Occupy is not an island (I)

Posted on November 9, 2011 by David S. Meyer

How does sleeping out in an urban park do anything about income inequality?  I get this question at least a few times a week, often from one of my kids.

One answer is that social movements work when dramatic action inspires others to be

Occupy Boston and labor march together

bolder in their rhetoric and actions–even if they don’t protest, commit civil disobedience, or even camp out.  To be effective, Occupy has to extend well beyond actual occupations.

So, today’s New York Times features a piece about just what organized labor is learning from Occupy. Steven Greenhouse observes that large unions, initially wary about Occupy Wall Street, have supported the movement, publicizing its actions and sending mattresses and food, and, more importantly, have imitated Occupy’s rhetoric and tactics:

“The Occupy movement has changed unions,” said Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “You’re seeing a lot more unions wanting to be aggressive in their messaging and their activity. You’ll see more unions on the street, wanting to tap into the energy of Occupy Wall Street.”

From Occupy, the AFL-CIO has taken the idea of working for the 99 percent, and articulating its message in exactly that way.  From Occupy, unions are learning (relearning, of course; labor has been bold in the past) the virtues of dramatic action.  And from Occupy, unions are reminded about the potential power of social media.

Of course, the unions already have better defined demands as well as serious organizational infrastructures and resources that can put into practice these lessons.  Although organized labor doesn’t present the decentralized consensus-based model of democracy that some of the Occupiers embrace, any campaign that really means to speak for the 99 percent has to deal with unions.

And in yesterday’s elections, the possibility of a labor-led pushback seemed more promising than it has in a very long time.  Ohio voters resoundingly rejected a law that would strip public sector unions, including those representing teachers, firefighters, and police, of collective bargaining rights,  61%-39%, handing Governor John Kasich and the Republican controlled legislature a sobering defeat, surely one that legislators and organizers in Wisconsin and Indiana will study.

Organized labor was fully invested in the effort, raising more than $24 million, and outspending business and other conservative interests substantially.

This was not an Occupy campaign, but talk of the 99 percent and economic inequality was everywhere.  Harder to trace, but certainly present, was a sense of urgency and possibility that Occupy has cultivated.

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Elizabeth Warren: Occupy’s Michele Bachmann?

Posted on November 7, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Take a minute before you get offended.   Of course, there are differences–more below.

Elizabeth Warren, candidate for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate from Massachusetts, is the closest thing to an institutional face of a movement that has, thus far, been resolutely anti-institutional.

This clip is ricocheting around the internet, with Warren giving full voice to the notion of tax justice and the economic obligations of the wealthy.

As Rep. Michele Bachmann did with the Tea Party, Elizabeth Warren was quick to endorse what she sees as the spirit of Occupy Wall Street.  And, like Rep. Bachmann, it hasn’t taken a lot of shifting or agonizing.  Just as Bachmann had established a long activist profile crusading against government oversight of schools, Elizabeth Warren has spent decades in a scholarly legal career pushing for more thorough government oversight of banks.  The vulnerability of middle class families to bankruptcy has been a central focus of her work long before this recession–and even the one before that–and the one before that.

Her academic trajectory, from an undergraduate degree in speech pathology at the University of Houston, to a law degree from Rutgers University-Newark to a professorship at Harvard University Law school, is extremely unusual.  (Law school deans are every bit as status and pedigree conscious as every other academic administrator, perhaps even moreso.)  Along the way, she developed stump skills that are hardly common among academics.  Warren’s second viral video shows her responding to a heckler at a speech in Brockton.  She expresses sympathy for the heckler’s joblessness, then quickly pivots to deplore the Senate’s inability to pass a jobs bill.

Can Warren do for Occupy what Bachmann did for the Tea Party?  Do Occupy activists want her to?

Representative Bachmann tirelessly promoted the Tea Party, raising millions of dollars for conservative candidates for office, and working to elect them as well.  She started the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, arranging for a few high profile classes for Congress on the Constitution, including a lecture by Antonin Scalia.  In the process, she defined a set of Tea Party demands that were somewhat different from many of the initial Tea Partiers.  The Tea Party emerged with a libertarian voice, enlivened by some Ron Paul loyalists, and as a whole pushed social issues to the back of an agenda fronted by antipathy to big business and big government.  Representative Bachmann rescued the social agenda, placing Christian conservative ethics at the center of her version of the Tea Party, and helping to crowd the libertarians out of the center of Republican discourse.  Rep. Bachmann’s Tea Party is deeply concerned with same sex marriage, abortion, and the place of religion in American life, and this Tea Party, not Ron Paul’s libertarians, is exercising influence in Congress.

