nm wrap
28 Sep 2011
What's The Point Of The Wall Street Protests?
By Newmatilda.com
Protesters have been occupying Wall Street and dodging mace-wielding police for 11 days. Why are they there? Commentators looking for one single demand are missing the point
Young women being pepper-sprayed by cops on Wall Street? A protest movement claiming to represent 99 per cent of the population?
Missed it? Last week the #occupyWallStreet campaign kicked off, initially organised by the magazine Adbusters but now administered by a vertical cohort of groups and individuals on social media. It’s now day 11 of the protest and groups in more than 40 cities across the US and internationally have joined in. (There’s information about them here.)
The protests have been getting bigger and bigger, and they’ve been graced by progressive luminaries such as Susan Sarondon and Michael Moore, but unless you closely follow alternative media the protests might have escaped your attention.
They haven’t been widely reported in the mainstream media, and when they have, reports have turned on policy brutality rather than what the protest is all about. This isn’t altogether surprising. Read Jeanne Mansfield’s account of getting maced at the protests and the alarm about police responses makes sense.
One protester told the NY Daily News "I was shocked because it seemed like one person after another was being brutally tackled, and it wasn’t clear why". The many videos in circulation of protesters getting zapped with pepper spray provide clear evidence of police zealotry — but have also served to distract media outlets from why the protesters were there in the first place.
The New York Times has been criticised for missing the point in this article. Gina Bellafante wrote: "The group’s lack of cohesion and its apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgably is unsettling in the face of the challenges so many of its generation face."
Some progressive media outlets have been less than enthused too. Lauren Ellis in Mother Jones says the campaign is "lacking traction" and lists four reasons why — including police brutality being in the spotlight rather than the protesters’ concerns, and for a "kitchen-sink" approach she summarises thusly: "First make noise, then decide what the noise is all about?"
NPR Ombudsman Edward Schumarcher-Matos explains why the radio network hadn’t given the protests any coverage in this post. He quotes NPR’s executive director for news, Dick Meyer: "The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective."
Inadvertently, Bellafante and Meyer might have got it right. It’s very apparent that there is no one single reason drawing protesters to Wall Street and to other protests. One "clear objective" and group cohesion just isn’t the name of the game — so perhaps it’s not surprising that the media has taken a while to twig to what’s going on.
The protests started very small and not all the protesters who turned up have the same reasons for doing so. As Eli Schmitt in n + 1 wrote a few days after it all started: "We still don’t know exactly what the demands are. One of the members of our group, in discussing the criteria for a good demand, noted that Americans like to "get something" out of a political action. Repeal, enact, ban. We want visible, measurable outcomes."
The 99 per centers did get around to issuing a list of their "one demands" in response to the media’s desire for "one clear demand". It’s not one objective, but many — some of which are extremely abstract.
As Schmitt observes, the protests underway in Wall Street and across America don’t look much like the anti-globalisation protests of the early 2000s. The protest movement is changing and even though the original Adbusters call referenced Tahrir Square, the Occupy Wall Street movement gestures to a far more diffuse set of goals:
"Compared to other large-scale protests I’d attended in my life — the WTO protest in Washington D.C. in 2000, various antiwar protests throughout the early aughts — the aggravating causes here were less abstract. These were not Americans decrying foreign policy. They were Americans in debt, Americans out of work. This "day of rage" was inspired by personal injustices, best illustrated by anecdote rather than data. Along with all the familiar righteous ire at corporate sway in our supposedly democratic political system, there were tales of joblessness, debt, and desperation."
Ed Pilkington in The Guardian concurs, writing, "The protests were a lament for a nation in which, despite the 2008 meltdown, the financial system remains largely unregulated, where 46 million Americans live below the official poverty line, and where inequality is greater now than at any time since 1929."
David Weidner, writing in Market Watch, is in touch with the same rage and desperation; he just placed a slightly different emphasis.
"If you want to know how a nation supposedly by and for the people has become uprooted, one only needs to see how common young people, who are suffering so badly in this recession, were humiliated further by trying to exercise their given right to peacefully protest.
If this is justice, I’d rather break the law.
The bankers who brought us this mess not only walk free, they drive free in Bentleys paid for by money looted through toxic mortgages, trading debacles and derivative madness. Regulators, prosecutors and an administration patsy to big finance do nothing except hand out $1.3 trillion in bailout cash and guarantees."
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
- compass1312
Posted Wednesday, 28 September 11 at 3:20PMThe people protesting on Wall Street are indicative of the feelings of the masses right around the World. The reason that there seems to be either no leaders or clear demands (particularly in the US) is quite simple.
Who would want to be seen as a leader (of a revolution or protest) in that Country when the omnipotent forces have the ability to destroy lives at will, fully protected by the laws that they have so unlawfully enacted themselves. The only way around this is to create an anonymous form of peaceful urban terrorism. When the forces push too hard, there will be violence.
It is impossible for all the smaller groups involved to formulate a coherent and comprehensive list of demands because the diversity of the root causes are too great. The one common denominator in the beefs and gripes of the groups is money. What is the symbol of money in the US? Wall Street.
Because the mainstream media presents those brave protesters as a rabble without a cause, make no mistake that beneath every one of those people is a simmering population loathing what Wall Street (as a symbol) has become.
- redact
Posted Wednesday, 28 September 11 at 5:07PMWhy isn’t David Grayling here with his usual rant about the evil empire. We miss you David
- JD
Posted Wednesday, 28 September 11 at 6:05PMConstant growth without regard for environment equals cancer.
The economic model of western capitalism, thanks to Milton Freedman and the Chicago School of Economics, is completely dependent on constant growth.
