As I observed in my last post, I think that an OWS focus on debt, as Pamela Brown has been advocated, makes a lot of sense. We discussed this in the Wroclaw seminar. I continue to think about that discussion and how it relates to American electoral politics.

The issue of debt provides a way to keep focus on the frustration of the American Dream as it is part of the experience of many Americans, from the poor to the middle class to even the upper middle class. It is an issue of the concern of the 99%.

Yet, there are many activists in and theorists observing the movement who council against this, such as Jodi Dean. Debt is too individualized a problem. It would be better to focus on an issue of greater common, collective concern (e.g. the environment). The issue of debt is too closely connected to the right wing concern about deficits, and criticism of student debt can too easily become a criticism of higher education.

This presents a serious political problem. There is no broad agreement on debt as the central issue, and no leadership structure or decision making process which can decide on priorities. And of course, there are many other issues of contention. Primary among them, in my judgment, is the question of the relationship between OWS and American electoral politics.

It is here where the activists in OWS, like their new “new social movement” colleagues in Egypt and the Arab world more generally, are not prepared for practical politics. Coordinated strategy is beyond their capacity. One faction’s priority, debt or the reelection of President Obama, is not the concern of another’s, or even a position which it is forthrightly against. There are too many different positions within the movement for it to present a coherent sustained position. People with very different positions were able to join with each other and act politically thanks to the new media, but also thanks to that media, they were not required to work out their differences and priorities. They never developed the means to decide them.

Thus, the secular liberal and socialist activists of Tahrir Square have not played a major role in post Mubarak politics, and thus, OWS is struggling as it approaches its first anniversary of the occupation of Zuccotti Park. It is interesting to note that the serious comments to Brown’s recent article on debt discussed not the issue involved but the means by which the issue has been given priority (the other comments were by anti-OWS readers).  But the story doesn’t end here.  Activists continue their work beyond the glare of the attention of the media mainstream.

The problem of sustaining movements, as they are an outgrowth of the way they have formed, should be noted. Yet, while this all intriguing with interesting theoretical and practical implications, I do not think it is of critical importance. Movements don’t legislate and don’t elect Presidents and parliaments and members of Congress. Rather, they shape the political culture (something which I will reflect on more directly in my next post on new social movements in Russia and Israel). Indeed by helping shape the story people tell themselves about themselves, they lead to legislation and election, and sometimes this takes time. This is where the success of OWS is undeniable.

OWS changed the conversation. Inequality again became an issue of broad public concern in the U.S. and beyond. A simple calculation became a theme infusing discussion around the world: “the 99%”and “the 1%.” In lower Manhattan, a symbolic center of global capitalism, a small group of protesters globally unsettled things. While the speech and action within the movement is important, the way it influences the speech and actions beyond the movement is probably even more important.

This is quite evident in American politics. Under the influence of the Tea Party, the discussion in the midterm elections was about debt and deficits and the Democrats received a shellacking, as Obama put it. For a while Obama and the Democrats were humbled, influenced by the Tea Party movement and its momentum, and by the Republican victory. This changed thanks to OWS.

The President and his party found a new voice, often speaking of “the 99%” directly. There is a steadfastness when it comes to the issue of taxing the rich. Obama himself refused attempts by so called moderate Democrats to bend on the issue (instead of ending the Bush tax cuts for those making $250 thousand and over, ending them only for those making over $1 million), and now the issue of inequality is at the center of his campaign. Obama’s clarity, along with his party’s on the issue, along with the way they are trying to define Mitt Romney, all have an OWS accent.

The challenge for activists in OWS, such as Brown, is to extend and deepen this influence. She, like many others, is working to sustain the impact of OWS. I think she is right about this and about the substance of the matter. Debt is a key issue. For the last twenty years broad segments of the population have managed to keep the illusion of the American Dream alive by going into debt. Now payment is due, and the responsibility requires not only individual action, but concerted public efforts to change the rules of the game. And as the Tea Party is a force for capitalism and individualism run wild, it is important that a social movement works to present a clear alternative.

I am still jet-lagged, or is it a cold? I can’t tell. Whatever it is, I have not been up to par for the past few weeks. The trip to Europe, including visits with my daughter and her family in Paris and the seminar in Wroclaw, was more challenging than expected. Naomi, my wife and Deliberately Considered’s Art and Design Editor, and I slowed down in our posting. But now, we are back. I expect to regain my strength, and you, dear Deliberately Considered readers, can expect in the coming weeks more posts on Wroclaw and on American and global politics and culture. Here, today and tomorrow, my thoughts on OWS responding to the discussions at the Wroclaw seminar. -Jeff

The starting point of the Wroclaw Seminar was Occupy Wall Street. It then served as our primary case for comparative investigation throughout and informed our final conclusions. Seminar participants Pamela Brown and Sidney Rose suggested additional readings for the seminar when we focused on OWS — Rose on the link between Anonymous and OWS. She was particularly interested in the online pre-history of OWS. Brown, an Occupy activist, was focused on the present challenges and recent accomplishments of the movement.

Rose suggested a piece describing an embrace between Cornell West, the philosopher, social critic and activist, and Gregg Housh, a leading figure in the shadowy group, Anonymous, at an occupy demonstration in Boston. This informed our discussion about the virtual infrastructure that supported the embodied occupations. As we tried to understand what is special about the new “new social movements,” the interaction between virtual and the embodied was a topic we knew we needed to explore.

We discussed how events in the Middle East and North Africa, combined with virtual actions, led to Occupy Wall Street, and sparked a global social movement wildfire. Following the Arab Spring, OWS developed with an Adbusters initial proposal to occupy wall street on September 17, 2011 , supported by politicized hackers such as those associated with Anonymous. Suddenly, with a minimum of organizational planning, things changed. Thousands quickly made global connections. Governments fell. The economic order was challenged. A new power seemed to have emerged. Through the new and old media solid authority melted. The inevitable seemed vulnerable (Al Jazeera was crucial in the Middle East). Traditional autocrats were no longer secure. Economic plutocrats were fat targets for social outrage. Clearly the new media order contributed to this. Something very new had been brought into the world (i.e. Hannah Arendt’s idea of what politics can do).

While I think it is a mistake to consider these movements as having been created by the new media (“the Facebook revolutions”), it is hard to imagine their rapidly formed links and the coordination and organization of the movements without new media. Hierarchical organization, a command structure, a disciplined party organization and the like were no longer necessary. The “iron law of oligarchy” which Robert Michels analyzed in his classic study of social democratic parties , was made obsolete. Coordination could be and was more horizontally achieved. And many of the movements, OWS in particular, made this capacity a matter of principle. Decision through consensus promised to be not only an ideal: it was becoming also an operating reality.