Given both their very different politics and their very different pathways into electoral politics, we’d expect some significant differences.  Michele Bachmann was a committed evangelical conservative long before she pursued electoral office, starting her career supporting Jimmy Carter’s campaign for the presidency.  She took her law degree at Oral Roberts University, and started politics at the grassroots level, in defense of community-based Christian schools.  She’s learned to trust the wisdom (and information) of regular people who agree with her, and to articulate their concerns without routinely subjecting them to any kind of fact-checking.  This approach has proven problematic in the spotlight of her presidential campaign, and virtually every mainstream media outlet has published at least one piece on her routine misrepresentation of facts.  (Here’s non-partisan Politifact’s overview.)

Elizabeth Warren is a law professor who has produced more than 100 academic articles, a half-dozen books, working in a profession where getting the facts wrong is fatal.  She’s unlikely to frustrate Occupy activists by promoting comforting or provocative stories that aren’t true while playing to friendly crowds.

There is, however, another potential problem for the people camping in the parks.  Unlike many of the Occupiers who’ve been able to get their views in mainstream media, Elizabeth Warren believes in government and in regulation.  Her vision of reform isn’t based in building consensus-based communities, but in empowering government to ameliorate gross inequality, to spend on building infrastructure for a large and complicated economy, and to exercise strict oversight over the banking and finance industries.   Although some conservative critics disagree, she’s not out to destroy global capitalism. Hers is a far more developed–and far less utopian–vision than what activists have been able to articulate in the General Assemblies across the nation.

As Michele Bachmann was able to supersede the libertarians in defining the Tea Party, Warren’s success would dramatically overshadow the anarchists in the tent cities, pushing an Occupy that would look like an invigorated progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

This is one way movements become institutionalized…and effect influence.

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Occupy, sexual assault, and internal control

Posted on November 3, 2011 by David S. Meyer

An ABC News reporter called me yesterday to ask about the spate of sex crimes taking place in the Occupations (here’s Alyssa Newcomb’s story).  I didn’t know anything, but a moment of online searching generated plenty of stories.

A lot of the reporting was on conservative websites, including the Daily Caller, Big Government, Townhall.com, the Blaze, and Gateway Pundit.  None of these sites has any residual sympathy for the emergent Occupy campaign, and many have played fast and loose with facts in the past.  The most tendentious coverage emphasizes that crime and sexual assault are part and parcel of a generally disreputable campaign filled with irresponsible and self-indulgent people.  More mainstream conservative outlets like Fox News and a Wall Street Journal blog have echoed the stories.   Like Herman Cain and his allies dismissing news reports of prior sexual harrasment complaints, sympathizers could dismiss these reports as a conspiracy to undermine the Occupy campaign.

But:

New York City Police arrested a 26 year old man at Occupy Wall Street, charging him with two counts of sexual assault that involved unwanted and forceful advances inside the tents in the cold of night.  In Dallas, police arrested a 24 year old man who had sex with a 14 year old runaway who, allegedly, claimed to be older.  (Not all of the charges stuck: Police investigated a widely reported account of a sexual assault in Baltimore and judged it unfounded.)

The stories, as well as the rumors and reality they represent, are a problem for the Occupy movement, and its one endemic to social movements, particularly a campaign so dedicated to grassroots democracy.

At the most basic level, the 99 percent contains some ill-informed, scuzzy, and even criminal people.  Organizers of any event struggle with finding unobtrusive ways to reign in their crazies; they know that their opponents will try to tack a picture of the sleaziest or stupidest person in their midst and label the whole movement with him.  This is a chore at a large demonstration that may last for 4-5 hours.  It’s somewhat more difficult at a all-day every day occupation that could stretch on for months, particularly one that welcomes all comers.

Having an inarticulate or ill-intentioned person give an interview to a media outlet describing your goals is a problem.  Having violent action directed at targets that didn’t get the hard-fought consensual endorsement of the entire Occupy community, as in Oakland, is a bigger one.  Sheltering violent criminals within your encampment is another one.

