October 13, 2011--Occupy Wall Street: What's (Hopefully) Going On
Finally the mainstream media are paying attention to the protests on Wall Street. It took some over-zealous New York City police to zap participants with pepper spray to get the attention of the networks, cable news channels, and major newspapers.
It also helped that folks on Fox News, Republican right-wingers, and their corporate and banker patrons denounced the protesters in the most incendiary ways, calling them a "mob" and "anarchists" and class warfare storm troopers. The same people who said not a word when Tea Partiers descended on Washington with pictures of Obama with a Hitler mustache and spit in the faces of Democrat congressmen are in a tizzy that some of the original OWS occupiers are Yippies and anti-globalists. They indeed came in full costume (or topless) and painted faces as Tea Party marchers who equally ridiculously wore paunchy revolutionary garb and tea bags hanging from their ten gallon hats.
Theatrics aside, what's going on?
The Tea Party was mobilized by mainly middle-class, middle-aged people feeling frustrated and angry about the direction in which they saw the country hurtling. They worried that they would lose their jobs, their savings, and their homes. And they were right about that.
Where they fixed the blame, however--on governments in general and Obama in particular was only partly right. The left out the main culprits--the unregulated banks and financial institutions that turned everyday mortgages into chips to be gambled in the world's largest and fixed casinos--the stock and derivatives markets.
But, though they misapplied blame, Tea Party members were justified in being in a rage and were smart and successful enough to seize control of the Republican Party and transform it into an arm of their movement.
it is now maybe the equally frustrated and angry Wall Street progressives' turn.
While at the heart of the Tea Party movement was the realization that middle-class people's homes and savings were in peril, for most of the early OWS organizers and participants what was at risk is their future. Young people this time are in the lead. And the self-motivation activating them is the perception that though they did what was required to prepare for work and careers they cannot find decent jobs, and if they are fortunate enough to find any they are likely to be underemployed and earn much less than they would have a few years ago.
An astonishing 65 percent of young college graduates are living at home with their parents because they can't pay for places of their won and see little to be optimistic about.
They are also taking note of the fact that not everyone is struggling. Indeed, an essential part of their agenda is to take public note of the dramatic expansion of the wealth gap. Whereas in the early 1980s only 10 percent of the national income was concentrated in the hands of the top 1 percent, currently that top 1 percent's share is 23.5 percent and as a result it is looking as if we are moving into a new Gilded Age.
It is too soon to know if what we are witnessing in the streets will lead to a progressive equivalent to the Tea Party; but Democrats, including President Obama, are showing early signs of support for this new form of Populism.
Perhaps, then, we will see a genuine debate about our state of affairs, including how we got into this mess and how each side sees us recovering.
It also helped that folks on Fox News, Republican right-wingers, and their corporate and banker patrons denounced the protesters in the most incendiary ways, calling them a "mob" and "anarchists" and class warfare storm troopers. The same people who said not a word when Tea Partiers descended on Washington with pictures of Obama with a Hitler mustache and spit in the faces of Democrat congressmen are in a tizzy that some of the original OWS occupiers are Yippies and anti-globalists. They indeed came in full costume (or topless) and painted faces as Tea Party marchers who equally ridiculously wore paunchy revolutionary garb and tea bags hanging from their ten gallon hats.
Theatrics aside, what's going on?
The Tea Party was mobilized by mainly middle-class, middle-aged people feeling frustrated and angry about the direction in which they saw the country hurtling. They worried that they would lose their jobs, their savings, and their homes. And they were right about that.
Where they fixed the blame, however--on governments in general and Obama in particular was only partly right. The left out the main culprits--the unregulated banks and financial institutions that turned everyday mortgages into chips to be gambled in the world's largest and fixed casinos--the stock and derivatives markets.
But, though they misapplied blame, Tea Party members were justified in being in a rage and were smart and successful enough to seize control of the Republican Party and transform it into an arm of their movement.
it is now maybe the equally frustrated and angry Wall Street progressives' turn.
While at the heart of the Tea Party movement was the realization that middle-class people's homes and savings were in peril, for most of the early OWS organizers and participants what was at risk is their future. Young people this time are in the lead. And the self-motivation activating them is the perception that though they did what was required to prepare for work and careers they cannot find decent jobs, and if they are fortunate enough to find any they are likely to be underemployed and earn much less than they would have a few years ago.
An astonishing 65 percent of young college graduates are living at home with their parents because they can't pay for places of their won and see little to be optimistic about.
They are also taking note of the fact that not everyone is struggling. Indeed, an essential part of their agenda is to take public note of the dramatic expansion of the wealth gap. Whereas in the early 1980s only 10 percent of the national income was concentrated in the hands of the top 1 percent, currently that top 1 percent's share is 23.5 percent and as a result it is looking as if we are moving into a new Gilded Age.
It is too soon to know if what we are witnessing in the streets will lead to a progressive equivalent to the Tea Party; but Democrats, including President Obama, are showing early signs of support for this new form of Populism.
Perhaps, then, we will see a genuine debate about our state of affairs, including how we got into this mess and how each side sees us recovering.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:27 AM
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