You Say You Want a Revolution

I come to you this week just back from McPherson Square, where the Occupy movement's DC chapter has been parked for the last month, complete with tents and drum circles and a swarm of disenchanted (disenfranchised?) college kids. I went because had I read, as perhaps you have, the litany of reasons reporters have given for why these kids are out there: from student loans to income inequality to greed and corruption. I wanted to hear it for myself.

If your stomach can stand one more story about these protests amid the deluge, well here it is.

Walking around the park felt like stepping out of my DeLorean into what I can only imagine a 60s demonstration must have felt like. There were tents covered in signs protesting everything from war to greed to fracking. There were sidewalk chalk drawings promoting love and harmony. It had the feeling of a close community; one woman was living there with a toddler whose toys were strewn in the grass. There were tents for information, media, and a big one operating a full service kitchen with crates of donated food. It was more or less a whirring operation.

After sitting in on a General Assembly and a long conversation with good-natured protester named Michael (who has a full time job but spends his evenings on the square), it was obvious: nobody out there knew what they wanted. Nobody knew how to attain their ideals. Nobody knew what would need to take place in order for them to feel it was ok to pack up and head home. They were there to figure all that out. What they knew was this:

They're mad as hell and they're not gonna take it anymore.

They're not alone. If the political and economic climate of this country doesn't upset you you're not awake. Nearly four years ago a toxic bundle of politicians, bankers, firms, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, home buyers, and a healthy dose of collective delusion sank our retirement accounts and put too many of us out of work. Then came an unprecedented federal spending spree that financed corporate bonuses, put our country even more perilously in debt, and arguably did little to improve our situation. We've been struggling with near stagnant growth ever since, and the entire debacle has quickened the pace of the hollowing out of the middle class and the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. If anyone feels they have a real solution, we'd all love to see the plan.

I have little faith the Occupy movement will ever foster or even encourage workable solutions to our crisis. Its Achilles' heal is the very principle it is founded on: it must never imitate the inequality it decries. If 1% of the community must never be given sway over the rest, then unanimous consent is required for every action taken and every idea proposed. The Occupy movement is home to anarchists and socialists, libertarians and Democrats, folks who want to redeem the system from the inside and folks who want to rip it apart. Uniting people this disparate through unanimous consent is hopeless. Any charismatic leader who might unite the group under a common set of actions is doomed because the very principles of the movement preclude leaders. The Tea Party, a group with an equal amount of populist anger, was able to put like-minded people in office who affected national legislation (admittedly in an age group much more fond of voting); will the Occupiers fare so well? Winter is coming fast, and very soon eighteen degree temperatures may prove to be stronger foes than corporate fat cats.

Of course many praise the movement for starting a conversation about income inequality in America, but I have to wonder if they've opened a newspaper lately. To me the news has been a years-long barrage of questions about America's future, chief among them the future of the middle class (here's a whopper of an example). And I have to wonder if it's even the right conversation. Certainly the concentration of wealth in 1% of the American population has its consequences, but is it the ultimate source of our trouble? What of our crippled education system? What of rising health care costs? Immigration? The debt crisis? Militarism? And on a global scale, aren't nearly all of us the 1%? How then should we live?

But for all the pointlessness I perceive, I must admit these protests are distinctly American. They are a celebration of freedom speech, freedom of assembly, and redress of grievances. We should frown on efforts to squelch them. If this were Europe I suppose there would be looted businesses and cars burning in the streets.

Walking back to the Metro from McPherson square, one image stayed with me. It was of a homeless man, sitting on a bench with a warm plate of food cooked up by the Occupy DC food tent. The occupiers may never get the equality they seek but at the end of the day they will have spent months housing and feeding those at the very bottom of the 99%–and that's worth fighting for.

Image: TimWilson