There’s no one working the doors in most social movements, filtering out the undesirables or enforcing discipline.  People who come to join are assumed to be well-intentioned and helpful, and it takes a while to shake that assumption.  And, particularly in popular media, social movements own their own crazies.

There are plenty of examples: Anti-abortion activists who see their efforts as part of a campaign to end violence are tarred by the few murderers of doctors that they inspire.  Pacifist antiwar campaigners must grapple with the marchers on the periphery who sign on with the other side.

Internal control is a serious challenge for those mounting the Occupy campaigns.  For those who want to spur political reform, reports of crime can discredit your efforts, invite repression, and warn off people who might otherwise join you.  Activists may need to enlist the help of police and prosecutors they would prefer to ignore, and suffer prosecution or evacuation for failing to do so.  (Mayor Bloomberg, no fan of Occupy Wall Street, has announced that the Occupiers have a moral and legal duty to report crime within their midst. Unsaid, at the moment, is that he could use their failure to do so as justification for clearing out the encampment altogether.)

And for people who believe that they are building a new world from the ground up, the problem may be even more difficult.  Rejecting the authority of the state or police in general, they are confronted with the reality of bad actions–or bad actors, who must be confined, disciplined, or banished.  Does this mean setting up new police and judicial systems within the encampments?  trusting the democratic mob?  hoping that the good will of the vast majority of those present will somehow establish new norms that infect people who have spent their lives in a much larger world?

At minimum, it doesn’t make sense to allow your political opponents to enjoy a monopoly on reporting your problems.

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The politics of deflection; Occupy and local politics

Posted on November 2, 2011 by David S. Meyer

While most of the physical confrontation of the nearly two months of Occupy protests has been between demonstrators and local governments, particularly police, the conflicts aren’t very well connected to the substance of the grievances.  It’s not clear that mayors and city councilors can do much more than allow the demonstrations to continue.  And many local authorities say they support the broad claims about inequality.  Maybe the blame lies elsewhere.  After all, Congress has stalled a bill that would have helped local governments keep teachers and police on the job, even as states and cities endure ongoing budget crises.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has dismissed the Occupy Wall Street effort as misdirected, arguing that the activists should blame Congress for pushing lenders to expand home ownership by granting mortgages to people with poor prospects for paying them off.  Even after you dismiss Mayor Bloomberg’s analysis of the financial meltdown (see Mike Konczal for help with this), it’s hard to argue that regulation isn’t a better remedy for corporate greed than moral suasion directed at Wall Street.  The federal government has a much greater capacity to respond to concerns about inequality and injustice than the City Halls in New York, Irvine, or …Oakland.

So Occupy Oakland and Mayor Jean Quan may be taking each other off the hook in cooperating on today’s general strike.  Mayor Quan made allowances for city employees to take time off and participate, and announced, “I am working with the police chief to make sure that the pro-99 percent activists — whose cause I support — will have the freedom to get their message across without the conflict that marred last week’s events.”

As Mayor Quan has tried to align herself with the protesters, allowing the Occupy protest to return to Ogawa Plaza, the police think they’ve been hung out to dry.  On the eve of the strike, the Oakland Police Officer’s Association issued an open letter:

…We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families….

As your police officers, we are confused.

On Tuesday, October 25th, we were ordered by Mayor Quan to clear out the encampments at Frank Ogawa Plaza and to keep protesters out of the Plaza. We performed the job that the Mayor’s Administration asked us to do, being fully aware that past protests in Oakland have resulted in rioting, violence and destruction of property.

Then, on Wednesday, October 26th, the Mayor allowed protesters back in – to camp out at the very place they were evacuated from the day before.

To add to the confusion, the Administration issued a memo on Friday, October 28th to all City workers in support of the “Stop Work” strike scheduled for Wednesday, giving all employees, except for police officers, permission to take the day off.

That’s hundreds of City workers encouraged to take off work to participate in the protest against “the establishment.” But aren’t the Mayor and her Administration part of the establishment they are paying City employees to protest? Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?…

Meanwhile, a message has been sent to all police officers: Everyone, including those who have the day off, must show up for work on Wednesday. This is also being paid for by Oakland taxpayers. Last week’s events alone cost Oakland taxpayers over $1 million.

The Mayor and her Administration are beefing up police presence for Wednesday’s work strike they are encouraging and even “staffing,” spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for additional police presence – at a time when the Mayor is also asking Oakland residents to vote on an $80 parcel tax to bail out the City’s failing finances.

