Critics of OWS seem to be obsessed with the notion that the movement needs to move on. “Okay,” they say, “You’ve made your point. It’s time to fold your tents and get organized politically.”

What these critics seem to want is traditional politics. Support candidates, run for office, vote. Something along these lines is certainly one way of being “political,” and the progressive movement is already ramping up to support candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

But one point that the Occupy movement has made is that the political system has become so dysfunctional that we need to broaden the definition of ‘political action.’ This has already happened. In two months OWS has shifted the nation’s debate away from the single issue of the deficit and, at least in part, refocused it on jobs and the reform and control of the financial system.

It would be a political act to hold marches and teach-ins the goal of which was to force the main stream media to expand its coverage of the influence of lobbying on legislation and the way in which our tax laws have been skewed to facilitate the flow of tax benefits upward to benefit the giant transnational corporations.

Critics of the OWS movement assume (or want us to assume) that the complaints of the occupiers are all personal, because so much of the messaging has taken the form of individual tales of hardship. Underlying all that (and some really amusing signs and slogans) is a very clear message:

This nation’s financial and political systems have become so dysfunctional that they no longer function to promote the general welfare.

So what is to be done? Certainly we should keep up the marches and General Assemblies; they are excellent tools for pointing out problems that need to be corrected and individual legislators do respond when their feet are being held to the fire of public anger.

We should support individual legislators at all levels of government, but we should be wary of being co-opted by any political party. The Obama administration would be enchanted to have the Occupiers leap upon the re-election bandwagon, but they tend to be more skeptical now than they were four years ago..rightly or wrongly. There’s still a year to go.

 

This entry was posted on Friday, November 18th, 2011 at 4:35 pm and is filed under 1st Amendment, Debt Crisis, Journalism, Occupy Wall Street, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.