Yet, this promise is not without peril, apparent in OWS and in many of the new “new social movements.” Without clear leadership, it is hard to know who actually speaks for the new “new social movements” and what their goals are. Those who live by the sword of new media may die by it. This is a primary challenge for the movements as they have attempted to go beyond their initial successes. Brown led us in our discussion of this issue.

It is one thing to observe that OWS changed the conversation. It is quite another to know what its enduring impact might be and to work for this.  For activists such as Brown, the challenge is to figure out what is to be done once major media attention is no longer there. She has been very engaged on the issue of student debt, a major American problem, and she is part of a group of OWS activists who believe that the debt issue is the one that will bring the movement forward, to make sure that OWS activists address the concerns of the 99% as  they speak in its name. She suggested that the group read a piece on a recent demonstration in N.Y. on this theme.  The article includes a link to an important article by Brown explaining the dimensions of the crisis: no less than the end of the American dream of upward social mobility.

I think this direction is quite promising. Deep debt is the tie that holds much of the 99% together, from usurious payday advances, to credit card debt, to mortgage foreclosures, to impossible student loans. I think this is a theme that can carry OWS forward. Our seminar participants were quite intrigued by the details, especially concerning the prohibitive costs of American higher education and the consequences of this. They found it particularly surprising when I revealed that I, as a full professor, was not at all confident that my children would be able to attend the universities of their own choosing because of the threat of deep debt. Somehow, we managed, but that was because of some good luck, including the good fortune of timing. It was ten years ago when things were bad, but not quite as bad as they are now.

Yet, there has been sharp criticism within OWS of the recent moves to focus on debt as the central issue of OWS. Tomorrow I will report on this and its implications for the public in the movement and for the broader public, and how both work on the broader task of reinventing American political culture. The challenge is that the mediated capacity that first led to the formation of the movement may be an obstacle to future concerted action.

Occupy’s six-month birthday celebration last Saturday at Zuccotti Park was first spent in celebration: the scene was joyous with friends reuniting after winter hibernation. “Spring training” regimes were conducted. The drum circle was back, and mic checks once again created a collective voice.

But when protestors undertook a spontaneous, albeit brief, reoccupation, they were met with the most violent and unrestrained NYC police force to date. MTA buses were commandeered and over seventy arrests were made. The significance and power of the park was clear once again.

Police violence was immediately challenged with solidarity marches in New York and throughout the country on Sunday. In spite of a winter predicting our demise, Occupy is alive again this spring. Not that we were ever really dead, but since the cops evicted Zuccotti the first time last fall, OWS has been struggling to find a way of staying meaningful without the spectacle of the park. Liberty Park offered a sense of commonality, a point of access, and a feeling of empowerment that has been difficult to replicate.

In fact, as the winter approached, the occupation had already started to weaken. Social problems appeared within the park. The influx of those bearing the stigmas of long-term homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness had already created divisions, cutting across the usual lines of class, race and “mental status.” Neighborhoods and maps developed to segregate social groups, restricting movement within what was established and claimed as a space of “openness.” Just after the fall storm, a woman pushed past me rushing from one side of the park to the other, and I heard her say to a friend, “Oh noooo, we don’t want to get caught in that part of the ‘hood.’ ” That comment stuck.

Many of us felt relieved that the police closed the park – that the occupation went out with a bang, rather than slowly disintegrating in front of an increasingly disinterested television audience, suggesting the movement’s ideals as being fundamentally in conflict to the wider public.

Nonetheless, the movement did continue. The loss of the park meant that all activities became based in working groups. We moved inside to 60 Wall Street, but the conditions were less than ideal – especially once they shut off the heat and locked the “public” restrooms. By mid January, the numbers of attendees at the popular Empowerment and Education meetings had diminished to the point that the loss of our status as a working group was threatened. Participants, seemingly seeking social relationships more than social goals, easily disrupted meetings. The Occupy Student Debt Campaign spent hours dialoguing with the Mediation Working Group in hope of resolving an internal conflict that led to a member being asked to “step back.” Euphemisms aside, it turned more into “step out,” and I’ve never seen this person again. In spite of the challenge of moving forward with this member, the fallout of the conflict seemed equally difficult.

Some active members believed that openness was primary. We needed to relearn how to interrelate with people, undermining a key value would be counterproductive and not very OWS. Other, equally active, members believed that complete openness was impossible, and worse, an illusion. Those uncomfortable in certain environments would naturally self-select to leave, and those comfortable with restrictions on rejection would always find a way to run the show by refusing to conform. For many of us openness in practice could be a lose-lose proposition, in spite of the fact that it had all the appeal of a winning ideal. After all, we are the 99%.

It seemed that the majority of working groups were actively grappling with these questions throughout the winter. Conversations had turned to community agreements, step up/step back, authority and horizontality. The focus had shifted off of the corporate take over of our democracy, unsustainable inequality and the nefarious activities of the big banks. Increasingly, it seemed as if we were engaged in an impossible struggle over the meaning and conditions of one of the fundamental premises of OWS – namely that radical openness is both possible and desirable.

Many of us felt that the principle needed revision. Prefiguring a society of total openness seemed to deny the current existence of many very real problems that our actions toward social change were attempting to address. Prefiguring a future society often seemed incompatible with taking action toward creating a new one.

Were we hypocrites? Was this an admission of a certain kind of defeat?  And, if in theory there’s no way to think outside of capitalism, and if our conception of openness is restricted by capitalism, then why on earth have we been spending so much time talking? Many of us were becoming increasingly frustrated by endless talk, and wanted to get down to some action.

By way of compromise, Occupy University meetings were divided:  two hours for talk that had no specific purpose, but could be purposeful nonetheless, and two hours for talk that had ends in mind. What could not be resolved by conversation was ultimately resolved through attrition, as members simply drifted, and the people who simply had the wherewithal to keep showing up ended with a the consensus. Is this really openness? It felt like the best we could hope for, so we carried on, sensing that our struggle might be more important than anything we created in the end.

In many ways the distraction of the Battle of Oakland came as a welcome relief. But once a proposed solidarity statement was circulated stating support for a “diversity of tactics” strategy, the Battle of Oakland seemed to expose a new problem with openness as practiced. Many of us believed that OWS was fundamentally a non-violent movement, and even with all this talk of openness, it came as a shock that it might not be possible to denounce violence without compromising this ideal. If we’re open, then we must be open to a “diversity of tactics.” But what about the idea that if we’re open, we cannot be open to violence, since it’s the ultimate way of closing everything down? But violence comes in many forms – it can be economic and psychological; why should we focus on the form of violence used by the victims of economic violence? Maybe some of that’s true as a matter of metaphor, but as a matter of definition, violence is physical. But that’s only because of who gets to define. Such was the conversation, and it became clear that many activists would leave the movement if violence were denounced. It was equally clear, however, that many would leave if non-violence were not practiced.