If Mayor Quan has lost the police, it’s doubtful that it’s helped her gain the support of the Occupiers, who will remember last week’s bloody evacuation.

There are a lot of problems here.  The most obvious one is that the officials who are responding to the Occupy campaigns around the country, with more and less sympathy and skill, can do very little to address the issues the animate the protests.  Local activists work hard to get control of city governments, and then find that their hands are tied in all sorts of ways.

The federal design of American governments produces numerous units of governance to rail against and to absorb the wrath of citizens, but gives them precious little capacity to respond in meaningful ways.  Activists face a shell game, looking under government seals for levers actually connected to power.

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Violence, democracy, and a general strike

Posted on October 29, 2011 by David S. Meyer

The efforts to clear out Occupiers in Atlanta, Oakland, and San Diego emphasize the difficult stalemate between local governments and the emergent Occupy movement.

Although local officials may be mostly sympathetic to the concerns of the Occupiers, they’re also responsible for maintaining public safety,  public facilities, and managing already strained local budgets.

But the awful violence in Oakland stands as a cautionary tale to mayors and city councils, who really don’t have a good sense of what they can expect, and certainly don’t want to set into motion a similar chain of events.

In addition to the pictures, the injuries, and the political fallout, the Occupiers are back, with tents restaked in Frank Ogawa Plaza.  Mayor Jean Quan has apologized for the violent police action and the injuries, and certainly sees her hands tied in terms of responding to whatever happens next.

And the protesters want to find a way to escalate.  On Thursday night, after roundly booing the mayor, Occupy Oakland’s General Assembly met and endorsed a general strike:

We as fellow occupiers of Oscar Grant Plaza propose that on Wednesday November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.

We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.

All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.

While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.

The whole world is watching Oakland. Let’s show them what is possible.

Anyone who shows up can participate in the General Assembly meetings, and the group has adopted a modified consensus rule, which allows decisions to be taken with 90 percent support.  The general strike had much stronger support: 1,484 of 1,607 present voted for the action on November 2; allowing for abstentions, this amounted to nearly 97 percent support.

One of my cautions about consensus and this kind of participatory democracy is that it’s very hard for activists to innovate, and can generally reach consensus only on what’s already happening–continuing the occupation, for example.  Well, Oakland is out to prove I’m wrong.

Another worry is the nature of debate.  Anyone who shows up can vote.  With the injuries and violence still fresh in everyone’s mind, we have to wonder about coercion and intimidation when 97 percent of any group for vote something.

Beyond this, there’s a larger question about whether this group can actually deliver on the very ambitious project of shutting the city down.  Some share of the demonstrators will surely stay home–or rather, in Frank Ogawa Plaza, on Wednesday, but it will take far more than that to make an impact on a city of nearly 400,000.

It’s not clear that the General Assembly has anything beyond an effort at moral suasion to get unions and unorganized workers to stay out of work.  In taking their decision, the participants didn’t really have to consider whether they had the capacity to deliver.

I’m dubious, but we’ll all be watching.

It’s a volatile time, and policing has a politicized and contested history in Oakland.  All kinds of things are possible.

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Irvine City Council adopts Occupation

Posted on October 27, 2011 by David S. Meyer

City governments have options in dealing with dissent, including the Occupy campaigns.  In Irvine, the heart of Orange County where I live, the City Council unanimously endorsed an agreement that will allow an Occupation in front of City Hall indefinitely.

The vote (5-0) followed a Council meeting in which the Occupiers offered testimony about their goals; the Councilors emphasized how impressed they were with the seriousness of the protest effort.

The activists were happy (see below):

Recall that Orange County politics generally veers heavily to the right when considering what this means.  A few notes:

1.  Irvine’s City Council, although chosen in nonpartisan elections, has been consistently comprised of 2 conservative and 3 vaguely liberal members.

2.  In a reasonably small city like Irvine, the Councilors can view the demonstrators as neighbors, not simply as constituents.  This should generate more civility, mutual respect, and tolerance.

3.  In a planned suburban community, the actual disruption (and attention) a small tent city in front of City Hall can generate is far more limited than in a dense urban environment.

All this said, what does the endorsement mean for the politics of the Occupy movement?  While the City Council vote made local news –and will probably circulate nationally for a while as a contrast to the forceful efforts to close Occupations in Oakland and Atlanta, it’s now up to the local Occupiers to generate attention and make meaningful politics.  This is no easy matter.

