Awake, At Last?

I’m a fan of the Occupy Wall Street movement. What started as a small encampment has grown and migrated to hundreds of cities, and is now too large for the mainstream media to ignore, though that massive house organ for the corporate status quo has done its level best to downplay, denigrate and ridicule the protesters.

This is the way powerful elites react when threatened.

The next tack the elites take is to call on the Law.

But having seen in other parts of the world what can happen when the masses become aroused, you can bet the American political and business elite -- which is now one and the same thing -- are beginning to comprehend that their long run of privilege and prerogative is nearing an end.

That end can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned. The Ayn Rand philosophy that seeped into the political system like toxic sludge over three decades has now poisoned that system. All the talk about producers and parasites, the inherent merits of the wealthy and the inherent imperfections of the poor, the evils of taxation and big government, immigration and equal rights, has proven to be pure, stinking, steaming BS.

America is a weaker country today, a more divided and polarized country, and a country that has misplaced its mojo and is in danger of chucking its soul – primarily because of the unfettered and unaccountable corporate power that drives the economy and controls the political system.

The people camping on Wall Street and marching on Bank of America and Wells Fargo branches in other cities understand, even if they struggle to articulate their feelings, that something has gone terribly wrong in this country, and that it hasn’t happened overnight; they realize that the country has tipped off its axis, that too much power rests in too few hands, and that this arrangement severely limits the options of ordinary people. You can’t graduate from college toting $25 or $30 grand in student loan debt, work a wage slave job for $9 an hour because that’s all you can find -- sans benefits or health insurance, of course -- and expect to prosper. No matter how hard you work, you can’t get ahead under those conditions.

The Wall Street protestors and the diverse group calling itself the Other 99% understand that the working class and the poor are held accountable, while the wealthy absolve themselves of all responsibility. The people also understand that American-style capitalism is prone to choke on its own excess, and that we are living in one of these periods now.

Where is it written that ours is a nation of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy?

One of the brighter aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it has shown staying power and resilience. This alone is reason for cautious hope that the movement – if it isn’t co-opted along the way -- might actually budge the status quo back toward the moderate middle. The lesson is clear as can be: when ordinary people decide they’ve had enough and take to the streets, they must be prepared to remain in the streets until the power elite sees them, hears them, feels them and, most critically, is bothered by their presence.

If you listen closely you can hear the faint stirrings of the American people – the real American people -- not the mythic people right-wing conservatives repeatedly invoke in their speeches. Listen, that’s Joe Hill stirring in his grave, and over there, Woody Guthrie is dusting off his guitar. Cesar Chavez is moving, Martin and Malcom and Medgar are moving, John L. Lewis is moving, Walter Reuther is moving, up toward terra firma and the light of day where justice is found.