October 04, 2011

Occupy wherever

I've taken part in some interesting conversations, virtual and real, over the last few days about the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spread way beyond Wall Street these days. At first, I wasn't inclined to pay much attention. I've seen em come and go.

But something strange happened. It just kept growing, not only in Wall Street but all around the country. Jeez, they're even planning to Occupy Huntington WV on Friday and actions are also planned for Morgantown and Wheeling. It's kind of interesting to see something pretty spontaneous erupting all over.

Nobody seems to be in charge. The fact that tons of younger people are getting involved, probably for the first time, is something you don't see every day.

This seems to be happening on a much bigger scale than the much touted right wing anti-health care reform bullying that helped put the Tea Party on the map at congressional town hall meetings in 2009.

A common criticism of these new actions is that they seem to take a (nonviolent) shotgun approach, meaning that they cover the map of issues rather than getting too specific. And from what I've seen, there's some validity to that. I tend to be pretty specific and focused about issues I've worked on. Still, it's interesting and exciting to see such a spontaneous series of actions raising economic justice issues.

It's still too soon to see whether this is a flash in the pan or the start of something big. You never can tell. Historically, a lot of big things start out small and messy. It doesn't happen very often, but it happens.

The American Friends Service Committee is encouraging staff and volunteers who have the inclination and the ability to take part in actions, provided these actions are nonviolent, that they target issues rather than specific individuals, and that they lift up the dignity of all individuals.

I'm reminded of a couple of verses from the New Testament book of Acts. The Rabbi Gamaliel, when asked about the nascent Christian movement urges a wait and see approach:

"if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; if it be of men, it will come to naught, but if it be of God, ye will not be able to overthrow it; lest perhaps ye be found even to fight against God."


I don't mean to drag God into this literally, but I like Gamaliel's point. This may fizzle out or it may have legs. We'll see. Messy or not, I'd like to see it run like hell.

2 comments:

Zack said...

Welcome to the "faceless resistance" brother. It is way past time for this to have happened. Our founding fathers went to war for a lot less than what our government is doing now. I would like to find the correlation between the groups though. It seems as though a bunch of left wing hippy types started this movement, however it's turned into a tea party type thing showing a sense of unity across party and personal lines. They are all screaming for the same thing but I bet if they actually went to the table to make changes I firmly belive the group would divide and devour eachother (the same as congress, well all politics). Back to the idea of the correlation between groups... I find it quite curious, all of it. I want to know who is behind it. who sent the disidents. If we exclude violence it's the same type of thing that Benjamin Franklin Peirce, the founder of the National Alliance, talked and wrote about. Well it's the same type of faceless acts that all hate groups, speratist groups, militias, and "home grown terrorist groups" dream of using. Which turns this back to an extremely jaded right wing not the libs and hippies. Speaking of home grown terrorist, I just read a list put out by "big brother" that stated the the U.S. Military Vets MC was the largest home grown terror organization. Like a sleeper. Really? Our Vetrans. the should have ranked everything under the umbrella of our government as number one. For example, The Department of Homeland Security, the Tsa, and FEMA. FEMA has a larger defense budget than the FBI and the CIA. FEMA also has a seperate government in place and can take over if we claim a national state of emergency. The big question here is what side do we want to be on. I'm happy these people protesting, the faceless idea is brilliant to one fatal point, and that is the is no unified opinion and set of demands should we get to a bargaining phase. Just a personal opinion of mine but maybe all of these folks should get behind Ron Paul who has been screaming all of this rhetoric, all be it true, for years. Get him elected and your spokesman is then the president. You can't get a better voice than that.

zack said...

Sorry about the typo's and gramatical errors I forgot to review it.