Long ago, social theorists considered whether tolerance could have repressive effects.  The basic argument was that democratic countries could treat dissidents like toddlers who need to cry themselves out: let them do so, release the pressure, and they’ll go away.

Although the concept of “repressive tolerance” has generally disappeared in academic social science, US governments have developed numerous ways to allow protest without disruption and, generally, to minimize the effects of protest events.  Cities have elaborate permitting systems for demonstrators; police departments generally negotiate with organizers before highly choreographed demonstrations so that only people who plan to get arrested will get arrested and demonstrations will start and end on time without too much hassle; and localities, including college campuses, can designate “free speech zones,” where advocates can advocate safely–and passersby can pass by.

The Occupy demonstrations have challenged the norms of ritualized protest, and local governments are exploring ways to manage the politics and the disruption.  It’s hard to think many mayors will look to Atlanta or Oakland as helpful models.  Is Irvine a viable alternative?

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Occupation is a tactic; violence demands innovation

Posted on October 26, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Police and Occupiers in Atlanta and Oakland have engaged in violent confrontations, with the protesters getting the worst of it.  What’s all this mean?  What happens next?

Arrests at Occupy Atlanta

Let’s start at the beginning.  Protesters are occupying Wall Street–and hundreds of other public spaces around the country–to try to get something, although they differ on what.  The original call from Adbusters asked for Occupiers to focus on one demand, and to stay until it was met.  Now supporters suggest a variety of goals, ranging from drawing attention to economic and political inequality (score a check mark) to building a new kind of democratic political life from the ground up (more elusive).  Regardless, the Occupation was a means, not the end itself.

Local officials have varied motives for wanting to end the Occupations.  Surely, some don’t like the politics.  They also may not like the mess, the wear and tear on public facilities, the increased costs for police overtime, and the seemingly omnipresent threat of disruption.   But clearing them out isn’t simple or easy.  When New York’s Mayor Bloomberg gave notice of intent to clean Zuccotti Park, thousands of people, including members of several unions, poured into the site to defend the Occupation.  Brookfield Office Properties and/or the mayor backed off, and someone must have realized that the costs of using police to clear the area with mass arrests were just too high.

Officials in Oakland and Atlanta watched and learned something: they didn’t give much notice.  Late last night in Atlanta, police gave Occupiers who didn’t want to be arrested time to clear out, then hauled off the 50 plus demonstrators who remained.  Occupy Atlanta massed at the Courthouse, where the protesters were released on $100 signature bond.  Meanwhile, Woodruff Park is blocked off and Occupy Atlanta is planning a response.

Oakland was worse.  Early yesterday morning, well before dawn, police in riot gear cleared a few dozen Occupiers and their tents out of Frank Ogawa Plaza.  They set up a chain link fence around the park, and kept people away from the vigorous cleaning effort that started afterward.  Some of the protesters remained throughout the day, parking across the street, and a wide range of people and organizations issued statements condemning the closure of

Tear gas at Occupy Oakland

the Occupation.  By late afternoon, large numbers of people began to mass in an effort to take back the park, with at least 1,000 demonstrators assembling.  Police used tear gas, batons, and bean bag rounds (at least) in dispersing the crowd, and the demonstrators fought back, reportedly throwing rocks and breaking windows.  Occupy Oakland wants to take the park back.

The Occupy effort now enters a new phase.  All along, it’s been clear that police in most cities have the capacity to clear the Occupations whenever they were ordered to do so.  The demonstrators everywhere have consistently espoused an ethic of non-violence, but certainly not quiescence.  They’re not equipped to fight police effectively, even if they wanted to do so, but savvy public officials have been wary of …well, exactly what happened.

But what’s next?  While Occupiers have committed to resurrecting their camps, focusing on the Occupations now appears as a distraction from the claims that animated the movement in the first place.  Police action will intensify the commitments of some of the demonstrators, but some large portion of the 50-60 percent of Americans who express support for the movement are going to be reluctant to go to their downtowns and fight the police who, by many accountings, are part of the 99 percent anyway.  Meanwhile, be assured that critics of Occupy are downloading images and videotape furiously to deploy in their ongoing efforts to marginalize the effort to talk about inequality.

