Take the leap, take Wall Street: this is what impossibility looks like #occupywallstreet

I asked Paul tonight whether I was wasting my time with all this #ows stuff.

He reminded me that yes, of course I am--from the perspective of calculations, of means and ends, of the rational give and take of politics as usual.

And I was reminded, as I should have been all along, of Zizek and Badiou. Politics, or the event, or the act, is what exceeds the everyday. From the perspective of the everyday, of business as usual, it cannot but appear as excessive and hence a waste. 

This is what no guarantees looks like.

We are not covered by the big Other. No one and no theory, no world historical movement, can promise that we will succeed. What they can promise is that if we don't try, if we don't jump, if we don't go all in, we will fail. 

This is what politics looks like.

Not the pseudo excitement of a pseudo choice between two instances of the same thing. Not the march through the institutions in hope of a legislative victory or policy alteration that merely serves to provide bureaucrats and legalists with more opportunities to make more paper and generate billable hours for Harvard educated lawyers. 

We are taking risks. And we are fortunate when the risks take us, too, when they take us beyond the status quo and the calculation of pros and cons.

Some are giving themselves over to the risks. We are all strengthened by their courage and will. Some find themselves with no other choice, no other future--notice how the occupations erase the divisions between the homeless and the housed as if to say we must find a way, create a way, home together.

This is why Wall Street and the rest of them are afraid. Anything can happen. 

They will tell us it doesn't matter. They will tell us to go through proper policy channels. They will tell us that we have no voice, no choice, no alternative. They will tell us that what matters are elections. They will repeat this over and over.

Laughing at them makes us stronger. It interrupts their repetitious mantras of nihilism. And it lets us remember that nothing is certain, that change happens, that in our lifetimes regimes have risen and fallen, the seemingly impermeable has been permeated, the seemingly invincible has crumbled.

We all know, and we know that we know, that fewer than 10% of the country has confidence in Congress--so let's not fall into the delusion of elections. We all know, and we know that we know, that Occupy Wall Street is stronger than the Tea Party--so let's abandon the delusion of needing to placate the right. We all know, and we know that we know, that capitalism is broken. So let's imagine and create the alternative. 

There are no guarantees. This is what doing the impossible looks like.

Comments

[Econundertow]

I like it, a bit of poetry against a backdrop of advertising.

Politics ... the art of the possible, also warfare by other means.

the next step is perhaps a set of plans ...