Will Wilkinson advises the Occupy Wall Street movement to actually think about participating in the democracy as it exists instead of agitating for something else:
There is something profoundly satisfying about believing that one’s own team alone has seen through the fog of disinformation and propaganda to the real truth about the treacherous interests that stand between our condition and the reign of justice. And there is something terrifically exciting about the sense, often engendered by visible protest movements, that one’s own team is growing, that its narrative is catching on. Conversely, there is something profoundly dissatisfying, and a little bit demoralising, in acknowledging that most people will never accept many of ones’ most ardently-held convictions, and that, therefore, none of us will ever get to live in a society that closely matches, or even roughly approximates, our beloved ideals. But it’s true all the same. And it’s true all the same that our actual democracy, for all its problems, does about as well as democracy can be realistically expected to do, given the size and diversity of this country. Frankly, we’re pretty lucky our democracy works as well as it does. There’s a great deal we can do to make it alittle better, but there’s very little we can do to make it a lot better, because we’ll almost never agree enough about the really big stuff.
I think a lot of the protesters — or, at least, the organizers — will find this sort of advice profoundly unsatisfying (and paternalistic and self-serving and all sorts of other things), precisely because — as Wilkinson also notes — they believe “our system is so badly broken that honest democratic politics is no longer possible.” And if I’m right that a lot of them hold that position, then I’m back to wondering about the endgame of these protests. Do they want more (or better) democracy or do they actually want something else entirely?
HT: Allen Stairs.
“The police in New York don’t realize that it doesn’t matter to not have journalists on the scene,” Damman says, “because everybody is a reporter. What happens last night shows that they don’t get that.”
“Most of the content comes from the people on the ground, from the 99%.”
“Those things don’t create jobs! Don’t you get it?! It’s okay, you don’t have to. Just listen to what we tell you.”
-Republicans
New York Daily News photographer Todd Maisel:
We certainly couldn’t start our walk across the bridge without a few arrests, so Councilman Jumanne Williams started things off by getting arrested with 98 other people. No resistance and it stayed peaceful. Members of United Together formed lines to keep people off roadways and led them to the Brooklyn Bridge walkway, on a beautiful evening for a walk across the bridge. Thousands flowed onto the bridge carrying signs and chanting.
People from Occupy Wall Street shined a projector onto the Verizon Building with their slogans. Protestors cheered and were reinvigorated after a very long day of demonstrating.
The walk up the bridge was colorful and crowded. At the top of the bridge, people were taking breaks and looking out onto the skyline. They were all heading to Brooklyn.99 members of the 99 Percent arrested.
The NYPD must hate it when they give the movement their symbolism.
And yet, they do.
Occupy Wall Street.
Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
Newt Gingrich on Occupy Wall Street
I think Newt is confused as to what side he’s on.
(via kileyrae)
(Photo of actress Anne Hathaway at the Occupy Wall Street protest in Union Square earlier today holding a sign that reads “Blackboards Not Bullets” by @elana_brooklyn via the New York Daily News)
Former Philadelphia Police Department captain Ray Lewis, seen holding a protest sign in unity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters in lower Manhattan, has been arrested, according to the New York Observer.
Dear Super Committee Democrats: Don’t Be Stupid. Be Democrats.
“The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.”
- President John F. Kennedy (1961)
