Recommended Reading on #OccupyWallStreet
posted by Frank Pasquale
In previous posts, I’ve worried that a large-scale effort to protest inequality in the US would spark a backlash. But the Occupy Wall Street movement has carefully and skillfully built up a network of alliances (from local community groups and unions). As news outlets and citizens consider how to react to the hundreds of arrests made yesterday, they should be aware of these sources:
Mark Engler, Five Things That #OccupyWallStreet Has Done Right
Micah Sifry, #OccupyWallStreet: There’s Something Happening Here, Mr. Jones.
Mike Konczal, Understanding the Theory Behind Occupy Wall Street’s Approach
Doug Henwood, The Occupy Wall Street non-agenda
Glenn Greenwald, What’s behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests?
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media has been condescending and dismissive. I recommend the alternative sources above because of the people I met on Thursday evening when I went to see the protest for myself.
Overall, I was impressed. I talked for about a half-hour with an Army reservist who had traveled from Indiana to take part in the protest. He told me that unemployment for returning troops from Iraq was near 35%. He said that, where he lived in Indiana, frustration with politicians from both parties had never been higher. He had slept in the plaza for a couple nights, but had to get back for reserve duty by the weekend.
Another protester had recently lost her job in New Jersey. She told me that she came to visit Zuccotti Park when it didn’t interfere with her job search too much. She said that a a friend of hers who worked for a Wall Street firm as an accountant for $40,000 per year also plan to join the occupiers. According to her, he has been stuck in the same job at a stagnant pay level for years because more senior employees are too anxious to retire.
At 6PM there was a teach-in called “How to Tax Millionaires.” A woman of about 25 gave a brief speech about how 136 millionaires in Congress were opposing the “Buffett Rule,” and she urged us to sign fax forms to demand that they at least allow the legislation to be considered. We also had a good discussion about tax havens, UK Uncut, and the need to equalize taxation on labor and capital gains.
The atmosphere was both positive and serious-minded. A band played music or drums that could be heard throughout the plaza. A group manned laptops on stone blocks. Dozens of beds and cots, covered in plastic, spread diagonally from southeast to northwest. I didn’t catch the “church” vibe that Matt Stoller describes, but I did find this description of his spot-on:
Many of the organizers were inspired by Wisconsin and Egypt, by attacks on teachers, by corruption on Wall Street, by money in politics, and are just happy to be out in the streets after a long period of absence of formal protest. . . [U]ltimately, the energy of just having a bunch of people in one place for a long period of time is very different, and much more interesting, than just a march. The protesters are creating a public space for the discussion of economic justice, just by showing up. Some told me they are planning teach-ins.
And you can sort of tell that this protest really bothers the community on Wall Street, stirring up deep existential questions for the people that work there, many of whom know there is a spectacle going on in the streets below. I don’t think anyone knows where and how this ends, or if it does. . . . But perhaps success and failure isn’t the right way to think about what’s going on in downtown New York, any more than thinking about a church as successful or failed based on its political objectives is the right way to think about how those in the pews satisfy their thirst for spiritual vigor. What these people have found in themselves, and created for each other, is meaning.
For some, the question is how to channel the meaning into concrete demands. (Mike Konczal suggests three: create a financial transaction tax, investigate Wall Street, and forgive bad mortgage debt.) I have heard that OWS is working toward a list of demands now. The right to formulate these demands, express them, and petition government in a way that can actually get results is at the core of the First Amendment the framers gave us. I hope the NYPD remember this as they watch the protest—and that, as Jamie Kilstein tweeted, “NYPD, when your benefits get cut, these were the kids that were trying to save them.”
October 2, 2011 at 12:52 am
Posted in: First Amendment, Law and Inequality
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Responses (19)
Mls - October 2, 2011 at 9:41 am
The mainstream media, having spent two years denigrating the Tea Party, can hardly be expected to cover the OWS protest as if it were a serious movement with serious ideas. It would have to focus on the most extreme, incoherent or downright goofy signs, protestors, etc. (for an example of what this would look like, check out Fox News).
Ignoring the protests is the best the ‘MSM can do.
Bart DePalma - October 2, 2011 at 9:54 am
Frank:
Did any demonstrator offer a semi coherent argument as to why Wall Street was responsible for them being unemployed?
Shag from Brookline - October 2, 2011 at 12:06 pm
It seems that the OWS movement is more spontaneous than the Tea Party was. The MSM cannot ignore OWS until it disintegrates. What MSM should do is responsible reporting. What mls calls denigration of the Tea Party by MSM has included much responsible reporting. This is not a Clockwork Orange movement. During times of high unemployment, movements such as OWS can arise. Gina Bellafante’s Big City column in today’s (10/2/11) NYTimes “Every Action Brings Another Overreaction” is a reminder that efforts to thwart such movements serve to expand them. mls seems to be suggesting censorship with his statement that the MSM best should ignore OWS.