The conversation continued at The Winter of our Discontent event sponsored by The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU and The New School. Former SDS member and New School Liberal Studies Department Chair, Jim Miller, came out of the gate by challenging the panel to take a stand against violence. But instead, David Graeber, the admired intellectual hero of the movement, disclosed his own involvement with black blocs. But, I wonder if it will be David Graeber or the young black kid brave enough to participate in a march, who will be the one to do time?

What sort of openness are we really talking about? Here, class and race intersect, but end up in the pile of other easily brushed off accusations that OWS is elitist, just another version of the same old thing, a different form of special interest, and not really the 99%. When a young woman took the mic and challenged the ideology of the 99%, arguing that compassion is also needed for the 1%, as they are equally held hostage to capitalism, the audience laughed and many of the panelists who were just espousing openness scoffed. Radical openness? Not so much. Personally, I’m okay with that. Sometimes, ideas are incompatible with each other, and there’s almost always a gray zone. For me, openness seems to be an ideal that can serve different masters. Are there any ideals that automatically create freer or more equal or better material conditions in any real way?

In spite of what seems to be an ideological impasse, a sizable group of us have continued to work on projects and build important ties. For us, the problems that OWS addresses are multifaceted, sometimes indescribable, but completely necessary. For us, continuing to grapple with inconsistencies is the path toward a truly democratic society. Fundamentally, we believe that people do have power. Call us idealists, but we believe that a better world is within our grasp. Our evidence is that Occupy Wall Street has already changed the national discourse on inequality, foreclosures, student debt and democracy. Our evidence is that the movement has remained non-violent and the + Brigade emerged out of the “diversity of tactics” crisis. Occupy University has launched our first course: Studying May Day and the General Strike, and Occupy Student Debt Campaign is organizing a national day of action on April 25^th.  Surely, issues around openness will continue to arise.

Now that spring has arrived, the movement seems stronger than ever.  It seems likely that the issues around openness will be addressed in practice, as we collectively envision and challenge our future.

Monday morning, I took a bit of a break from my plan for the day. I decided my class preparation and work on some overdue papers would wait. After I replied to Corey Robin’s response to a critical passing comment I made about his book, The Reactionary Mind, on Facebook, I put off until later in the week my search for interesting conservative intellectuals. I decided to ignore the Republican madness, and not worry about the ups and downs in the upcoming Presidential race, and didn’t read the reports on the Super Bowl (the annual sports media event that I usually ignore but did tweak my interest this year, New Yorker that I am). Instead, I opened my computer and watched the video of the Flying Seminar meeting with Bill Zimmerman (which I missed because I was at that time at a conference in Sofia). It was a particularly interesting meeting, very nicely captured in the video (thank you Lisa Lipscomb). I entered a different world, beyond the mundane, considering the connection between radical hopes and practical projects.

This is what the Flying Seminar is. Recall, Elzbieta Matynia and I developed the Flying Seminar in response to Occupy Wall Street. OWS reminded us of our days observing and participating in the Solidarity (Solidarność) movement in Poland, and the great independent academic project of Solidarity times, the Flying University of the Polish underground. We started with a meeting with activists in Shiroto no Ran (Amateur Revolt), a counter-cultural anti- nuclear movement which came to take part in the occupation of Zuccotti Park. We then arranged a meeting with Adam Michnik, the outstanding Polish critical intellectual and political activist, who also visited the Park. Our third meeting was with Zimmerman, an old New Leftist (it takes one to know one), author of the recent book, Troublemaker: A Memoir From the Front Lines of the Sixties. Last month, after a technical delay, we posted the video recording of that meeting.

The seminar discussion got me thinking about a crucial problem: the relationship between challenging social movements and the broader public. This issue is most apparent in the Arab uprisings, in Moscow, Bucharest and in Warsaw in democratic movements, and in New York and beyond in OWS and related occupations. We have been reflecting upon these developments in each of these locations at Deliberately Considered, but there is a general problem common to all of them, which was discussed at the Flying Seminar. The starting point in the discussion with Zimmerman was the anti-war movement in the sixties.

Zimmerman and the seminar participants covered many areas. He reflected on the problem of a radical anti-war movement, too distant from the judgments of the general population to lead a popular movement against the war. They discussed election initiatives, legalizing marijuana, prison reform, the racist quality of the war on drugs, the need to treat drug abusers rather than arrest them, and the protests against U.S. intervention in Latin America. Zimmerman explained a variety of different innovative strategies he has used to reach the public, to make his radical commitments consequential. The use of the ballot initiative and the production of anti-war and anti-Bush and Company T.V. ads, made for moveon.org, were particularly interesting.

Zimmerman discussed a series of innovative victories in his long political struggle. “I have been struggling against capitalism for fifty years.” He celebrated the Internet, the only limit to reaching the public now is our imagination, he asserted. He was thinking particularly about the costs of emailing versus the cost of postage. He recalled throwing $100 bills on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange back in the day. Wall Street was then and is now both the symbol of the problem and site of the problem itself. His was an earlier innovative dramaturgic act in the belly of the beast, meant to show radical criticism to a mass audience. Zimmerman applauded OWS for its major discursive success. “It has stimulated a broad public to fundamentally question capitalism.”

There were differences of judgment at the meeting. All knew that connecting with the public is important, but there were different opinions about how this could be achieved. Some saw a global capitalist order on the verge of collapse, confidently sensing that people are waking up and a significant victory is on the horizon. Others were less optimistic, more concerned, believing that the forces of the old order are still alive and very able to defend their interests. Some were less sure of popular support.

The discussion sometimes lingered on generalities that make me impatient and uncomfortable (specifically broad criticisms of capitalism and celebrations of socialism), but they moved beyond empty rhetoric, impressed as the participants were both by Zimmerman’s long history of bringing major issues to the public’s attention, leading to political action, and by the recent successes of OWS in doing the same thing. The discussion was among colleagues. The OWS people say comrades, a term that makes me feel uncomfortable given my experiences around the former Soviet bloc.

The relationship with more conventional politics was an issue, as was the intersection of race and class in and out of the movement. One seminar participant, Jan Gross, strongly argued for a position that I find attractive. Prevailing political institutions, in the close connection between the government and the corporate powers, enforce inequality, but the system is open to cooptation (unlike the situation in authoritarian dictatorships). The liberal order’s democratic qualities can be utilized for progressive change. Lawrence Weschler passionately argued for a specific course of direct action, a mass boycott of under water loans mortgages and student loans, and extensive discussion about the boycott. Radical pragmatic action would both engage the public and address some severe problems, which affect many people. This led to the discussion about the relationship between the social movement, and class and race. An African American OWS activist forcefully argued that the problem of the poor is not about student loans and mortgages but community schools and drug arrests. Class and race divides society and social movements, but he suggested also the people around the Flying Seminar table. The problems of the middle class and the poor are related, but they are also different.

