- Good ideas spread fast. This one's long overdue. Real
grievances launched it.
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- They include out-of-control corporate power, complicit
politicians, systemic corruption, predatory finance capital, capitalism
itself, frustration turned to rage and activism, growing poverty, depravation,
unemployment, imperial wars, environmental destruction, unprecedented inequality,
rigged elections, and a nation no longer fit to live in for most in it.
-
- There's no turning back now. A sign in New York's Liberty
Plaza read, "The Beginning Is Near!" Struggling for change just
began. Expect years before it ends. This fight's the mother of them all.
Committed activists are putting their bodies on the line, facing off against
brutal cops.
-
- It's activist class struggle, pitting organized people
against entrenched power.
-
- Nothing short of changing America is needed. One OWS
statement said:
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- "We come to you at a time when corporations, which
place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over
equality, run our governments."
-
- Another said:
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- "The beauty of this new formula....is simplicity:
we talk to each other (in) physical gatherings (and) people's assemblies.
We zero in on what our one demand will be (that) awakens the imagination
and, if achieved, would (achieve) radical democracy....and then we go out
and seize a square....and put our asses on the line to make it happen."
-
- Participants are independent, multi-racial and ethnic,
and in the streets. They include many religions and age groups, kids and
grannies, men and women, workers and unemployed, professionals, veterans,
rich and poor together to change America.
-
- They're a cross-pollination for a new nation, united
in the fight of their lives too important to lose.
-
- Rebuild the Dream.com posted a "Contract for the
American Dream," saying:
-
- "Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our
veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front.
Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into
the worst job market in half a century."
-
- America's the world's richest nation. They want its resources
used responsibly for everyone. They want jobs, not cuts. They listed "10
critical steps" to address, including:
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- rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure;
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- create clean energy jobs;
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- support public education;
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- provide universal healthcare;
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- mandate living wage security;
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- secure Social Security;
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- implement progressive taxes;
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- end imperial wars;
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- tax Wall Street speculation; and
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- restore lost democratic values and principles.
-
- In mid-October, a Quinnipiac University poll showed three-fourths
of New York City's registered voters support OWS rage against bankers and
social injustice.
-
- UCLA Professor Nina Elisoph said OWS "started to
change the debate in the country (and has) pried open some questions people
hadn't been asking."
-
- Bloomberg News said their message "may be resonating.
Sixty-one percent of (in new ABC News/Washington Post poll) said the US
wealth gap is larger now than it has been (before, and) six in 10 said
they support government efforts to reduce the disparity."
-
- Tacitly, that's majority OWS support. Expect greater
momentum growing across America and Europe.
-
- Last month, Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters encamped
around St. Paul's Cathedral. On November 9, they rallied against huge tuition
hikes, putting higher education out of reach for thousands. Months ago,
they protested earlier hikes and other social injustice issues.
-
- Others erected tents outside the European Central Bank
(ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany. Days earlier, thousands demonstrated there.
Protests were held outside Amsterdam's stock exchange.
-
- Tens of thousands raged in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France,
Germany, and, of course, Greece against painful austerity cuts to pay bankers,
using public revenues for it.
-
- Athens is the struggle's epicenter against financial
terrorism. On and off general strikes shut down the country. More will
follow. Prime Minister George Papandreou resigned.
-
- Former ECB vice president Lucas Papademos replaced him.
Troika power rules the country - the EU, IMF and ECB.
-
- It runs all 17 Eurozone countries. They're trapped in
the euro straightjacket with no control over their monetary or fiscal policies.
-
- Sovereign Greece no longer exists. Will other troubled
sovereigns follow? Several now approach the abyss.
-
- Will millions more across Europe lose jobs, welfare and
futures? Will tear gas, rubber bullets, baton power, and mass arrests restrain
them?
-
- Is America too big to fail? Whether it is or isn't won't
help ordinary people losing jobs, homes and futures. It's happening in
plain sight, strip mining the country's human capital.
-
- In mid-September, protests erupted, first on Wall Street,
then elsewhere nationwide, in big cities and small. America's media ignored
them, then trivialized, marginalized and mocked them. They became the issue,
not legitimate grievances needing addressed.
-
- Reactionary politicians like Republican Eric Cantor criticized
"growing mobs." Presidential aspirant Herman Cain called them
"anti-Semitic." Fox News calls them a "fringe" group,"
"petulant little children," "useful idiots," and "deluded"
with "absolutely no purpose or focus in life."
-
- Protests, in fact, represent direct democracy in action.
They highlight long ignored issues, ones political Washington and media
scoundrels don't discuss. Somebody has to, and they're doing it.
-
- They're spreading the word one-on-one, in small and larger
groups, online, through social networks, assemblies, teach-ins, and other
ways to enlist support city by city for something too important not to
grow and sustain.
-
- So far, police brutality energized more resistance. Rage
against the system continues. Much more must follow. Key is formalizing
demands and solutions, not just grievances.
-
- Central is putting money power back in public hands where
it belongs. Otherwise little else will change. Hopefully that message will
spread.
-
- People must be saved, not banks. Too-big-to-fail ones
must be shut, broken up or nationalized. Central bank authority must also
shift to public hands. Sustained general city, state and national strikes
must be used strategically.
-
- America's system is too broken and corrupted to fix.
Tearing it down and starting over is vital, including a new Constitution
put to a national referendum for an up or down vote.
-
- Egalitarian America must replace it's wealth and power
system, benefitting few at the expense of most others. The biggest of all
battles lie ahead. Dark forces lurk to co-opt and subvert them.
-
- Staying the course is key. Obstacles exist to be overcome.
So is knowing IF Stone's advice that:
-
- "The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those
you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and
lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins...."
-
- Gandhi said it his way, saying:
-
- "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you.
Then they fight you. Then you win."
-
- We're in the ridiculing/fighting stage. It'll continue
years longer, maybe decades. Nothing's guaranteed, of course, especially
in the mother of all struggles.
-
- If activists and those after them don't quit, winning's
indeed possible, but not without great pain, sacrifice, and struggles often
looking futile.
-
- It's how all great battles are won, none easily, quickly
or without great cost.
-
- No matter. Liberate your minds. Join the 99%. Stay the
course, and find out! We're all in this together!
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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