They are earnest and motivated and they are actually out there trying to make their voices heard, but when they have to clarify on NPR that no, they are not against wealth and, no, they are not out to dismantle capitalism, I think they have a bit of a messaging problem.
Leave it up to the dissertating grad student to take a heartfelt movement and strip it down to its messaging. But the fact is, unless the powers that be are out there in the streets talking to the protesters, the messages that the protesters send out into the media channels are really all they have.
And what they have is a diffuse, multi-layered message that gets amended every time someone new joins the fold. It's this sort of leader-less, ultra-democratic form of protest that usually fails to get anything done. Like Keith Harrington, I am sad that this exciting movement may by killed by its own ambiguity.
What do I think would work better? Strong leadership. The civil rights movement was headed by religious leaders from black churches across the country. They were virtually morally unassailable, could solicit activity from their congregants and, for various personal and social reasons, people got up off their seats and out into the streets.
Financial leverage. In this neoliberal climate, nothing hurts more than the bottom line. Refuse to consume. Really refuse. If all those people went home and refused to buy anything other than food and other necessities and their leadership let it be known that they would not contribute to the consumer spending index until a living wage was instituted nationally, perhaps someone would heed them. What do corporate leadership and government figures have to lose in the current situation if they refuse to acknowledge the OWS demands? Nothing.
Specific demands. From bus desegregation to gay marriage to women's right to vote, successful (or potentially successful) movements have specific, achievable goals. Have you read the list of demands from Occupy Wall Street protesters? While there are some good, solid points (living wage, universal single-payer health care), demanding free college education, one trillion dollars for ecological restoration, and the outlawing of all credit reporting agencies...
Um, no.
Pick one or two demands that, within our current political climate, will not sound like idealistic Marxian hogwash to anyone who doesn't reside on the far left of the political spectrum. And this from the lips (fingertips?) of a painfully idealistic Marxist hogwash lover who has a real problem with the masculinist, even misogynist nature of most social movement leadership.
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| From NPR.org: Protesters march through New York's financial district dressed as corporate zombies on Monday. |
As a leftist, this protest excites me. But as someone who has studied social movements of the past century, it depresses me. I keep thinking, "They have people out in the streets shouting and carrying signs saying the things that I wish I could scream from the rooftops!" But then I see or hear coverage and I witness the anti-authoritarian nature of the protest and the lack of unified message and I feel overwhelmed again. And then I think, "I should try to help them!" But then I look at the piles of books in my office and my bank statement and I remember how important it is for me to get through this dissertation and get a job, and then try to make time for social action. Timing is everything. For me, it's just not right.
But if someone sparked a financial movement, a general strike or mass consumer boycott, both me and my bank account would enthusiastically comply.
For now, I fret. As usual.
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J,
ReplyDeleteHere's an article from Salon that addresses the organizational aspects of the protests:
http://politics.salon.com/2011/09/28/protests_21/
That's a good article. I should clarify that I am absolutely not dismissive of the movement. In fact, like I said, I would be glad to offer help in the ways the author suggests if I had any time to give. And because I think what they're saying is so right, I want more than anything for them to succeed. I worry, though, that it's easy to dress up and camp out and carry signs, but difficult to sustain and carry forward. I worry that the movement won't get beyond what the author describes as the "three-year old" stage because there is little to sustain it - no way to measure progress, no way to measure impact, no way to keep protesters motivated to keep going. By acknowledging the movement's shortfalls I am not dismissing the protesters. I am wishing better for them.
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