A constitutional amendment was discussed (money does not equal speech), as was a national student strike. One person declared that capitalism had to be saved from itself, while others reflected on the “S” word, socialism. (This reminded me of discussions on the left in the 1930s.) The broad strategy of building alternatives “on our own” was measured against active engagement with more conventional political institutions and the possibility of a third party.

Different tactics reveal different commitments, Zimmerman observed in his closing reflections. But, acting together is the key imperative. The path to power and radical change is paved by organizing, to which he has dedicated his life.

I regret missing this interesting discussion. As I was watching the video, I imagined how I might have spoken up. I may have expressed my conviction that all the talk about socialism, as some kind of systemic alternative to capitalism, is silly. I might have asked people to explain how it is they imagine a modern economy can be organized. But that probably would not have improved the discussion. But there are issues I would have liked to discussed: how a protest movement can move from saying no to injustice to figuring out how to do something about the injustice, what role do political leaders play, and what social activists can accomplish and how that relates to more conventional political agents in parties and states?

There is a proposal before the OWS General Assembly in New York today concerning a statement of solidarity with Occupy Oakland. In it, there is the declaration:

“We affirm Occupy Oakland’s freedom to use whatever means necessary to further
your [and our] struggle. A diversity of tactics is necessary, and it
means that there is no correct method to resistance. We trust our
comrades to make your own choices for your own community.”

Really by any means necessary? Aside from the questionable ethics of such a statement, I wonder how the people who consider it think it relates to the broad American public. How does the movement, which speaks in the name of the 99%, relate to the 99%? I think that the statement will be rejected. But it highlights the importance of the issues and experiences discussed at the last meeting of the Flying Seminar, and it suggests what we should examine in our next meeting.

It seems to me that it is crucial to think about the relationship between the movement and more conventional politics. I think that the relationship between OWS and Obama and the Democrats is similar to the relationship between the Civil Rights movement and Kennedy and Johnson and the Democrats, and some Republicans. It would be interesting to reflect upon how that worked. I am hoping that we will discuss this at the next meeting of the Flying Seminar, perhaps on the legacies of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement as it might inform the future actions of OWS.

I continue to be struck by the constancy of Barack Obama. His tactics shift and weave, but his overall principles and project are firmly rooted. In the State of the Union address, he revealed his core convictions, explained his policies and their consequences, and linked his accomplishments with his promises.

Obama is a centrist, working to define common sense, working to move the center left, as I have earlier argued. In his speech last night, he focused on fairness and the viability of the American dream. He argued for the way the government can support economic development and the interests of the vast majority of the American public. Though he did not use the language of Occupy Wall Street, his focus on fairness was clearly supported by the fruits of the social movement’s labors. And the principled debate before the American people in the coming election was illuminated, as Obama argued for his side: a “smarter more effective government” versus limited government, the Republican ideal.

The speech was elegantly crafted and delivered, something that is now expected from Obama and therefore doesn’t impress and is not really news. But the fine form delivered a well rounded argument.

He opened and closed with a call for common purpose, exemplified by the military and its virtues, as he highlighted major milestones in foreign affairs: the end of the war in Iraq and the killing of Osama Bin Laden. A move that makes me uncomfortable, though I understand that it works well.

The opening:

“Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq.  Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought — and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world.  (Applause.)  For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.  (Applause.)  For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country.  (Applause.)  Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated.  The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces.  At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations.  They’re not consumed with personal ambition.  They don’t obsess over their differences.  They focus on the mission at hand.  They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example.  (Applause.)  Think about the America within our reach:  A country that leads the world in educating its people.  An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs.  A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world.  An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.”

The closing:

“One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden.  On it are each of their names.  Some may be Democrats.  Some may be Republicans.  But that doesn’t matter.  Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates — a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary — and Hillary Clinton — a woman who ran against me for president.

All that mattered that day was the mission.  No one thought about politics.  No one thought about themselves.  One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission.  It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job — the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs.  More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other — because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s somebody behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America.  Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those 50 stars and those 13 stripes.  No one built this country on their own.  This nation is great because we built it together.  This nation is great because we worked as a team.  This nation is great because we get each other’s backs.  And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard.”

And in between, he identified the common good as he and his party define it:

“…the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive.  No challenge is more urgent.  No debate is more important.  We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.  (Applause.)  What’s at stake aren’t Democratic values or Republican values, but American values.  And we have to reclaim them.”

He spoke about many of specific accomplishments, a highpoint: saving the auto industry. He also spoke about specific proposals: the payroll tax extension, tax code reform, the promotion of American exports, a trade enforcement unit, along with a financial crimes unit. Education also was a major theme: job training, turning community colleges into “community career centers,” school reform, increase student aid for college, controlling the cost of higher education. Along the way he included passing references to advancements provided by healthcare reform, the importance of immigration reform, public funding of research, and the reform of Senate rules.

His resoluteness was on full and, in my judgment, convincing display.

“Let’s never forget:  Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same.  It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom.  No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts…

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want.  But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes?  Most Americans would call that common sense…

[A]nyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.  (Applause.)”

Clearly it was a partisan speech, meeting the Republicans head on, and implicitly specifically Mitt Romney on tax rates. But it is also a challenge to his critics on the left and his less than enthusiastic supporters. He still wants to go beyond partisanship. He supports not only control of the market but also the market itself. He is trying to constitute a new centrist position. One can question whether his more sharply drawn commitments are just an election year tactic. He did name fairness as the central problem of our time, his version of fighting for the 99%. This will satisfy some in OWS, but not others.

As I asserted in the opening of this post, and as I tried to reveal in my earlier posts on Obama working with Democrats, with Republicans and against Republicans, I think that we observe only changed tactics and not commitments. I also would suggest that his earlier accomplishments, specifically doing the possible if not the ideal in supporting a devastated economy and significantly reforming the American healthcare system, lend authority to his present promise. He clearly presented his side of the great debate that will be the election of 2012.

Ideological clichés are deadly. In 1989, the end of the short twentieth century (1917 – 1989) with all its horrors, I thought this simple proposition was something that had been learned, broadly across the political spectrum . I was wrong, and the evidence has been overwhelming. This was my biggest mistake as a sociologist of the politics and culture.

When Soviet Communism collapsed, I thought it had come to be generally understood that simple ideological explanations that purported to provide complete understanding of past, present and future, and the grounds for solving the problems of the human condition, were destined for the dustbin of history. The fantasies of race and class theory resulted in profound human suffering. I thought there was global awareness that modern magical thinking about human affairs should and would come to an end.