I don’t know where this protest is going. There is no coordinated agenda apparently on the part of the protesters; perhaps one may develop. I recall back in the spring of 1970, I was finishing up my last course for an LLM in Taxation when the university’s campus was closed down by student protesters, with the result that final exams were postponed. I did not participate in the protest, as I was busy with my law practice and wife and our child. But I understood where they were coming from. Today we don’t have a draft to protest. But there are many other things to protest, including what has happened in the financial community that has impacted the economy, and thus contributed to lack of jobs. There is nothing new about this type of protest. Hopefully the authorities will address the protest responsibly and the protesters will avoid going too far.
And we have our yodeler chiming in. It isn’t clear that he read the sources listed by Frank. Our yodeler is the same person who strongly supported Bush/Cheney during their 8 years that started with the Clinton surplus, with tax cuts primarily for the wealthy, two wars, deregulations of financial firms, ending with the inglorious 2008 Bush/Cheney Great Recession dumping deficits on a new administriation. So our yodeler promptly jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon, immediately from the get-go with anti-Obama diatribe. Apparently our yodeler doesn’t understand symbolism with some protests; but I understand his colorful symbolism of his anti-Obama bile and hatred.
Joe - October 2, 2011 at 12:33 pm
The first comment doesn’t really do it for me.
If anything, the media has given the “Tea Party” (if someone on the left used that name, it would be more ridiculed) LOTS of coverage and repeatedly analyzed how important they were to the political winds, including suggesting the minority opposition (including shouting down people at town hall meetings) could very well mean the PPACA would not pass.
To simply suggest (contra how groups against the Iraq War, also a sizable group of discontents, were treated) they “denigrated” them is skewered analysis. The media (and the average person who stops and looks at accidents) also reported the signs, taking of guns to protests etc. just as it always has. It did MORE than that too. If only some other groups get such complete respect.
I assume a lot of the coverage of the protests in the ’60s was often derisive. It depends on where you looked.
Bart DePalma - October 2, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Shag:
More spontaneous than the Tea Party? Sure.
The Tea Party folks were generally married with kids and almost universally had never rallied before.
Read the news reports interviewing the occupiers of Wall Street. Many are the same professional demonstrators you see the IMF meetings. Remember Van Jones, Obama’s self described revolutionary Marxist and green jobs czar who lost his job when his truther credentials were made public? Jones created yet another activist group and is one of the leaders, of the occupation.
The remainder appear to be clueless white college kids, hence my above query to Frank.
As a point of comparison, our Tea Party rallies in Colorado Springs are larger than this faux national movement.
Shag from Brookline - October 2, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Of course our yodeler fails to reference his CO mentor Tom-Tom Tancredo, truly a professional demonstrator, leading efforts at the beginning of the Tea Party movement in CO before falling out of favor. (As far as our yodeler’s comparison with his CO community of Tea Party “canteloupers” at a comparable time, we can only take his word for it, and we all know what his word is worth.)
Nicholas Kristof’s NYTimes column today “The Bankers and the Revolutionaries” is quite balanced for an op-ed, closing with:
“Much of the sloganeering at [OWS] is pretty silly – but so is the self-righteous sloganeering of Wall Street itself. And if a ragtag band of youthful protesters can help bring a sense of accountability and equity to our financial system, more power to them.”
So I guess our yodeler will continue to ignore the readings recommended by Frank as well as those referenced by me.
Bart DePalma - October 2, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Shag and any other interested folks who are not part of the Tea Party:
The Bible of the Tea Party is the “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations” by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom discussing how the internet and social media have allowed the first true leaderless movements and how these movements have various advantages in competition with spider-like hierarchical organizations. http://www.amazon.com/Starfish-Spider-Unstoppable-Leaderless-Organizations/dp/1591841437
The Tea Party was operating for over a year under this model before the Dem media finally did some basic investigative journalism in mid-2010 to find out how this mysterious (to them) movement was operating.
Politico’s Ken Vogel got the basic theory in Summer 2010. http://hamptonroads.com/2010/07/spiders-vs-starfish-new-tea-party-bible
Jonathan Rauch offered the best actual reporting of the theory in action in his essay “Group Think: Inside the Tea Party’s Collective Brain.” http://www.jonathanrauch.com/jrauch_articles/2010/09/group-think-inside-the-tea-partys-collective-brain.html
Utne offers a decent video summary by Rauch. http://www.utne.com/blogs/blog.aspx?blogid=38&tag=Jonathan%20Rauch
Starfish author Beckstrom agreed with the reporting. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129310098
I suspect that one of the primary reasons the Tea Party was able to easily employ a decentralized organizational system is that their base political philosophy is decentralized governance and self reliance. The starfish model was tailor-made for libertarians.
