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New America Media / Op-Ed
Published: Tuesday 11 October 2011
Take a look at the largest support base that has thrown its muscle behind Occupy Wall Street during the past week—organized labor—and the direction of this movement becomes somewhat clearer.
Why No Demands - Occupy Wall Street is a Rebellion, Not a Protest.
Let’s get something straight: this movement has issued no demands. It is not a protest. It’s an occupation. Rebellions don’t have demands.
As we wrote in the editorial that appeared in the second edition of The Occupied Wall Street Journal on Saturday: “We are speaking to each other, and listening. This occupation is first about participation.”
That said, take a look at the largest support base that has thrown its muscle behind Occupy Wall Street during the past week—organized labor—and the direction of this movement becomes somewhat clearer.
America’s unions have been so sidelined and mismanaged in recent years that Tea Partiers last winter thought they could run them off the cliff altogether. The workers’ revolt in Wisconsin showed that wasn’t about to happen—and what we’re seeing now in Manhattan is further proof that labor is retooling, its ambitions sharpened and emboldened by the participatory assembly in Liberty Park.
“The occupation movement [in America] was started by labor in Madison when they occupied the capital, and that has given labor the go-ahead to do more, to become more active, more militant, and to support things like this,” said Jackie Di Salvo, who teaches English at Baruch College and is a member of the Professional Staff Congress, a union of faculty and staff representing 18 colleges in the CUNY system.
Since Occupy Wall Street began more than three weeks ago, Di Salvo has been instrumental reaching out to organized labor and gaining institutional support; the unions that have endorsed the movement are many, and they are growing. National Nurses United. United Federation of Teachers.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. Laborers’ International Union of North America. Amalgamated Transit Union. United Steelworkers. Industrial Workers of the World. Transport Workers Union Local 100. The list goes on.
What we saw last Wednesday, Oct. 5, when 30,000 people filled Foley Square before marching en masse to Liberty Square, was the unions’ first visible show of solidarity with the occupation, and it counted. Alongside thousands of students (with many teachers) who engaged in a citywide walkout that afternoon, their voices added power to the call resonating across the nation: that big finance and big politics need to gear up for a big change.
Cementing that support, two days later AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka visited Liberty Square where he stated his support and his union federation’s unanimous decision to back Occupy Wall Street. Feeling betrayed by free trade agreements that hobbled domestic manufacturing (under Clinton) and a false promise to allow workers to unionize via “card check” (under Obama), organized labor has been on the ropes; the assault on pensions and collective bargaining diminished it further.
What Trumka’s endorsement of the occupation means is that unions, with millions of members and a formidable political apparatus, now have the green light to make noise. The responsibility is on their shoulders along with ours to grow this movement nationally.
As we wrote in the latest OWS Journal:
“The exhausted political machines and their PR slicks are already seeking leaders to elevate, messages to claim, talking points to move on. They, more than anyone, will attempt to seize and shape this moment. But how can they run out in front of something that is in front of them? They cannot. For Wall Street and Washington, the demand is not on them to give us something that isn’t theirs to give. It’s ours. It’s on us. We aren’t going anywhere. We just got here.”
The occupation, which has now spread to more than 100 cities across America, grew from the desire to reshape a criminal and bankrupt financial-political landscape that favors the 1% over the 99%. Where precisely is this movement going? Perhaps that isn’t as important as the question about where it’s not going.
Said Di Salvo: “We’re not going to settle for one reform demand that can be conceded and then lets us shut down the movement—no one demand could meet the goals that have been set by this group for readjusting the balance of power in this country.
“The other place we’re not going is we’re not going to go into electoral politics, weighed down into waiting for the next election when everything will be okay. We’re going to keep engaging in direct action, the marching, the occupation.”
Labor’s traditional power is mobilizing bodies in the street and in the ballot box. How much they’re engaging in support for the movement—and how much they’re becoming it—has yet to be seen.The next date to circle on your calendar: this Saturday, Oct. 15, when new encampments and occupations spring up across the nation, and across the world. Some are calling it a global day of revolution. One that will, it appears, be televised.
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ABOUT Michael Levitin
Michael Levitin began working as a journalist in Bolivia where he covered violent water protests in 2000 for the La Paz English-language newspaper Bolivian Times. He was the paper’s editor before he returned to the U.S. to attend the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, earning his Masters degree in 2002.
Michael was founding editor of The Prague Literary Review in 2003. He later reported for the Associated Press in Puerto Rico and covered terrorism and immigration issues as a freelance journalist in Barcelona. From 2005-2009 Michael lived in Berlin, working as a global affairs analyst for the Deutsche Welle TV news program Quadriga, and as a correspondent writing about culture, politics, environment and everything in between.
