"Is America ready for a Tahrir Square moment?" asked some piece that was circulating about the Occupy Wall Street protest today. Judging by the actual results, I would have to say no. This was the global justice movement without the labor unions or the NGOs. Very young, very white, very countercultural. When I was there--around 3:30-4:30, everyone was busy having 'assemblies' a few blocks from Wall Street. These epitomized what everyone complains about. Everyone speaks, but no one really talks to each other. The same old ideas (DIY, get all the corporations out of your life, peak oil, etc) circulate round and round. Unless you are extraordinarly patient, or like to hear yourself talk, it quickly gets tiring. Surpisingly, if you listened to the 45 minutes or so that I heard people talk, you'd have no idea that there was a huge financial crisis just a few years ago, one specifically involving Wall Street, and the economy hasn't recovered yet. All and all, it did not feel like a mighty force building that could effectively challenge much of anything.
On the other hand, I actually do believe the US is ready for something more. In fact, there have been sizable protests in the Wall Street area this year, ones that had much greater racial and age diversity than seemed on hand today. And I'm a little obsessed about the protests nurses held around the country a couple of days ago demanding a tax on financial transactions. That's something the Democrats have shown no interest in, and it has no immediate bearing on nurses' well being, yet plenty of people turned out. So I think the US may be on the verge of, if not Tahrir Square, something, but I have my doubts that an assembly of global justice types will trigger it by themselves. Although I give them credit for trying, and think their thinking may yet evolve in more productive directions.
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I wouldn't give them much credit for trying. Real people like myself are struggling and these folks don't have a clue.
Posted by: Alain | September 18, 2011 at 08:42 PM
This is an incredibly superficial and uncharitable account of what's been happening in the Wall Street area since Saturday. I was there all weekend and I can emphatically say that the people in Zuccotti Park - who have occupied the space for two days now - are not "the global justice movement without the labor unions and NGOs," nor are they "very young, very white, very countercultural." They are diverse, politically sophisticated and very angry. Since Steven Sherman stayed for only 45 minutes, he missed the wildcat march of around 200 people, which culminated in an attempt to break into the Cipriani building on Wall Street. (The attempt was thwarted by police.) He doesn't understand the purpose or process of a general assembly and can't overcome the political categories of the 1990s. He's thus incapable of recognizing a new social movement when he sees one.
Posted by: Desert_flood | September 19, 2011 at 10:22 AM