Occupy, or at least the broader emergent movement, needs to find new tactics for advancing its efforts.  I suspect some Occupations will remain for quite some time, but activists have to offer supporters other things to do in support.  The movement needs to innovate and diversify.  A few weeks ago, I noted the necessity of having an “exit strategy”, so that Occupy could continue as something larger than the Occupations.  This is how a movement grows, and it means bringing the core issues, inequality and justice, back to the front of the discussion.  Police action in Atlanta and Oakland has forced the issue: an effective movement can’t be only about building encampments in urban parks.

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Pete Seeger’s on Wall Street

Posted on October 22, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Ninety-two years old, Pete Seeger walked nearly forty blocks to join Occupy Wall Street and sing.    He needs canes to walk these days, but he played the banjo, sang, and brought along Arlo Guthrie, grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, and other musicians.

For Seeger, this isn’t unusual at all.  I can’t think of a progressive movement since the Great Depression that hasn’t benefited from his participation.

In 1979, when I marched on Wall Street, Pete Seeger was there, conveying the blessings of a much older generation of activists on the antinuclear movement  (Here’s Al Giordano’s account.)

Of course, Seeger’s story is much longer, and much more complicated, too much to tell here.  He was a banjo player, a leader of sing-a-longs, a Communist, a Billboard hit-maker, and an American hero.  Here are some notes:

The son of a musicology professor and a classical violinist, Seeger dropped out of Harvard University to commit to activism and music in the 1930s.  He played to promote trade unions and civil rights, and served in the Navy during World War II.  Later, he would play for the civil rights movement, the antinuclear movement, and the antiwar movement.  In 1955, when called to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, he refused to name names, citing the first amendment to the Constitution, rather than the fifth amendment.  Blacklisted for a decade, he made a living playing at schools and summer camps, indirectly sending his take on folk music into the New Left.

Martin Luther King, Pete Seeger, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, and Charis Horton at Highlander Institute, 1957

All the while, he built institutions to promote folk music and an exceptionally democratic ethos of politics.  On the left, see a civil rights snapshot from the Highlander Institute, * where Seeger was a frequent visitor.  He was a key player in establishing contemporary folk archives, through the magazines Sing Out! and Broadside, and produced an easy introduction to the five-string banjo.

In 1967, the Smothers Brothers invited him to play an antiwar song on their variety show, adding to CBS’s grievances with them.  Network censors cut the song, so the hosts invited Seeger back to sing it again.  It’s below:

If there was a large demonstration, Pete Seeger was there; if there was a dramatic civil disobedience effort, not so visible, well Pete Seeger was there too.  When I start listing appearances, it’s hard to believe that he was only one person.

In the late 1970s, when I helped organize a benefit concert for an anti-hunger group, popular singer-songwriter Harry Chapin told us to get Pete Seeger to come out for the cause; he won’t be around forever, you know, Chapin said.  Chapin was killed in a car accident a few years later.

But Pete Seeger stayed around.  In 1994, he was recognized by the Kennedy Center for his contributions to the arts.

In 2009, he sang at President Obama’s inaugural.

I can’t guess what percentage of the Occupiers knew about Pete Seeger before his appearance this week.  When I ask people about him, I’m generally surprised by what small bits, if any, most people know.

I’m certain, however, that everyone who was there will remember it for a very long time.  The visit was a real link between a new movement and a much longer tradition of political activism in America.

* William Roy’s new Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States, tells the story of the link between the protest music of the 1930s and the protest music of the 1960s.  Pete Seeger is a key figure.

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Occupy and the politics of blame

Posted on October 20, 2011 by David S. Meyer

In wanting to speak for the “99 percent,” Occupy Wall Street–and its allied campaigns around the country–has defined a constituency and a target.  The argument is that the economy and government work for only a small percentage of Americans, and that things could be different.

To succeed movement campaigns identify a base and a target, framing their core constituency as worthy–and preferably numerous.  The target should be identifiable too.  Deciding whom to blame is a key task of all politics, including movement politics.

To embody the 99 percent, activists set up a website, “we are the 99 percent,” comprised of simple pictures and stories.  Mostly, it’s about hardship.  People who post tell about owing money for a house or an education, needing health insurance, unemployment and underemployment.  Although critics charge that Occupy doesn’t have a clear program, it’s very easy to look at these stories and see a set of policies that respond rather directly to their concerns; government can spend money to produce employment, access to education, offer health care, and even aid in personal debt relief.  At this posting, there are 146 pages of stories.  You may be able to dismiss one or another as telling stories of foolishness or selfishness, but the cumulative impact of story after story is powerful.  Together, the individual stories push blame up to those who are wealthy and powerful.