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18 comments on "Why No Demands - Occupy Wall Street is a Rebellion, Not a Protest."
bfrxqkf
October 16, 2011 1:56pm
Agreed - This is a bunch of children holding their breath till someone gives them their ice cream - it's hard to believe a group with less maturity than the tea party actually appeared.
October 16, 2011 1:56pm
Agreed - This is a bunch of children holding their breath till someone gives them their ice cream - it's hard to believe a group with less maturity than the tea party actually appeared.
October 15, 2011 5:50pm
"this movement has issued no demands. It is not a protest. It’s an occupation. Rebellions don’t have demands."
LOL...and this is why this "movement" is currently going nowhere fast. News flash: The American Revolution had specific demands...one of them was that they wanted the British to leave so that the colonies could rule themselves. Without demands, this "movement" is just a bunch of useless whining, period.
October 13, 2011 9:46pm
I'm in total agreement with this piece. It is a rebellion. For all that went on, it has reached a boiling point. How much further can these elitists push the people? So maybe there isn't a centralized plan? It's working! the points of contention are too many and we have seen these issues brought up time after time on the petitions to senators and congressmen. So far we haven't seem much of a response because of the corruption in government. "As if they want small government?" It takes a large government to deny the public what they need in reform. We have been taken for a ride. Even those in Congress who have been given the title, "Liberal" are using their positions for personal gain. Sorry, these are the ones who need to voice reform for the betterment of the public and not cater to the corporations.
It seems to me the longevity and seniority of politicians hasn't helped push for reform. It has only allowed them to pursue the glory as well as their wealth. This is the frustration of all Americans while the vocalization by the press seem to have been given favor to the conservatives! We need to a fair representation of what is really happening in our country. Not a few Democrats who give a lukewarm compromise to the politics that the public abhors and do not want!
October 15, 2011 6:07pm
How is this "movement" working?? What has changed? Nothing! Sure, it's only been a month or so, but give us all a break with the "it's working" nonsense.
October 13, 2011 8:41am
Best organized piece I've seen for a movement in progress. We all want to pigeon hole to put people in but these folks staying on in Liberty Park and making Occupy Wall Street grow are not going to be reduced for the meat grinder of gotcha media. Let them evolve.
October 12, 2011 7:58pm
I agree, making demands limits the scope of the rebellion. Staring the bastards down requires them to explain themselves. The young Marine's plainspoken response to Shawn Hannity is a good opener for the Occupation's press secretary.
October 12, 2011 3:46pm
The American dream is alive and well for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, but unfortunately, if you are in the other 99% the jury is still out.
"America is obviously a country where you can go from being middle class to upper class, but right now class mobility has sort of collapsed in the United States," says Zaid Jilani, senior reporter for the progressive think tank ThinkProgress.org. (See: America's Middle Class Crisis: The Sobering Facts)
This grim reality is in part the impetus for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which, now in its fourth week, will take to the streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side Tuesday in what it is calling the "Millionaire's March." Demonstrators will rally outside the homes of some of the city's wealthiest, including News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, to protest New York state's 2% millionaire tax set to expire at the end of the year.
As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, The Daily Ticker wanted to find out just how rich America's super-rich 1% really is. Jilani recently compiled the following research, entitled How Unequal We Are: The Top 5 Facts You Should Know About The Wealthiest One Percent of Americans.
As discussed in the accompanying interview, here's what Jilani outlined on his blog:
#1) The Top 1% Owns 40% of the Nation's Wealth:
Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz points out the richest 1% of Americans now own 40% of the nation's wealth. This disparity is much worse than it was in the past, as just 25 years ago the top 1% owned 33% of national wealth.
How much does the bottom 80% own? Only 7%.
#2) The Top 1% Take Home 24% of National Income:
While the richest 1% of Americans take home almost a quarter of national income today, in 1976 they took home just 9% -- meaning their share of the national income pool has nearly tripled in roughly three decades.
#3) The Top 1% Own Half of the Country's Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds: The Institute for Policy Studies illustrates this massive disparity in financial investment ownership, noting that the bottom 50% of Americans own only 0.5% of these investments.
#4) The Top 1% of Americans Have Only 5% of the Nation's Personal Debt:
Using 2007 figures, sociologist William Domhoff points out that the top 1% have 5% of the nation's personal debt while the bottom 90% have 73% of total debt.
#5) The Top 1% Are Taking In More off the Nation's Income Than at Any Other Time Since the 1920s: Not only are the wealthiest 1% of Americans taking home a tremendous portion of the national income, but their share of this income is greater than at any other time since the Great Depression, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities illustrates in this chart, using 2007 data.
