Michael Chenoweth

Since their demonstrations began, other similar “occupy” movements have started in other cities around America, and in other cites around the world. Their protests point to huge special benefits that the rich, epitomized by Wall Street companies and banks, have managed to obtain for themselves, and the lack of any visible concern in the halls of Congress for ordinary Americans.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters, however, have been handicapped by their lack of, and apparent distain for, organization and designated spokespersons. The press, which is itself compromised to a degree by its need for corporate sponsorship to continue to be economically successful, has failed to identify and quantify adequately the goals, if any, of the Occupy protesters.

My lawyer friends, who also share the concerns of the protesters, claim that reporters from the media are intentionally NOT hearing what the protesters are saying, and are deliberately NOT reporting what the protesters are seeking. 

As much as I know my friends are sincere, I also know a few members of the media, many of whom have devoted their careers to exposing inequity in our society. I believe that these investigators and reporters would have found a way to get the protesters’ story out, if there were a coherent message there. 

They haven’t, and therefore, I am forced to conclude that much of the Occupy effort is “much ado about nothing, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing”.  

I say that even though I agree that there are undeniable inequities in American society and in our economy that must be rectified.

It is up to the Occupy protesters, if they are really serious about their quest, to select leaders and develop and publish a clear picture of what they want, AND how they think we should get there.  They need to develop a political platform. 

In my novel, “Power!” which is described elsewhere on this web site, very near the beginning is the statement, “Everything is political.”
The Occupy movement needs to recognize that their concerns can only be satisfied through a political process. If they really want a resolution of their concerns in their favor, they must establish a political organization to advocate for those changes. The disorganized statements that I’ve seen coming from the Occupy movement have implied that the protesters have a distrust of the political process. 

I say to them, “Get over it.” 

It should be clear to anyone with a reasonable number of brain cells that the people who now have control of the economy and American political machine are not going to give up their power and influence on their own initiative. 

There will have to be changes in the way the system works, and implementation of those changes will be a revolution in modern society. The revolutionary changes will have to be forced on the political and economic systems.  

That brings us to at least one of the fundamental questions:  How will those revolutionary changes come about? 

Before I discuss this question, let’s make one observation.

Occupy Wall Street seems to me to be a “liberal” movement. But there is another movement out there in America that is generally considered to be representative of the extreme right. I am referring to the “Tea Party.” 

It seems to me that, if you remove the trappings from the Occupy movement and from the Tea Party movement, you have two movements that are complaining about the same things. Distrust of government. Government interfering with their lives, too much or unfair taxation, government that seems more concerned about regulating them than solving the problems that they can’t solve for themselves. Government that is non-responsive to their concerns.

The Tea Party approach seems to be to oppose all government.  

In a nation with 300 million people, that is a nonstarter. What they are advocating is chaos. 

The Occupy approach is not really clear, but there is obviously a significant distrust of our present government and how it operates. They don't even trust government enough to select their own spokespeople.

It occurs to me that, IF the Occupy movement ever gets its act together and can coherently express an agenda, there is at least a possibility that it could align itself with the more rational Tea Party members to create an organization that could produce real positive changes in this country. 

That possibility is worth at least a little thought.

If there is a message in all of this, it is that we are at a cusp, as a society, and it is important how we address the situation, how we respond to the challenges, and how we react to these demonstrators. 

The issues that both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement are expressing are important. 

It is equally important that those of us who are not demonstrating take them seriously and look for ways to support the parts of their platforms that we find meritorious.

We are possibly present at the beginning of a revolution, which could be either a good or bad thing. 

Nations can end up worse than they started if their revolution gets out of hand. 

So I propose that it is up to us, all of us, how this one comes out.

Among my best friends are a couple who emigrated from Peru to the United States. Both of them are extremely intelligent, and the following italicized thought is their observation, paraphrased by me.

The world saw three major successful revolutions during the 20^th Century.  The first was the expulsion of the British from India.  The second was the Civil Rights movement in the United States. And the third was the ending of apartheid in South Africa. The first was led by Mohandas Gandhi; the second by Martin Luther King; and the third by Nelson Mandela.  There was a common characteristic shared by all of these leaders: Non-violence.  As we move forward into our next revolution, it is essential that we avoid violence and emphasize non-violence. 

Recent news reports are full of videos of police spraying seated protesters with pepper spray at the University of California, Davis.  My opinion is that those officers should be fired and prosecuted. There is no possible justification for using pepper spray on seated demonstrators. Police cannot be above the law, or there is no law.

In an interesting way, that video demonstrates the strength of non-violence. It has achieved wider news coverage than would have occurred if the police behavior had not been so outrageous, or if the demonstrators had been engaged in attacking the police.

In India, when Mohandas Gandhi was opposed by a repressive British government, he led the Indian people to the seashore, to "make salt", which violated the English monopoly on salt production. 

What the leaders of the Occupy forces (if there are any leaders) need to do is to figure out how to "make salt" here in the United States. In other words, to defy, peacefully, the inequities of the economic system that has been forced on the majority of Americans.   

I, for one, will be looking for those leaders to come forward and let me know how I can help them.

That's my opinion.