The site invites contributions, but some people who supported Occupy saw themselves as privileged.  “We stand with the 99 percent” tells stories of people who are not suffering personally, but believe that it’s good and right for the United States to find a way to provide work and health care for everyone.

This follows Warren Buffet’s call for higher taxes on the wealthy, endorsed by many others.  Wealth for the Common Good organizes the advantaged to press for government policies that promote employment and, more generally, spread the benefits of the economy more broadly.  (The incredible Chuck Collins has been working these politics for a long time.)

But opponents of the Occupy campaign, understandably, don’t want to let this pattern of blame stand unchallenged.  To counter Occupy rhetoric, conservatives started “We are the 53 percent,” which also invites individual contributions.  Fifty-three percent refers to the Americans who currently earn enough to pay federal income taxes–in addition to the payroll taxes that everyone pays, plus excise and local government taxes. This is an attempt to push blame down to the less fortunate, rather than upward.

Using the same format and colors as the 99 percent site, there are now 30 pages of 53 percent stories.  I read two basic types: people who are doing well, although they can trace humble origins, because they–or someone in their family–worked very hard; and people who are doing very badly, lacking jobs and/or health insurance.  Both take responsibility for their circumstances and hate whining.  They think those who claim to be the 99 percent are lazy and have an undue sense of entitlement.

So a group of Occupy campaigners, noting that many of the self-proclaimed 53 percenters don’t really earn enough to pay taxes, started “Actually, you’re the 47 percent,” which reprints the pictures from the 53 percent site, along with snarky and dismissive comments (3 pages at this moment).

An entire rhetorical battle about blame is playing out on these sites, offering plenty of stories to make any argument you want to make.  The stories strengthen the resolve of the committed, but more important, is the reaction of a broader public as the crystallized arguments hit mainstream politics.

The early returns are in recent polls, and the Occupiers are winning.  Fifty-four percent of Americans support the Occupy Wall Street campaign, according to Time magazine, about twice the percentage who support the Tea Party.  A slightly more recent National Journal poll shows Occupy with 59 percent support.

Don’t expect opponents to give up, however.  Look for new campaigns to discredit the Occupiers as lazy, violent, privileged, ignorant–or so many other attempts.

Activists for any cause wan to demonstrate their worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment (WUNC, according to Charles Tilly).  Look for their opponents to try to dismantle each of those claims.

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How movements work: David Letterman

Posted on October 18, 2011 by David S. Meyer

Social movements succeed by raising issues and giving other people the opportunity to address them.  We call this agenda setting, but it’s not just the agenda in Congress or a state legislature; it’s also what people talk about.

Bill Clinton appeared on David Letterman’s show last week and Occupy Wall Street was an obvious topic for humor and discussion.   President Clinton expressed some sympathy, reviewed how government could–and should–pay for what it does, noting that deficits exploded when President Bush engaged in two wars and cut taxes at the same time.  (It was self-serving, but everything he said was true.)

Letterman noted that it would make sense for people who were having a hard time to ask others, like President Clinton and himself, to pay more in taxes; it seems fair, he said. Clinton replied: no one should pay more taxes now, but once we’re really out of the recession, wealthy people should pay more.

President Clinton’s comments got more attention than Letterman’s, interpreted on conservative sites (e.g.) as an attack on Obama.

But think about what a shift the entire conversation represents.  Letterman doesn’t do politics routinely.  The Occupy campaign gave him encouragement to do so, and provided the former president with a chance to endorse the concept of progressive taxation, something that used to be well-accepted in American life.

Movements work when they change the boundaries of acceptable talk about policy options.  The Tea Party did this when it helped put the federal debt at the center of almost every debate–or rant–in Washington.  President Obama and Congressional Democrats talked the talk as well.

Now, Occupy Wall Street is now shifting the focus, and employment and fair taxation are now back in the conversation.  When House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor has gone to promote his program for tax and regulatory cuts, he has suddenly had to respond to concerns about jobs, albeit not very effectively.

By no means is this enough for the people who are protesting, but it’s not over.

This is one way movements work.

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