My first indication I had that I was mistaken came quickly, December 31, 1989, to be precise. It came in the form of an op ed. piece by Milton Friedman. While celebrating the demise of socialism in the Soviet bloc, he called for its demise in the United States, which he asserted was forty-five per cent socialist, highlighting the post office, the military (a necessary evil to his mind) and education. He called for a domestic roll back of the socialist threat now that the foreign threat had been vanquished. Friedman knew with absolute certainty that only capitalism promoted freedom, and he consequentially promoted radical privatization as a solution to all social problems. This was an early battle cry for the neo-liberal assault of the post-cold war era.

The assault seemed particularly silly to me, and hit close to home, since I heard Friedman lecture when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and even taught one of his true-believing graduate students when I gave a summer school course there on social problems in American society. Friedman and his student’s absolute conviction that the market is the source of all good perfectly mirrored my Marxist friends’ convictions that it was the root of all evil.

Today neo-liberalism and anti neo-liberalism are in an ideological dance. The Republican positions on taxation of the job creators, deregulation and the denunciation of standard social programs as socialism constitute one sort of magical thinking. Newt Gingrich is particularly proficient in spinning the language of this political fantasy and developing its newspeak (with his concerns about the United States becoming a “secular, atheist” country promoting sharia law, and the like). The criticism of neo-liberalism from the left too often present magic: dismantle capitalism and all will be well. As I see it, both propose a future based on a failed past, often with a certitude that is disarming and dangerous.

I wonder how people can imagine a systemic alternative to capitalism, when there is overwhelming evidence that it has never worked, in Europe or Asia, in Africa or Latin America. I wonder how Republicans can ignore the evidence that the market does not solve all economic challenges and social problems, and that sometimes, indeed, it is the primary cause of our problems, particularly evident in the shadow of the world financial crisis and the great recession.

Friends in the academic ghetto, on the cultural grounds of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, Berkeley, Ann Arbor and Austin, imagine revolution with little serious consequences. On the other hand, the Republican market fundamentalists pose a clear and present danger. On the right, there is ideological tragedy. On the left, there’s farce, except to the extent that they enable the right.

I didn’t anticipate that market and anti-capitalist fundamentalism would have such a role in the twenty-first century. I also did not anticipate or understand the possibility of the replacement of the secular totalitarian imagination by religious ones, Islamic, but also Hindu, Jewish and Christian. “Religionism” is replacing “Scientism.” I didn’t see what was brewing on the religious/political front. The attacks of 9/11 and the American fundamentalist response forced me to pay attention, which I attempted to deliberately consider in The Politics of Small Things.

Chastened, I have become accustomed to the persistence of modern magic, of ideological thinking and its appeal, but quite uncomfortable. How can a thinking person accept and actually support the Bolivarian Revolution of Chavez? It and he are so transparently manipulative and fantasy based, so clearly squandering Venezuelan resources and not really addressing the problems of the poor. Yet, many critical people in the American left can’t bring themselves to observe that this king of the ideological left, this revolutionary hero, is naked. How can the sober Republicans believe what Gingrich and company say about the economy and also about international affairs? If they do so and prevail electorally, I am pretty convinced that they will preside over the decline and fall of the American Empire, what they claim to be most against. Perhaps that is reason for true-believing anti-globalists to support the Republicans.

P.S. As it turns out since 1989, I have been bombarded with evidence that ideological thinking is a persistent component of modern politics. It seems that everywhere I look its importance and its dangers are to be observed, but so are its limits. I am thinking again about my big mistake as I reflect on Occupy Wall Street and its prospects, and its extension to the New School. As Andrew Arato pointed out in his critique of the idea of occupation, there is a danger that when people, who speak ideologically for the 99%, will turn themselves into the 1%.  True-believers are convinced, but the rest of us in the end aren’t. Sooner or later the insights of ’89 prevail. On the bright side, from my political point of view, I think this is likely to apply to the Republican Party, with its true-believing, fact-free ideology. This is the major reason why I think that the Republicans will fail in the upcoming elections. I think this is why the Republican field is so dismal, as Paul Krugman has cogently observed. But I am trusting that ideology will end again.

(In the memory of Vladimir Ilyich, who in spite of everything was a great political man.)

The Occupation of Wall Street has already done important things. It has put the very important issue of inequality on the collective American agenda. It has experimented with forms of direct democracy and in ways of seriously influencing the political system outside the official channels. It has the potential of becoming not only the forerunner, but also a key component of a new American movement for more democracy and more justice. But, as all movements, it must confront its own worst tendencies to realize its genuine potential.

By tendencies I mean strategies rather than people or individuals or groups.  Such a negative strategy is symbolized by the slogan that appeared just before the taking of a part of the New School: “occupy everything.” I regard it as a childhood ailment not to denigrate any participants or to represent their age (they were adults!), but to indicate problems of an early, developmental phase that can still be overcome.

“Occupy everything” is a slogan and a program incompatible with a non-violent movement aiming to raise moral as well as political consciousness. The idea of “seizing public or quasi-public spaces to make broad claims about the overall (mis)direction of our society” cannot be justified as a general right in the name of which the law is violated to transform or improve it. It is incompatible with productively addressing “the public at large.” Finally, and most clearly “occupy everything” is deeply contradictory with the creative slogan “we are the 99%.”

“Occupation” as against “sit-in” is a military metaphor. Occupation easily calls to mind the occupation of Iraq, and of the West Bank of the Jordan River. Sit-in means that we enter and stay in the space of an institution, non-violently, space where we have some kind of right to be and exercise civil disobedience, accepting to pay a price when arrested. For example, African Americans who sat in had a right to be served in public lunch counters, a right that was then formally denied. Sit-ins bear moral witness to unjust laws that need to be changed. Occupation means the forcible taking and holding of territory. Literally speaking, while most of the events taking place all over the country were sit-ins, despite their name, a few were attempted and (mostly) failed occupations. Sit-ins can lead to only one-sided use of open force, while occupations involve potentially two-sided violence. We can even have sit-ins in the space and territory of friends, in the sense of space to which they have some right, but only with their democratic consent. But it is always the territory of enemies that is occupied. This is a matter of force alone, and not right. Conversely, when force alone without right is the basis of a presence in a space or territory, it is an occupation and not a sit in.

Words matter. While an occupation can be effectively a sit-in, and a sit-in can be an occupation, or be turned into one, when the word “occupy” is used that in itself produces facts and outcomes. Nancy Fraser makes the general claim that OWS implies the strategy (and implicitly the right) of “seizing public or quasi-public spaces.” This claim represents just a slightly limited version of the slogan “occupy everything.” Our apartments are not offered as spaces that can be occupied for the purpose of generating more public discussion. Still the claim means that not only the New School’s space, but that of public high and elementary schools, hospitals, fire and police stations, as well as offices dedicated to the administration of essential public goods and services, could be rightly seized if the purpose was to elevate and open up public discussion. The very spaces of public discussion could be seized to facilitate another discussion.