For this same reason, I have doubts that the centralized government worshipping left can as easily adopt a decentralized organizational model. The outstanding Obama internet model was a centrally directed operation. The occupiers of Wall Street appear to be the usual suspect professional demonstrators attempting to imitate the Tea Party. There are no true grass roots.
Time will tell.
Joe - October 2, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Chris Hayes had some interesting reporting/discussion on the protests on his Up With Chris Hayes show, available on the show’s webpage.
Shag from Brookline - October 2, 2011 at 9:05 pm
I suppose our yodeler is of the view that a ” … a decentralized organizational model … ” if successful with its movement would result in governing effectively in a decentralized manner. Perhaps our yodeler could provide an example that would demonstrate a successful ” … base political philosophy … decentralized governance and self reliance … ” such as he claims for the Tea Party.
But I don’t accept that the OWS movement is attempting to imitate the Tea Party. And OWS protesters are truly grass roots in comparison to the Tea Party which includes many of the conservative usual suspects who lauded the Bush/Cheney Administration for 8 years, like someone we know. And the Tea Party, rather than being leaderless, is rudderless as it tacks to, from and among the woodpile of GOP candidates to date, guided by a wet finger in the air seeking direction. If Christie jumps in, will the Tea Party tack to him or attack him? Too bad the Tea Party lacks a leader to respond.
By the Bybee [expletives deleted], our yodeler show his doubts with his closing “Time will tell.”
Shag from Brookline - October 3, 2011 at 6:44 am
E.J. Dionne, Jr.’s WaPo op-ed column “Can the left stage a Tea Party?’ today demonstrates the need to counter conservatives who after 8 years in adulation of everything Bush/Cheney now claim Bush was not conservative enough. (Where were they when Bush/Cheney spent the Clinton surplus, provided two tax cuts primarily for the wealthy, got into two wars, a pharmacy plan, most of such unfunded, resulting in the 2008 Bush/Cheney Great Recession?) Of course this movement was coincidental with the election of Obama, wasn’t it? The drive to get Christie into the GOP candidate woodpile for 2012 reveals how many in the GOP are concerned with what may emerge from that woodpile fanned by the Tea Party.
Dionne mentions and provides a link to Van Jones’ “American Dream” movement that challenges the Tea Party nightmare.
Shag from Brookline - October 3, 2011 at 8:01 am
How about a TV reality show called “WALL STREET WEAK” to put together the complaints of the OWS protesters?
This type of protest is nothing new, as I am discovering while reading Sylvia Nasar’s “Grand Pursuit, The Story of Economic Genius.” I have just finished the first section on “HOPE” that ends just before World War I.
Back in 1949 I took an introductory course in economics taught by a young prof. who spent most of the class time with his back to the class putting grafs, etc, on the blackboard. Because neither the prof. nor the book assigned for the course provided a narrative, I was turned off by the subject. My knowledge of economics has been based upon my life experiences. Being born in 1930, I was aware of the Great Depression but through the eyes of a child who fortunately never went hungry. WW II, post-war, college, law school, military service, law practice, reading, recessions (at least 5), Cold War, various presidential campaigns, provided some background in economics. (E.O. Wilson’s take in his early 2000′s “Consilience” provided a comparison of economics with the hard sciences.) But I lacked the history of economics, even though I was aware of Adam Smith and others. Nasar’s book is not a history of economics but of the men and – surprisingly to me – women who advanced the subject of economics, once referred to as the dismal science (which it was for me with that one course in college). Since WW II, economics has advanced significantly. But economics has been evolving since Adam Smith.
Nasar identifies various protests that have taken place since Adam Smith in both Europe and America (even Egypt!) that have resulted from depressions, recessions and other negative economic conditions. Whether the OWS protests will survive and continue, perhaps even be effective, as our yodeler says, “Time will tell.” In the meantime I have a little over a week to finish Nasar’s book. She is a good story teller. Perhaps by the time I am through, I won’t think of economics as “the dismal science” although some economists clearly are dismal. I got to Nasar’s book from comments by Paul Krugman (no, he is not dismal) in his NYTimes columns and Blog. They recently appeared together at a 92nd St. Y presentation. Is it available on the Internet? I’d be interested in hearing from some who may have attended.
One last observation: Economics is not a great predictor. And at times its hindsight is flawed. As noted earlier, economics continues to evolve as circumstances change. We can learn from the past but the past should not lock us in with changing circumstances. The challenges of OWS protesters may generate more meaningful debate for uncharted economic waters that may have been polluted by dumping tea (even symbolically).
Bart DePalma - October 3, 2011 at 10:02 am
The Tea Party and the occupiers of Wall Street actually share many of the same basic complaints:
> Our government is in a corrupt alliance with big finance and business.
> Our government gives our money away to big finance and business in corporate welfare.
