On Friday night, my wife and I went down to Burnside Park to check out the official kickoff of Occupy Providence, the latest in a string of protests begun by the Occupy Wall Street folks. I’ll be honest: we weren’t sure yet exactly how we felt about the protests, especially since much of our knowledge of them has been shaped by the way the media has been portraying them, which is to imply that they’re a bunch of anarchistic kids with no jobs and no real message, who should just stop making waves.
This isn’t the case. The crowd we saw last night was extremely diverse. There were people of every skin color, gender and age group represented. Art-school kids with gauged ears and punky outfits chanted happily next to elderly gentlemen in tweed jackets. There were musicians, artists, people handing out educational materials on a variety of subjects, photographers both professional and amateur … and there were a lot of people who, like my wife and I, were merely curious about the movement and wanted to learn more.
What we saw at the park was inspiring. People in their fifties and sixties (and older) were mingling happily with teens and twenty-something college students, who stood alongside thirty and forty-something parents and professionals like Charlotte and I. Most of the people there didn’t need to “get a job” (the most common insult hurled at these groups) because we already have jobs. I didn’t see a lot of lazy, go-nowhere pot-heads who had merely moved from the couch in their parents’ basement to a tent in the local park. What I saw instead was a group of regular people who are unhappy with the way our current system of government is working, and would like to effect change. The overall belief is that this can no longer be accomplished merely by voting, and that more significant action must be taken.
Are there a lot of mixed messages coming from the protests? Sure. It’s a given that when you have more than a thousand people standing in a park holding signs and chanting, some of them are going to be “off message.” There will be someone there whose biggest concern is stopping the fur trade. There will be someone else who is convinced that the legalization of marijuana will solve the world’s ills. There will even be a few people who are only there to “troll” the protest by holding up goofy, ridiculous or insulting signs. The media delights in presenting these types as the face of the movement, but it’s an inaccurate portrayal. The vast majority of the people there do in fact have a pretty good idea of why it is that they’re there and what they hope to accomplish.
We can break down the concerns of the majority of protesters easily with three simple statements:
1. The “American Dream” is failing, and it is no longer possible simply by finding a job and working hard to enjoy a comfortable life and a secure retirement. Corporate loyalty to, appreciation of, and concern for employees is at a low not seen since the early 20th century: a time when hundreds of thousands lived in poverty and were worked to the bone simply to eke out a meager existence.
2. Our government and politicians no longer represent the will of the people in any real way. Both parties are owned by corporations and special interests, and both parties have been complicit in the gradual erosion of worker rights, the widening of the gap between rich and poor, and the continued establishment of laws which benefit corporations at the expense of the populace.
3. It is completely unacceptable that corporations and the ultra-rich enjoy massive tax breaks, subsidies, and other benefits that allow them to pay far less than they should (or in some cases, nothing at all) while the average person in this country struggles to pay the bills. It is unacceptable for a company to receive tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in bailouts/stimuli/subsidies, declare record profits, give its high-level employees massive bonuses, and then announce vast layoffs of its lower-level employees.
The United States has fallen into a sort of “Capitalism Uber Alles” trap whereupon the pursuit of the dollar is seen as the most glorious activity that mankind can undertake. Being rich, or getting rich, is the most important thing one can aspire to. And if one is rich, then one has every right to exploit any available method of retaining as much money as possible. Corporations, particularly those which are publicly held, are judged almost exclusively by their share price. If the price goes up, they are doing the right thing, even if the “right thing” is massive layoffs, cutbacks on employee benefits and a complete disregard for the environmental impact of their business. It is also not enough anymore merely to be profitable, or even to maintain steady growth. Record profits and huge stock increases have become the expected.
The goal of the protests is to draw attention to these issues. There are millions of Americans struggling to make a living right now who have a general sense that life has treated them unfairly, but lack any method of making themselves heard or impacting the policies that have dictated their fortunes. They cannot even be sure that the local representatives they have voted for are acting with their best interests in mind. The hope is that these protests will act as a snowball rolling downhill, growing ever larger as more and more people see that, yes, there are others out there who feel the same. There are others out there who sympathize with them, and care about them, and want to enact change that will help them.
Charlotte and I have worked very hard to reach our present point, where we are largely free of debt and enjoy a higher quality of life than many of the people in this country. We pay our taxes on time every year, and we are conscious of the community around us and the ways in which we can impact it, both positive and negative. We do not believe it is too much to ask from corporations and the ultra-rich that they do the same thing. We do not believe that it is too much to demand of politicians – men and women elected by the people, who are supposed to serve the people – that they make the necessary changes to the laws of this country to ensure that those things happen.
We went to the march to see if our beliefs were being adequately represented. We’ll be going back because we found that they were. This country does not belong to Bank of America, or to Exxon Mobil, or to Apple. It belongs to you, and to me, and to our neighbors and friends, and even to that jerk who lives down the street and plays his stereo too loud, late at night. It belongs to the people, and the people are standing up and demanding that notice be taken of them.
This is not a call for communism or even socialism. It’s merely an acknowledgment of the massive inequalities present in our country, and that a time has come for change. We’re not demanding heads for the guillotine, and we’re not asking for handouts. We’re asking our government and our corporations to do the right thing, to keep America strong and to keep its people happy, healthy, and gainfully employed. This is a good thing, and it’s something that any American — even the super-rich — should be able to appreciate and support.
I encourage you to go down to your local protest (you probably have one), and check it out. You may find that it’s not for you, but you may also find that it’s not nearly as full of crazy anarchists and droning lie-abouts as you’ve been led to believe.