Let us be clear: there is no such a right, whether customary, legal, moral or human. As a strategy, the idea leads to deep conflicts between the occupiers and those whose activities, rights and forms of publicness are being forcibly displaced. When in sit ins or in civil disobedience rights are violated, these are rights that are exclusionary and oppressive that in themselves involve the denial of rights more universal and more justified. This cannot be said about all social space, and their relevant rights holders. Rights can be claimed only to the extent that they do not violate other rights without serious reason, above all identical rights. For example, the rights that are constitutive of the public sphere and without which it cannot ultimately exist, ought not be violated in the name of the very same rights. That is why occupying hospitals, or schools or spaces of public learning or discussion is unjustified, unless it is by their own participants who are being denied important rights. But then the occupation would be a sit-in. When parts of OWS march over to the New School and occupy part of it, they are not occupying a space whose owners or holders or participants have denied them any rights. On the contrary, the right to freely assemble, and speak has been granted to them over and over again by that very institution. To occupy that institution is to imagine it as an enemy, and unfortunately to turn it into an enemy. To occupy in the name of its very participants in the face of their opposition, or without their democratic decision, can never be made acceptable.

Equally important, occupation that aggressively sets the interests and needs and opinions of people on the same level, here students and students, against one another cannot be a strategy in the name of the 99%. (Even faculty belong to the 99%, I would add, though here some rhetorics have put us on the other side.)  Speaking in the name of the 99% is based on a fiction, but it is a productive fiction as long as the interests of the 99% are rigorously kept in mind. Opening up friend and enemy relations among us means that the movement suddenly is acting in the name of a much smaller percentage than 99. If all public and quasi-public spaces become targets of occupation, the 99% turns into .00001 and the 1% turns into 99. A popular strategy turns into a narrowly elitist one. The results, if “occupy everything” became a general strategy would be disastrous, mostly for the activists themselves. But we would all lose the potential I am speaking about.

It was perhaps right to use the military metaphor in the case of Wall Street (that could of course not be occupied, among other things because it is ultimately a virtual space). This is so because that famous 1% itself arguably acts like an exploitative, occupying force with respect to the rest of society. Zuccotti Park was a symbol of nearby Wall Street, and a park where few other rights were at stake. A better slogan would have been better, but we are now stuck with “occupy.” But extending the idea to everything, or all public and “quasi-public” space (whatever the last phrase means) follows only from a slogan, but not the earlier practice. This strategy emerged as a result of a temporary defeat, the police attack on the park. It targeted the New School simply because it was the easiest place conceivable to conquer, and perhaps hold.  Yet, this strategy threatens to bury those who have adopted it, and discredit even the fledgling movement itself, however unfairly. If continued, the real 99% (or those who more successfully speak in its name) will crush the imaginary and symbolic one, even if this will be against some of its own vital interests.

“Occupy everything” is by no means the only strategy available. OWS is not ultimately an occupation. That was at best a temporary strategy. Better understood, OWS is a proto movement, a potential part of a new American movement for economic justice.  A movement can use demonstrations, marches, open public and intellectual discussion, exemplary acts, forms of art and performance (politization of art, rather than the aesthetization of politics pushed by some!) and even generating new and better forms of organization and leadership to do what only movements can do: help transform the political culture and influence the direction of more formal political development.

A childhood ailment can kill, as well as immunize. People speak of the Occupation of the New School as an important learning experience. I hope this is indeed the result.

The headline on the front page of the Thanksgiving Day The New York Times: “Opening Day for Holiday Shopping Shows Divide.”

The next day – Black Friday – Bloomberg ran a story with the headline “U.S. Workers’ Pay Slide Poses Consumer Risk. ”

It may turn out to have been a “Black Friday” for top end retailers, but it’s a bleak season for low income America and the businesses that cater to it. According to the Times’ story: “Wal-Mart’s profits declined in the third quarter as it kept many prices low so its shoppers could afford them.” Michael T. Duke, Wal-Mart’s chief executive, told analysts that ‘There is a real sense that the economic strain is taking its toll.” Without the fuel of credit that had increasingly been required to power spending by low-income workers, Wal-Mart now has to resort to layaway plans for its shoppers.

As 10 percentage points of national income has been directed away from the bottom 80% to the top 1% since 1979, those paid the lowest wages have seen their buying power erode the most. While the quality and quantity of education force can explain much of the distribution of income within the bottom 99% (together with personal networks, effort and luck), differences in educational attainment have nothing to do with the transition of the American economy to extreme inequality since the 1970s. It is also quite clear that among developed countries, America is exceptional: only the UK comes close to US-style extreme inequality.

The lesson is that extreme inequality is the outcome of political choices that have empowered a tiny minority. It has to do with political choices, the way institutions function, and social norms; it is not a natural market payoff to investments in education. The shift of income to the top .1% (which has driven the growth of the top 1%) reflects the market power of a small number of CEOs and finance, medical and legal professionals.

Here are some metrics that focus on what has happened to the wage/salary earnings of American workers.

Employee compensation in the last quarter (April-September 2011) accounted for the smallest share of national income since 1929 (it was 44%, which compares to 53% as recently as 1970). In contrast, the corporate profit share was the largest since 1929 (10% in 2010, compared to 5% in the 1970s and 1980s). (as reported in The New York Times)

What about the distribution of income, regardless of whether it comes as wages/salaries, profits or interest? The following shows the changes from 1979 to 2007:

• the top 1% of households increased its share of after-tax income from 8% to 17%;
• the middle 60% of all households saw a decline from 50% to 43%;
• the after-tax income share received by bottom 20% fell from 7% to 5% (see my first post).

What happened to average real wages by education group (in 2007 dollars)?

• workers with just a high school degree had a real hourly wages decline by 35 cents, from $15.36 to $15.01;
• workers without a high school degree experienced a collapse of $2.29 per hour wage, from $13.69 to $11.38;
• workers who invested in college but didn’t graduate , wages increased by 56 cents, from $16.42 to $16.94,  a gain of 3%.
• workers with only a college degree gained about $5, from $21.53 to $26.51, a rise of 23%.

It’s important to put into perspective this 23% increase in wages/salaries for those with the highest educational attainment.

First, it is not close to the gain in output noted above (+225%), or the increase in output per capita (+50%), or the increase in the share of national income taken home by the top 1% (+144%), much less the the top .1% (324%) (EPI Briefing Paper #331, figure D).

Second, there was no increase in real pay for the college+ group from 2001 to 2007; by this measure, the Bush “boom” entirely bypassed the most educated.

And third, recent research has shown that about one-fifth of the increase in the college-to-high school wage gap between 1980 and 2000 was accounted for by the higher cost-of-living in the (increasingly income-segregated) communities where those with college degrees live (NBER Working Paper No. 14370).

The fact is that as a group, even those with at least a college degree have shared little in America’s growth during the age of free market fundamentalism. It’s not about education.