> Our government bails out big finance and business when they screw up.
> Our government does not listen to the People.
Where we differ is on the solutions. The Tea Party wants to empty the pig trough, while the occupiers – to the extent these anarchists offer any solutions – want a place for themselves at the trough.
Bart DePalma - October 3, 2011 at 10:16 am
Shag:
But I don’t accept that the OWS movement is attempting to imitate the Tea Party… [but]
E.J. Dionne, Jr.’s WaPo op-ed column “Can the left stage a Tea Party?’ today demonstrates the need to counter conservatives…Dionne mentions and provides a link to Van Jones’ “American Dream” movement that challenges the Tea Party nightmare.
Dionne and I rarely agree about anything, but we can see the occupiers for what they are. Van Jones has been pitching his new group and the occupiers in general as a Tea Party alternative on the Huff Post and various other left internet outlets.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, they seem to miss that point that you cannot centrally create a decentralized movement.
What is strange is how coy the occupiers have been to date. Usually, these folks are far more open with their anarchic spectrum of green, Maoist and Trotsyite views when demonstrating outside IMF and G8 meetings.
Shag from Brookline - October 3, 2011 at 10:24 am
Gee, according to our yodeler’s list of “agreements,” the Tea Party members must have been stone deaf, dumb and blind, as well as tasteless, olfactory-less and without empathy (feeling) during the 8 inglorious years of Bush/Cheney, whom the Tea Party abandoned coincidentally with the arrival of Obama. (Were they in incubation for those 8 years or merely conservatives prepared instantly to challenge Obama at any and all costs?)
And of course our yodeler is compelled to brand the OWS protesters as anarchists which suggests he has yet rid himself of the slime he wallowed in during the Bush/Cheney 8 years that he has since described as a GOP sewer.
Bart DePalma - October 3, 2011 at 10:40 am
Shag:
Do you recall the collapse in Mr. Bush’s approval ratings toward the end of his administration and nearly complete conservative base rebellion against the Bush/Dem stimulus and TARP in 2008?
Do you recall Dem Blue Dogs running to the right of and winning against GOP congressional corruption and Mr. Bush?
Bush primed the conservative base to turn into the Tea Party.
The Tea Party is simply a bottom up version of the Reagan revolutionaries in 1980 and the Perot/Gingrich voters in 1992-1994.
Securities Guy - October 3, 2011 at 12:58 pm
“We also had a good discussion about tax havens, UK Uncut, and the need to equalize taxation on labor and capital gains.”
Labor and capital gains are taxed equally already. Specifically, short-term capital gains are taxed at the exact same rate as labor income.
Long-term capital gains do qualify for a reduced rate, but this merely seeks to compensate investors for the inflationary component of such gains. Consider an investment that increases in value 15% over a five-year period during which inflation runs at 3% per year. In real terms, the investor has earned nothing and yet will still be liable for taxes on this purely nominal gain. Of course, we could index long-term capital gains for inflation and then tax them at the same level as labor, but this would be an administrative nightmare for taxpayers and the IRS alike. So instead we tax long-term gains at a lower rate. It’s not a perfect solution, but it at least provides some relief to investors getting taxed on non-real gains.
Shag from Brookline - October 3, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Our yodeler’s:
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
depicts his adulation of Bush/Cheney during its 8 inglorious years. Our yodeler also said:
“Bush primed the conservative base to turn into the Tea Party.”
which seems to be admission of my comment # 14:
” … the Tea Party members must have been stone deaf, dumb and blind, as well as tasteless, olfactory-less and without empathy (feeling) during the 8 inglorious years of Bush/Cheney, whom the Tea Party abandoned coincidentally with the arrival of Obama. (Were they in incubation for those 8 years or merely conservatives prepared instantly to challenge Obama at any and all costs?)”
And who were these “Reagan revolutionaries” our yodeler claims served as the model for the current Tea Party? The only “bottom up” aspect of the Tea Party is that it is mooning traditional GOP-ers who are desperately seeking Christie to avoid the current GOP woodpile of candidates. And our yodeler’s pairing of Perot/Gingrich as a Tea Party model might suggest that the current Tea Party just might assure the election of a Democrat in 2012.
And our yodeler’s reference to the ” … nearly complete conservative base rebellion against the Bush/Dem stimulus and TART in 2008″ suggests that the rebellion favor destroying the village to save the presidency for the GOP.
It’s as if the Tea Party has intoxicated our yodeler, a legal DUI specialist.
Lawyer Columbia SC - October 3, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Until yesterday I had not heard about this protest, and I was very shocked when I saw the video of the policemen arresting people while they protested peacefully…
Shag from Brookline - October 8, 2011 at 5:53 am
Add to the reading list Paul Krugman’s NYTimes column yesterday (10/7/11) “Confronting The Malefactors.”
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