I. Occupy Wall StreetIn Warren Beatty's epic film Reds, there is a scene where journalist and communist activist John Reed debates the course of the still infant Bolshevik revolution with the anarchist Emma Goldman. While Reed has plunged into the work of aiding the Soviets, Goldman already recoils at the horrors being perpetrated by the Bolsheviks. Pensive and tired, Reed eventually answers her critiques by saying:
"It's just the beginning E.G. It's not happening the way we thought it would, it's not happening the way we wanted it to, but it's happening."While Reed was dramatically wrong about the Soviet Union, his sentiments have something to say about responses to the ongoing mobilization known as #OccupyWallStreet. For progressives who have been hoping for some kind of public mass uprising against our financial overlords since the onset of the Great Recession, a couple hundred young, "activist-y" types camping out on Wall Street may seem far from the dream of a mass uprising by everyday people. Yet, this is what is actually happening, and it appears to be gaining momentum as local unions and other activist groups join in. As Mark Engler details in a very thoughtful piece at Dissent magazine, the protestors have done a number of things "right" - especially on point I would say is how protestors have made their general youth into an advantage. Rather than seeming like spoiled kids, they are pointing to how the finance-led, deregulated economy and the Great Recession are betraying the implicit notion in the U.S. that the nation's society and economy will build opportunities for subsequent generations.
A lively debate continues to rage over the protests, particularly over what their demands are and should be. This is a vital dialogue to have and I appreciate the urgency of those demanding more concreteness from the protests. That said, looking historically, often more important than demands has been momentum. Such mobilizations have long been a target of frustration and scorn from sympathetic observers and activists. In the lead up to the American Revolution, street protests became commonplace, but members of the Revolutionary elite typically viewed with apprehension such actions. Similarly, the first major street actions after the crash of 1929 were not run by wholesome grassroots activists, but were organized by cadres of the Communist and Socialist Parties. While it would have been preferable to have marches not organized by people (in the CPUSA case) looking to Stalin as their model, it was the communists who had the energy to get out and so something. If progressives want to shape the protests, they should do it directly - after all, this is an action emphasizing its internally democratic character!
II. A Modest Protest and History Suggestion
Given the Tea Party loves to reference history, it couldn't hurt for our side as well. One off the top of my head that is completely unoriginal, but counterintuitively might make a splash, is to have protests dress like the Tea Party. After all, why should conservatives have a monopoly on the Revolution? The American Revolution is all our inheritance - it is an event distant and distinct enough from today that for anyone to claim a direct political lineage is rather silly. Certainly, progressives and radicals have as much claim to the American Revolution and its ideals as anyone.
This is especially the case with the actual event of the Boston Tea Party. For one, the original action in Boston was essentially a demonstration against the collusion of government and high finance - the acts being protested were designed by the British crown to prop up the faltering British East India Company. Furthermore, the first post-Tea Party protest in U.S. history to explicitly reference that event came with demonstrations in the 1840s against foreclosures of New York farmers by banks - a slightly relevant historical dynamic for today.