What does this mean for the standard of living for most Americans? A new and much improved measure of poverty from the Census Bureau has found that, after accounting for taxes, government benefits, and typical expenses, one in every three Americans (33%)was classified in 2010 as either poor ($11,282 for an individual and $24,343 for a family of four) or near poor (50 percent above the poverty line). Further, the Census Bureau found that 10.3 million people who worked full-time in 2010 fell into the “near-poor” category. 

It turns out that this 33% poverty/near poverty rate for American households is nearly identical to the share of American workers paid a very low wage, as Figure 1 shows. For reference, this figure presents the low-wage share for France (which has nearly eliminated low wages by steadily increased the statutory minimum wage). As I’ll show in another post, France has achieved this over the last decade without increasing the unemployment rate or decreasing the employment rate for young workers.  (The source for this and the statistics on France that follow: a forthcoming paper by Howell, Okatenko and Azizoglu.)

Figure 1:

Low-Wage Shares of Employment for the US and France (low-wage = less than 2/3 of the median full-time wage)

Figure 2 shows that most young American workers with only a high school degree are now paid extremely low wages.  This is most certainly NOT the case in France. Almost half of all young American male workers were paid low wages in 2009, up from just 17% in 1979. In contrast, only about 12% of young French male workers with just a high school degree were paid low wages, down from 20% in 2009.

This figure also shows that the US-French gap in the low wage share for young female workers was gigantic: 65% of American female workers with just a high school degree were low-paid in 2010, which was up from 45% in 1979, compared to just 18 percent for their French counterparts, which was down from 25% in the mid-1990s. The payment of low wages is a political choice.

Figure 2:

Low-Wage Shares of Employment for Young Workers (20-34) with only a High School Degree, the US and France

Finally, it is worth pointing out that it is not just poorly educated American workers who are being paid low wages. Figure 3 shows that the low-wage share of workers with “some college” was 50% in 2010, up from 29% in 1979. For those with college and graduate degrees, in 2010 the figure was 19.5%, up from 13.3% in 1979.

Figure 3:

Low-Wage Shares for Young (20-34) US Workers by Education Group

In sum, it’s no surprise that there is a “divide” among consumers and that low end retailers are in trouble. The problem is the redistribution of income away from most households in an age of drastically reduced credit. The results: 1/3 of American households are poor or near-poor, 1/3 of all workers are paid low wages, the real earnings of those without a college degree have fallen or remained constant since the 1970s, there has been a sharp decline in the labor share and record levels for profits, and extreme inequality (the share of income received by the top 1%) has exploded. These outcomes reflect policy choices made under a regime of free market fundamentalism.

To return to the pre-1979 income distribution, we must fundamentally change the way compensation systems work at the very top of the income distribution, but we also need to substantially raise the wage paid to the bottom third of American workers. There is no economic reason why America must be in a league of its own within the developed world in both extreme inequality and the incidence of low pay.

]]> http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/11/the-metrics-of-protest-black-friday-and-low-wage-america/feed/ 1 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/11/mayor-bloomberg-versus-occupy-wall-street/ http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/11/mayor-bloomberg-versus-occupy-wall-street/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:49:33 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=9706

“Protestors have had two months to occupy the park with tents and sleeping bags. Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments.” -M. Bloomberg

I find this to be the most interesting component of Bloomberg’s statement today. On its face, it appears to be an appeal to the virtues of public discussion and critical public debate. Bloomberg suggests that if the Occupy Wall Street movement is in possession of the most truthful account of our current collective predicament, then it will be proven in the so called marketplace of ideas.

Yet, in my judgment, Bloomberg’s appeal to the tenets of deliberative democracy is nothing more than cynical, and, in fact, a strategic attempt to silence protest and squash democracy. At the forefront of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is a critique of the inequality of voice within the public sphere. The kinds of arguments members of the political elite, such as Bloomberg, are even capable of hearing is precisely what is at issue. Take, for example, Bloomberg’s recent critique of the association of Wall Street Bankers with the 2008 economic collapse. Bloomberg blames the collapse on government housing policy that encouraged the expansion of the home owning class in the United States. In Bloomberg’s mind, the federal government put pressure on lenders to lend to unqualified borrowers. Yet, as Michael Powell of the New York Times points out, all available evidence proves this argument to be baseless. Bloomberg cannot even imagine that Wall Street banks could possibly be at fault for the great ongoing economic calamity we are all suffering through.

A fundamental critical point of OWS is that political elites have difficulty even hearing certain kinds of arguments. The fact that the elite commentators and politicians continuously prove their myopia by misunderstanding the basic structure and symbolics of OWS movement demonstrates the movement’s ongoing critical importance. Some, such as the Times’ David Brooks, acknowledge that the OWS movement has successfully “changed the conversation,” but they still decry the movement’s lack of leadership and what they perceive to be its . . .

Read more: Mayor Bloomberg versus Occupy Wall Street

“Protestors have had two months to occupy the park with tents and sleeping bags. Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments.” -M. Bloomberg

I find this to be the most interesting component of Bloomberg’s statement today. On its face, it appears to be an appeal to the virtues of public discussion and critical public debate. Bloomberg suggests that if the Occupy Wall Street movement is in possession of the most truthful account of our current collective predicament, then it will be proven in the so called marketplace of ideas.

Yet, in my judgment, Bloomberg’s appeal to the tenets of deliberative democracy is nothing more than cynical, and, in fact, a strategic attempt to silence protest and squash democracy. At the forefront of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is a critique of the inequality of voice within the public sphere. The kinds of arguments members of the political elite, such as Bloomberg, are even capable of hearing is precisely what is at issue. Take, for example, Bloomberg’s recent critique of the association of Wall Street Bankers with the 2008 economic collapse. Bloomberg blames the collapse on government housing policy that encouraged the expansion of the home owning class in the United States. In Bloomberg’s mind, the federal government put pressure on lenders to lend to unqualified borrowers. Yet, as Michael Powell of the New York Times points out, all available evidence proves this argument to be baseless. Bloomberg cannot even imagine that Wall Street banks could possibly be at fault for the great ongoing economic calamity we are all suffering through.

A fundamental critical point of OWS is that political elites have difficulty even hearing certain kinds of arguments. The fact that the elite commentators and politicians continuously prove their myopia by misunderstanding the basic structure and symbolics of OWS movement demonstrates the movement’s ongoing critical importance. Some, such as the Times’ David Brooks, acknowledge that the OWS movement has successfully “changed the conversation,” but they still decry the movement’s lack of leadership and what they perceive to be its loose agenda. They see the movement structure as being chaotic and even amateurish. Such criticisms smugly assume that OWS’ open structure is the accidental result of incompetence, while, in fact, the openness is reasonably organized to maximize responsiveness to new and varied voices. The daily repetition of the general assembly registers continuous discussion, and the resistance to a hard agenda leaves the movement open to ever new and expanding participants (for instance see this).

