Tweet
Ralph Nader offered here what I consider an apt description of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s significance and its place within the greater political situation in the United States and the world:
In the Arab Spring of Cairo, Egypt earlier this year, it was said that a million people in Tahrir Square lost their fear of the dictatorship. It can be said that in this “American Autumn,” some 150,000 people have discovered their power and rejected apathy. They have come far in so little time because the soil for their pushback is so fertile, nourished by the revulsion of millions of their countrypersons moving toward standing up and showing up themselves.
I agree. Americans surely are now surpassing the collective denial which characterized the Reagan Revolution. They are learning that the United States is not what they recently believed it to be. An insistent and changing world has exposed the Reagan Revolution for what it is and what it was when first announced: A kind of class war occluded by myth. Therefore, I would not say that the Occupy Wall Street movement is more able than other recent social movements in the United States, and has succeeded where others have failed because of its abilities. Rather, Occupy Wall Street is, in part, a mirror reflecting the emerging — dare I say it?!? — class consciousness in the United States, a conscious experience of the essence of wage labor under capitalism by members of the popular classes.
The destruction of the Colonne Vendome
25 Comments
Indeed. The sleeping giant of class consciousness is awakening from its Madison Avenue and corporate news-induced slumber. And actions such as what recently happened in Oakland are filling it with a terrible resolve.
Interesting times will soon be upon us. Ready or not, here they come.
As the prognosticator of political revolution once wrote: “All that’s solid melts into air, all that’s holy is profaned….”
“The center cannot hold.”
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
I hope we’re heading for Bethlehem and not Allende’s Chile!
Had to comment on this thread just because of my username.
But, nice post too, as always Szielinski.
Mornin’, szielinski,
The Nader quote seemed to be missing a word or two; try this:
In the Arab Spring of Cairo, Egypt earlier this year, it was said that a million people in Tahrir Square lost their fear of the dictatorship. It can be said that in *this “American Autumn,” some 150,000 people have discovered their power* and rejected apathy.
That people ARE discovering the power that so many of us ceded for so long is the most glorious part of this movement, this revolution.
Self-somnolence is ending! Madison Avenue’s power over us is waning; people are unplugging because there’s not much left to lose, either in their lives or their kin’s lives.
Nice diary.
Excellent diary, szielinski.
Thank you.
Recommended.
DW
Thanks!
Thanks, Wendy. I fixed the quote. I don’t know how I manage to create that one….
Thanks.
Isn’t that a photo of the Siege of Paris of 1871? The Commune tore down the Colonne Vendome. Between 15- 40 thousand people were killed when the government (and the Prussians) killed the Paris Commune.
That’s U.S. FALL, OWSters!
@ChristineEdmondson: that is the Place Vendome, and the monument is still there.
There is a subway station named Louise Michel, after one of the anarchist leaders of the Paris Commune; not far from where I am staying.
Tea Party for the left.
It is a photo of the Paris Commune. I saw a historical precedent in the destruction of the Colonne Vendome and the debunking of a mythical Reagan Revolution. The occupations also bear a family resemblance to the Commune, as do many other popular uprisings.
Many of the Communards killed were murdered after the fact by the Army. They were punished for being Communards.
Nope. Different.
Sacred ground for radical democrats! Sadly, it seems, Napoleon spirit still dwells in the same place.
We’ll see. I’m not convinced yet. These Occupations certainly are interesting, but without focus or leadership they’re all eventually easily disrupted and broken up. The problem is breaking them up is like swatting at angry yellow jackets , it just pisses them off more. The ? is is this just the beginning? Everyone thought Russia would blow in 1905 took a World war and 12 more yrs. before the top blew off that kettle. I think we have a bit more of a way to go before we arrive at a truly Revolutionary moment and even then remember we lie at the heart of the Empire where its strongest.
Reading about the Paris Commune, I realize its spirit was closer to OWS than any other historical event has been.
I’d say we’re experiencing a weak revolutionary moment (members of the popular classes want a new and better social system) but not a revolutionary situation (two political entities roughly equivalent in the power they wield make claims to holding sovereign power). We seems to be in a revolutionary moment in as much as so many are wanting and imagining a better society than the one they now have. Better can meaning anything from debt cancellation and real health care reform to a competent social democratic government to a a federation of General Assemblies. Yet, the Occupy Movement can be easily crushed by military force whenever the federal government wants the country to return to ‘normal.’ The Occupy Movement is not a credible contender for state power. It is currently pushing back against the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a self-serving elite. This is a great achievement in this land of apathy and private living. Much remains to be done, however, as you point out.
It’s amazing how popular protests reproduce the features the Commune made famous!
Ralph Nader’s suggestion in this article that people leave wall street and the focus on corporations go to congress and the senate instead–i.e. the same old, failed plan, is a terrible idea. Surely old habits die hard, but I’m glad the OWS movement is not being run by pundits.
Nader advocated no such thing. He advocated encamping around the offices of Senators and Congressmen in order to draw more of the 99% into the movement. Nader’s position:
The Occupy Movement could do much worse with their time than educate the legislators.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I said; he wants to shift the attention to Washington, away from wall street and the corporations; the same old failed plan, failed focus on electoral politics instead of forcing system change, which I think the OWS is capable of.
You’re misinterpreting Nader. He did not claim that the movement ought to focus on electoral politics.
By the way, what does “system change” mean to you?