ones who aren’t playing nice. And often, it’s the city officials ordering the police to behave this way. Many mayors have even “evicted” citizens. Zuccotti Park was forcefully vacated by the authorities, but in a brazen move, OWS supporters stormed the barricades on New Year’s Eve, and took back the area. They even brought back the 99% “Bat Signal”,a projection light focused on an adjacent building to remind the world that they are in this for the long haul.
At first, even I, a political columnist and sometimes activist, cast a skeptical eye on the movement. Grand though it was, this is America. We don’t generally stray from our laptops and plasma screens for too long. And as a former New Yorker, I know the winters there can be brutal. I gave it a month.
patriots won’t bend. They will go to jail, bond out, and head back to the park to protest. They will get maced, handcuffed, and humiliated, and return for more. Why? Because it’s all we have left. It’s time, they say, to break the shackles that financial institutions keep us in, by proxy of our politicians. No matter what your political beliefs, be you a staunch TEA Party, right wing Libertarian, or a leftist, bleeding heart tree hugger (like me), don’t write this movement off just yet. And if you like what your fellow countrymen are doing, go join them!
It may seem like it’s hopeless. We are fighting the most insulated, the most funded, and possibly the most malevolent group of criminals this generation has ever seen. Much of our nation is consumed with the proverbial rat race, taking comfort only in sports, reality television and other common distractions designed to force us into a state of complacent obedience. Others simply don’t care, and prefer the ostrich approach. Some just feel overwhelmed and insignificant next to such a lofty cause.
As for me, beneath my layer of sedimentary cynicism, lies optimism which is stirring once again, ready to bubble to the surface like a long dormant volcano whose pressure is once again building. I was wrong about the fortititude these protesters posess, therefore I could be wrong about a lot of other things. With the pen, I will do my part to lift this movement up. When the time comes, I too will march on the streets, and if we get a few million more of us behind this thing, we can dismantle the very machine that consistently lubricates its moving parts with the sweat from the poor and the middle class’s back.