October 12, 2011 1:21pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAdu0N1-tvU&feature=related
Know who we're really fighting. Not the well-to-do or the wealthy, but the Global Elite. The Occupy Protestors Should all see this video.
October 12, 2011 11:23am
OWS is local, and local results can and will happen fast. Everywhere, Occupy represents the people in different locations, and so the needs and demands are different. People who cannot deal with change, or uncertainty want to label the OWS supporters as overeducated, "un-Americans". But they need to look at the faces in the crowds, and they will SEE that they are no more "un-American" than the TP'ers. At least OWS protesters DON'T BRING ASSAULT WEAPONS to their events even though they get attacked by the police...hmmm?
October 12, 2011 11:14am
RAW, I will give you a few of the revolutionary changes that we the 99% will eventually demand:
Out law campaign contributions at all levels of government. Call them what they are bribes.
All funding for elections at all levels come thru a government fund ONLY.
OUTLAW Lobbying, which is simply hiring a bag person to funnel the bribes of campaign contributions to the office holder.
Outlaw the movement from government service, of any type or at any level, to civilian employment. So if you work for Max Baucas head of Military Affairs Committee, you can not work for any company or in any industry that deals with the military, whether a service company or one that sell hard product to the military.
If a CEO of a company wants to talk to his Congressman/woman, then he can very well get on his personal jet and fly to Washington DC. Where he can sign up for the vistior's list which is run on a first come first serve basis on a daily basis. No more hiring a "Public Affairs" or "Legal" company to do the talking for the CEO.
People are defined as human beings, with a need to eat, shit, sleep and breath. Corporations are pieces of paper that simply burn. Government is for people not corporations.
If a church gets involved in politics then let them pay taxes. Religion should be about ministering to the congregation, not about getting laws passed that confirm to your particular religious prejudice. If you want to be involved in the political process, mans law not Gods law, then you are no longer a church, you are now a business, and you will pay taxes just like every other business.
Shit can these FREE TRADE, an oxymoron if ever there was one, agreements. Bring back tariffs to protect United States people, workers, small and medium businesses. Let the multi-national corporation move out of the country, they don't pay any taxes anyway, they refuse to contribute to this countries well being like paying taxes so we can build and maintain roads, bridges, airports, rail systems, so we don't want them here. Go away. Go away now.
Got it RAW? Understand what we the 99%ers are looking to do? Or are you so mired in your Fox misinformation world that you can not comprehend what Democracy is suppose to be about that you can not see the correctly spelled words on the sign in the hands of OWStreeter sitting in front of that Bank of America who is illegally forcing people out of their homes. Too bad for you.
October 16, 2011 1:59pm
@BILLP - So is that all lobbyists or just the ones you don't like. I hate to remind you that gay marriage becoming legal in New York was lobbied AND had plnty of private funding and leverage behind it.
October 15, 2011 6:05pm
One cannot totally outlaw lobbying without outlawing free speech. One can erect barriers though to make lobbying less corruptive.
One also cannot outlaw "the movement from government service, of any type or at any level, to civilian employment". One can only restrict it. You really don't want the govt. telling you what field you can or can't work in, do you??
"No more hiring a 'Public Affairs' or 'Legal' company to do the talking for the CEO."
This is also illegal. Again, do you really want the govt. telling people who can or can't legally represent them when dealing with official business before our government??
Tariffs have never worked to really protect anything in the long-run. We need Fair Trade on a level playing level (particularly when it comes to environmental & labor laws), not Free Trade, which is just a useless race to the bottom.
October 12, 2011 11:00am
RAW must be part of the 1%.
October 12, 2011 10:28am
Whatever you call this movement and their action (protest, occupation, rebellion, class warfare, revolution, whatever words you understand), they are saying the SYSTEM is HIJACKED by the jackals of the Wall St. and these scions of capital who comprise less than .005% ignore US, THE PEOPLE who comprise 99%, relegating US to servitude, poverty, ignorance, bigotry, illness, wars and death. They are MAD and CANNOT TAKE IT ANY MORE. Comprehend?
October 12, 2011 10:27am
Yep, just a bunch of overeducated, disloyal firebrands without a single cohesive policy proposal or plan for a better system of government, still after several weeks. Who do they think they are, founding fathers? Why, it only took THEM ... eleven years between the Declaration of Independence (which suggested no form of government) to the Constitution. Read the declarations of OWS and the founding fathers to see how similar they are.
October 15, 2011 5:58pm
That's just silly...learn some history my friend. Never heard of the Articles of Confederation?? You should...since many in the GOP & the Tea Party movement basically want to return us to that failure. It was what the USA had before the U.S. Constitution. Also, the Declaration of Independence indicated that the colonies wanted to govern themselves, which is a specific demand.