OWS’ open structure is a substantial aspect of its labor to be exactly what the general public sphere dominated by elites is not, open to critical discussion. Organizing a hierarchically vertical movement structure with a cadre of leaders might make the movement more legible to elites and it might enhance the movement’s ability to broker deals. However such organization would too specifically define the movement’s constituency and close the organized movement off from the vastness of the real 99%.

In this vein the vital importance of the symbolics of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park should be recognized. The sometimes small, sometimes expansive tent city sits in the shadows of the great vertical skyscrapers of financial capital. The horizontal conversations that occur on the ground stand out against the private hierarchical maneuverings of grand capital furiously unfolding within the shiny glass facades. The OWS movement does not promote alternative living, or the right of individuals to live free of a certain kind of social system. It is not about styles of life. OWS necessarily sits in the canyons of financial capital in order to bring attention to the globally integrated economic system in which the narrowly self-interested decisions of a very few determine the living conditions of everyone else. What OWS has shown is that one could not practice a separatism of life style today even if one chose to. We are all directly affected by the decisions of a small elite whether we like it or not. The changed conversation of the past two months has revealed that so many among us do not like it one bit.

Clearly it is symbolically important for OWS, in fact, to occupy Wall Street. Yet more should be said about the occupying of public space. On the face of it, such occupying is a contradiction in terms. How can one occupy a space that is by definition universally accessible? But the occupation of public space is also symbolically necessary to the OWS movement. By indefinitely camping out in a city park (that is absurdly privately owned), the OWS movement makes itself about the idea of the public itself. That a group would have to resort to occupying a public park to have their voices heard, and that thousands more would rely on this group to become the soundboard by which they could finally participate in a “changing conversation,” reveals the structured myopia of our public conversation. In other words, without unmasking the current deficits in our elite versions of public debate, the Bloombergs of the world will continue to see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear. The little encampment in Zuccotti Park was, until this morning when Bloomberg violently swept it to the side, the living representation of our right to democratic expression, our right to be listened to, the right to “change the conversation” when elites chatter on in their glass fortresses while the rest of us are being bled dry by systematically enforced inequality.

The OWS movement is not about a specific policy agenda or in defense of a particular social group. The OWS movement is a desperate amplification of a silenced and ignored expression of broad based and deep social suffering. The metastasizing ills and injustices of social inequality can be ignored no longer. Although born of desperation, OWS has peacefully organized an open structured movement that threatens to create a public space of discussion in perpetuity. It is precisely the perpetuation of public discussion that has been so threatening to elites. This is why they want what they see as the smelly rabble to ordain a leader, i.e. because leaders have to be accountable to constituents. Leaders have to develop programs that favor some at the expense of others, and because in the ever returning crises, fiscal and otherwise, leaders can be told to “get real” and take the crumbs that might otherwise go to some other group, and go home. But it is precisely the amorphous never ending occupation of the public, in Zuccotti Park and beyond, that is threatening to make democratic debate live up to its own principles.

If Bloomberg were truly open to the arguments and ideas of the 99%,, he would acknowledge and respect the meaning of Occupy Wall Street and promote the continued democratic occupation of Zuccotti Park. If Bloomberg and others want to “get real,” they need to listen to the conversations unleashed in that little park, because they are the multiplier effects of democracy, the messy, chaotic and real voice of the suffering of the 99%.  If they are silenced now, we will suffer an unbearable cost.

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In our dour moment in which citizens of all stripes are taking to the streets, the plazas, and the parks, we see accusing placards, but no persuasive manifestos. As sociologist William Gamson has pointed out, the first step is to demonstrate an “injustice frame” as a precursor to action. Point taken, but it is a start.

Despite their manifold and manifest differences, the polyester Tea Party and the scruffy Occupy Wall Street protests have at least this in common: palpable anger and resentment. We feel at the mercy of distant puppet masters, and elites in pinstripes and in gowns have much to answer for.

Neither the Partiers nor the Occupiers are wrong to recognize the sway of elites, even if they are not sufficiently aware of those powers that stand behind their own movements: David Koch, the Alliance for Global Justice, and FreedomWorks. Anti-elites are the playthings of the powerful.

Yet, despite their backers, both the Partiers and the Occupiers are solidly 99%’ers. Both radicals of the left and upstarts of the right think that there is not so much difference between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration. The oil establishment and the financial services establishment could share breakfast of caviar and champagne, discussing whether their interests are better served by this president or the last one. Peasants with pitchforks are on no guest lists, whether they dress in denim or dacron. Despite partisan bickering, it is easy to feel that on the basic issues of security and capital the gap between competing establishments is small. I am struck by how little fundamental restructuring, hope and change has brought. The same powers will control health care, energy development, and financial services.

The fatal illusion of the Tea Party Movement is that America could have a smaller government, without programs cut, and more freedom, by allowing those with control to have less oversight. The Tea Partiers treasure the idea of a stripped down government, but what they call for is a government that provides largess without controlling that largess. A sincere Tea Party would be talking about slashing safety nets and insuring that small businesses can compete against corporations that, in effect, operate as governments. The Tea Party supports in fact a conservative movement whose desires are sure to permit few of its dreamy members to enter that one-percent. (At least the collegiate corner of Occupy Wall Street movement has a few budding oligarchs in their midst). The grievances are real, but blurred, and the solution of freezing government spending at past levels is dishonest in its unwillingness to make tough choices about programs.

The Occupy Wall Street collective also has its illusions. Are they socialists, naïfs, the distraught, or simply leeches? Whichever it is, they too smell rotten fish. In order to establish a movement – a congregation of collegiate radicals, union members, and impoverished minorities – these occupiers of tiny bits of public space drew a cartoonish enemy: the super wealthy fat cat, erasing the class fractions of Barbra Streisand, David Koch, Glenn Beck, Oprah, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. And they are right in that each, despite varied political positions, demands social stability, governed by those wise oligarchs that they prefer.

But something essential is missing. It is what George H. W. Bush ineptly, if memorably, called the “vision thing.” I have observed a South Carolina Tea Party rally and a Washington OWS encampment, and in both cases, I was struck by an absence of a call to greatness. Consequential leaders – Kennedy, Reagan, King, Bush in the days after 9/11, and campaigner Obama – have persuaded us that we are a city on a hill, imbued with destiny. Effective movements begin in grievance, but end in achievement. Ultimately, neither group has a vision of America transformed, bathed in golden light. Who speaks for a revived America in which we reconsider our institutions? It is easy to ask for more and cheaper student loans, a safety net for home buyers, banks that can never fail, and Medicare for everyone, all on the cheap. But will this produce a robust nation? Anger is a tonic whose bitter tang is but a jolt. To last, an infusion of communal faith is what matters. The Partiers and the Occupiers taste a jangly, acrid past; what they need is to brew a chamomile future.