[P2P-F] The Revolution Begins at Home (Arun Gupta)

Wed Sep 28 12:43:24 CEST 2011

I've been going down to the Wall Street protest nearly every day.Not only  
is it growing, it is amazing to see how the protesters have managed to  
create a non-commodified radical democratic space in the heart of global  
capital.

There is genuine potential in this occupation for revitalizing radical  
left movements and perhaps even achieving a historical victory.

But it will take a concerted effort from every single one of us. Please  
take a few minutes to read this -- it's short!

More important, please forward this to all your contacts asking them to  
join in and likewise pass along the call.

Best,
Arun

The Revolution Begins at Home
By Arun Gupta

What is occurring on Wall Street right now is truly remarkable. For over  
10 days, in the sanctum of the great cathedral of global capitalism, the  
dispossessed have liberated territory from the financial overlords and  
their police army.

They have created a unique opportunity to shift the tides of history in  
the tradition of other great peaceful occupations from the sit-down  
strikes of the 1930s to the lunch-counter sit-ins of the 1960s to the  
democratic uprisings across the Arab world and Europe today.

While the Wall Street occupation is growing, it needs an all-out  
commitment from everyone who cheered the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, said  
"We are all Wisconsin," and stood in solidarity with the Greeks and  
Spaniards. This is a movement for anyone who lacks a job, housing or  
healthcare, or thinks they have no future.

Our system is broken at every level. More than 25 million Americans are  
unemployed. More than 50 million live without health insurance. And  
perhaps 100 million Americans are mired in poverty, using realistic  
measures. Yet the fat cats continue to get tax breaks and reap billions  
while politicians compete to turn the austerity screws on all of us.

At some point the number of people occupying Wall Street -- whether that's  
five thousand, ten thousand or fifty thousand -- will force the powers  
that be to offer concessions. No one can say how many people it will take  
or even how things will change exactly, but there is a real potential for  
bypassing a corrupt political process and to begin realizing a society  
based on human needs not hedge fund profits.

After all, who would have imagined a year ago that Tunisians and Egyptians  
would oust their dictators?

At Liberty Park, the nerve center of the occupation, more than a thousand  
people gather every day to debate, discuss and organize what to do about  
our failed system that has allowed the 400 richest Americans at the top to  
amass more wealth than the 180 million Americans at the bottom.

It's astonishing that this self-organized festival of democracy has  
sprouted on the turf of the masters of the universe, the men who play the  
tune that both political parties and the media dance to. The New York  
Police Department, which has deployed hundreds of officers at a time to  
surround and intimidate protesters, is capable of arresting everyone and  
clearing Liberty Plaza in minutes. But they haven't, which is also  
astonishing.

That's because assaulting peaceful crowds in a public square demanding  
real democracy -- economic and not just political -- would remind the  
world of the brittle autocrats who brutalized their people demanding  
justice before they were swept away by the Arab Spring. And the state  
violence has already backfired. After police attacked a Saturday afternoon  
march that started from Liberty Plaza the crowds only got bigger and media  
interest grew.

The Wall Street occupation has already succeeded in revealing the  
bankruptcy of the dominant powers -- the economic, the political, media  
and security forces. They have nothing positive to offer humanity, not  
that they ever did for the Global South, but now their quest for endless  
profits means deepening the misery with a thousand austerity cuts.

Even their solutions are cruel jokes. They tell us that the "Buffett Rule"  
would spread the pain by asking the penthouse set to sacrifice a tin of  
caviar, which is what the proposed tax increase would amount to.  
Meanwhile, the rest of us will have to sacrifice healthcare, food,  
education, housing, jobs and perhaps our lives to sate the ferocious  
appetite of capital.

That's why more and more people are joining the Wall Street occupation.  
They can tell you about their homes being foreclosed upon, months of  
grinding unemployment or minimum-wage dead-end jobs, staggering student  
debt loads, or trying to live without decent healthcare. It's a whole  
generation of Americans with no prospects, but who are told to believe in  
a system that can only offer them Dancing With The Stars and pepper spray  
to the face.

Yet against every description of a generation derided as narcissistic,  
apathetic and hopeless they are staking a claim to a better future for all  
of us.

That's why we all need to join in. Not just by liking it on Facebook,  
signing a petition at change.org or retweeting protest photos, but by  
going down to the occupation itself.

There is great potential here. Sure, it's a far cry from Tahrir Square or  
even Wisconsin. But there is the nucleus of a revolt that could shake  
America's power structure as much as the Arab world has been upended.

Instead of one to two thousand people a day joining in the occupation  
there needs to be tens of thousands of people protesting the fat cats  
driving Bentleys and drinking thousand-dollar bottles of champagne with  
money they looted from the financial crisis and then from the bailouts  
while Americans literally die on the streets.

To be fair, the scene in Liberty Plaza seems messy and chaotic. But it's  
also a laboratory of possibility, and that's the beauty of democracy. As  
opposed to our monoculture world, where political life is flipping a lever  
every four years, social life is being a consumer and economic life is  
being a timid cog, the Wall Street occupation is creating a polyculture of  
ideas, expression and art.

Yet while many people support the occupation, they hesitate to fully join  
in and are quick to offer criticism. It's clear that the biggest obstacles  
to building a powerful movement are not the police or capital -- it's our  
own cynicism and despair.

Perhaps their views were colored by the New York Times article deriding  
protesters for wishing to "pantomime progressivism" and "Gunning for Wall  
Street with faulty aim." Many of the criticisms boil down to "a lack of  
clear messaging."

But what's wrong with that? A fully formed movement is not going to spring  
 from the ground. It has to be created. And who can say what exactly needs  
to be done? We are not talking about ousting a dictator; though some say  
we want to oust the dictatorship of capital.

There are plenty of sophisticated ideas out there: end corporate  
personhood; institute a "Tobin Tax" on stock purchases and currency  
trading; nationalize banks; socialize medicine; fully fund government jobs  
and genuine Keynesian stimulus; lift restrictions on labor organizing;  
allow cities to turn foreclosed homes into public housing; build a green  
energy infrastructure.

But how can we get broad agreement on any of these? If the protesters came  
into the square with a pre-determined set of demands it would have only  
limited their potential. They would have either been dismissed as pie in  
the sky -- such as socialized medicine or nationalize banks -- or if they  
went for weak demands such as the Buffett Rule their efforts would  
immediately be absorbed by a failed political system, thus undermining the  
movement.

That's why the building of the movement has to go hand in hand with common  
struggle, debate and radical democracy. It's how we will create genuine  
solutions that have legitimacy. And that is what is occurring down at Wall  
Street.

Now, there are endless objections one can make. But if we focus on the  
possibilities, and shed our despair, our hesitancy and our cynicism, and  
collectively come to Wall Street with critical thinking, ideas and  
solidarity we can change the world.

How many times in your life do you get a chance to watch history unfold,  
to actively participate in building a better society, to come together  
with thousands of people where genuine democracy is the reality and not a  
fantasy?

For too long our minds have been chained by fear, by division, by  
impotence. The one thing the elite fear most is a great awakening. That  
day is here. Together we can seize it.

--------------------------------------------
Arun Gupta is the editor of The Indypendent.
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