On a planet with finite resources we were always going to hit a point where the constant economic growth model could not be sustained by the resources we have.
For those in positions of power and control, this is actually great news! Scarcity of resources means prices go up, and if you are in control of the resources then why would you want abundance for all?
Once the cancer has eaten all the fat cells of our resources, it’s going to come for the muscle cells - us, the people.
It’s happening right now in the US.
We’ve all seen the IMF and the world bank loan money to third world countries that couldn’t possibly afford to pay. We’ve then seen those developing nations crumble under the weight of the very debt that was supposedly meant to help them.
It seems like the same thing has happened in the us, it’s just that in the case of subprime lending, the decision was made one household at a time.
I’m aware that we all love an enemy, a scapegoat to pin things on so we can feel like we understand. We love to boil things down to something simple, and perhaps that’s exactly what i’m doing now, because the truth is far more complex than I can cope with. I want to feel empowered, not completely overwhelmed.
My (probably over simplified) idea is that the banking industry is out of control and not answerable or accountable to anyone anymore. They seem to be moving from country to country, infecting them with debt, making entire economies kneel before them. Is it my imagination?
If it is, then it’s also just in my head that there is a correlation between our way of making new money and our environmental crisis. Perhaps this is the very root of the sickness embedded within consumer capitalism. A fiat / fractional reserve system, where there is no little or no correlation between physical reality (tangible assets like gold, or ANY physical resource) can only end badly on a planet with finite resources. How can the growth of money be detached from physical reality? In it’s current form it can keep going skywards, limitlessly, essentially being created out of thin air. When i consider this idea, i find it deeply disturbing how it simply doesn’t fit within the laws of how our physical reality works.
The reason why I’m in full support of non-violent protest at the Occupy Wallstreet campaign is because it finally feels like people are taking their protest to the core of where it needs to be.
I’m not an economist, and I’d love for someone to show me how i’m wrong about all of this.
I’m also not a pessimist, and always like to offer solutions as well as just problems:
The only true solution for us as a species is for each individual to do as many of the following as possible:
Replace take with give, fear with love, doubt with trust.
Increase personal responsibility, transparancy, integrity and respect.
Lead by example. Forgive. Receive with gratitude and without expectation.
Learn to observe without judgement. Judging something as good or bad is like reaching out and grabbing onto the experience. Observe and allow. Accept.
Have the courage to feel pain. Be with it and breathe. Feel it as it leaves you. Avoiding traps it. Accepting releases it. Once you’ve mastered this, revisit old pain that you didn’t have the courage to feel at the time. Feel your old pain and release it too. Help other do the same if they ask.
Get comfortable with all the darkest corners of yourself. How can you be comfortable showing all of yourself to another who wants to love you if you can’t even bare to see those parts of you yourself?
See the truth of the shadow aspects of the people and the world around you. See them with acceptance and without judgment. Become comfortable with the worst case scenario. Even extinction. Once you are without fear you will better be able to focus on creating the world you would like to see.
Focus on creating the world you would like to see, always.
Do something with your life that will be felt seven generations after you are gone.
And above all increase your ability to share love. This involves increasing sensitivity to all things as emotion only has one volume dial. This is difficult in a toxic world. This is why increased sensitivity needs to be tempered by increased strength.if you like my rantings, come make friends.
I’m currently called Jonathan Occupy Wallstreet Davis on facebook.oh, and crowdfund the shit out of this awesome publication.
we love you New Matilda.This user is a New Matilda supporter.
Perfidious Rex
Posted Wednesday, 28 September 11 at 11:40PMJD
Lots of good points although I couldn’t resist pointing out that markets and the capitalist system don’t facilitate loans to people who can’t afford to repay them - Governments do that.
As you say the global banking system is a shambles but again no-one is lending to countries that don’t wish to borrow, and the banks themselves can only raise funding by virtue of being defacto arms of Government. Of course Governments won’t cut them loose since to do so would be to admit that the fiat/fractional reserve system has failed and they would lose an important tool of economic manipulation in their quest for constant economic growth.
Western Governments morbidly fear a return to the gold standard since it will impose the fiscal discipline they feverishly try to avoid and will slow or reverse the growth they have tried so hard in recent decades to create. PR
compass1312
Posted Thursday, 29 September 11 at 6:08AMJD
Seems like you’re a Raelian Zeitgeister, good comments.
Perfidious Rex
(1st Paragraph) Not true when one takes into account Credit Cards & Mortgages.
David Skidmore
Posted Thursday, 29 September 11 at 8:17AMI ask what’s the point of Wall St? Basically, a place where parasites aka speculators feed off their carrion.
Perfidious Rex
Posted Thursday, 29 September 11 at 10:20AMCompass
You forget that credit cards and mortgages are largely provided by the Government sponsored and subsidized banking sector.
What proportion of this debt is provided by the unregulated? PR
LukeMR
Posted Thursday, 29 September 11 at 1:54PMProtest is a communication medium and like any other it has strengths and weaknesses.
It’s good for single issues like anti-war. It’s terrible for complex issues. Regarding the latter, it’s difficult to get your own house in order at the protest end and convey a clear message and even if you do, the mainstream media doesn’t have the nuance capability to report.
To those on Wall Street right now, get some better ideas than protest. They’re out there.
Olivier
Posted Thursday, 29 September 11 at 2:41PMNM -Good article.
I observe a lot of protester focus on economic inequality,
and Public subsidies for the rich Private,
so I guess these are the ‘points’ of the Wall St.
Good work Jonathon Davis.
Few claim leadership, when the leadership reward is punishment.
Melbourne may be preparing for such an event now.
For the billions, not the billionaires.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
What's The Point Of The Wall Street Protests? #occupywallstreet
via newmatilda.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment