Published October 4, 2011 in the Tufts Daily student newspaper.
By Gary Goldstein
Several articles, op−eds and an editorial have appeared related to Occupy Boston. I went down to Occupy Boston Sunday afternoon. I ran into another Tufts faculty member and an alumnus. It wasn’t easy to find other Tufts people among the several hundred encamped there. I know some of you were there.
Why did I go down to Occupy Boston? I saw the news that 700 “Occupy Wall Street” people were arrested in New York City! Is that freedom of speech? “Freedom of speech” for large corporations, e.g. Bank of America, Exxon−Mobil and General Electric was recently guaranteed by the Supreme Court. Corporations can virtually buy politicians and elections. What about the rights of citizens to protest? You might say, “Well, they blocked traffic!” What could threaten civil order more, blocking traffic and the inconvenience it causes, or taking away people’s homes, employment, health benefits, retirement pensions and education opportunities? Do we sit back while corporate and government policies leave 25 million people unemployed or underemployed? Do we accept that sending people away to endless wars of destruction is how our economy should be funneled? Do we accept that the United States has the highest prison population — well over 1 million — among industrialized nations? Do we tolerate the further erosion of opportunities for the growing numbers of poor among us? Well, 700 people who do not accept and tolerate these intolerable circumstances were arrested for speaking, shouting, protesting and marching. So I went to Occupy Boston. I urge you to do the same.
The Occupy Boston camp is a very impressive undertaking. People, mostly under 40 years old, are very well organized in non−hierarchical, open democratic ways, committed to the cause of economic equity and settled in for a long haul. They are attracting local media attention, at least for now. The police are not large in numbers. The feeling is very upbeat and hopeful. I am reminded of sit−ins, teach−ins and occupations of administration buildings over many years of being politically active during my time at Tufts and earlier. It is a good feeling! It will grow.
The criticisms that there is not a single guiding message or an identifiable leader are premature and, perhaps, misguided. Successful movements don’t spring up, fully formed out of nowhere. They build gradually, attract more and more attention and gel around central issues. Looking back at popular history can be misleading. Charismatic leaders like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela didn’t appear overnight with full−blown movements of thousands. They emerged from long struggles carried forward by hundreds of anonymous supporters of causes and strategies that cohered over time. Workers’ rights, gay rights, women’s rights, social welfare programs, unionism, the ending of the Vietnam War, the reduction of nuclear weapons all resulted from the efforts of thousands of people, now unknown, who were fired up to demand change.
We should support the beginnings of a movement that aims to ameliorate the social and economic inequalities that now plague the United States. We see huge corporations and banks cutting costs and workers, sending work abroad, while pulling in record profits. Most members of Congress spend their days cutting budgets for social programs, education, health and welfare, scientific research and grants for states and cities. The results we see — increasing unemployment and misery for many, especially among minorities, while the United States wages indefensible, enormously expensive wars of destruction, ruining the future for Americans and threatening the rest of the world. Tufts students are not immune. The search for suitable jobs after graduation will be difficult.
We are living in difficult times. Without support for meaningful change we will be left with declining prospects for the fair and equitable society that we all hope to inhabit in the future. There is much hope in this new movement. Go downtown to Occupy Boston! With your support and participation we may see a movement grow and succeed.
Gary Goldstein is a professor of physics and astronomy.
14 Responses to “Tufts Professor’s Op-Ed Supports Occupy Boston”
I just posted to the USPX blog lessons from the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Here is the crux:
… movements like this don’t succeed quickly. They take years, often decades to achieve results. The Arab Spring may be the model for Occupy’s street demonstrations, but it cannot be the model for what comes next. Toppling dictators is like amputating limbs. When the time comes, you can do it quickly. Reengineering a financial system is like fighting cancer. If you are too aggressive, you can kill the patient. It takes time, and in a democracy like America, it takes a lot of time.
A better model for today’s demonstrations is the Women’s Suffrage Movement launched at Seneca Falls in 1848. Approximately 300 people gathered for that first meeting. Only one survived seven decades to see the day women would actually vote in national elections.
A couple days ago, Occupy Boston demonstrators promised to regather on Earth Day to replant the grass their encampment has destroyed. Believe me, the only way these demonstrations will finish up by Earth Day—six months from now—is if they fail. If you are taking part in the demonstrations—and I hope you are—think in terms of decades, not months.
Another lesson from Seneca Falls is the transformation that occurs when a movement defines itself. The purpose of the 1848 meeting was to present for debate and a vote a “Declaration of Sentiments” and an accompanying list of resolutions. The most controversial resolution was the one that women have the right to vote. Lucretia Mott argued against it. Frederick Douglass spoke for it. The resolution passed. But in the days following the meeting, a number of participants asked if they could scratch their names from the list of signatories. They were too embarrassed by the controversy the meeting had caused.
The Declaration of Sentiments and resolutions passed at the Seneca Falls meeting defined the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Other than a meandering list of grievances against corporations, Occupy has produced nothing similar−no principles, resolutions, goals or demands. You can understand the hesitancy. When they do that, it will define the movement. Like signatories scratching out their names, some people will look at those principles or demands and say “this isn’t for me.”
No movement can claim to represent 99% of the population for long. This isn’t bad. It is part of the growth trajectory of any successful movement.
With Occupy approaching a crossroads, which route will the movement take? I see four possibilities:
1. Hesitancy and internal divisions prevail. The movement fails to endorse clear principles and looses momentum.
2. Occupy embraces a broad liberal agenda, positioning itself as a sort of Democrats’ answer to the Tea Party.
3. The movement sticks to its initial financial/economic agenda but embraces the notion that capitalism is the problem. Occupy turns towards socialism.
4. The movement sticks to its initial financial/economic agenda but accepts that the problem is broken capitalism and not capitalism itself. They advocate for fundamental repairs to American capitalism.
Given our commitment to capitalism, and the fact that we are non-partisan, the USPX cannot endorse the Occupy demonstrations unless and until they take the last of the above four courses.
You can read the entire post at:
http://proxyexchange.org/2011/10/occupy-movement-lessons-from-womens-suffrage/
If Occupy continues to position itself against Tea Party, they will limit support from people who agree with their initial anti-TARP statement.
If Occupy allows for other groups to amend the simple “anti-corporate welfare” statement, the movement will be hijacked (as the Tea Party was) by corporate sponsors and extreme political agendas.
I couldn’t agree more, Why would you not want to include people (not politicians or elite) on both sides and make truely FOR THE PEOPLE? If the TEA Party and you guys joined forces, that would be powerful. And Socialism??? I’d love someone to show me one Socialist country that didn’t end with Millions dead. Is that what they really want?
I filmed some stuff yesterday: bit.ly/occbos
From one Ph.D. to another — beautifully said!
See you on the front line!
I’m stunned this guy has a hand at educating young people. And these young people have to pay for it as well. I’m sure none of you ask how much of your college debt goes to paying this guys salary. I love how the guy just glosses over the concern of blocking traffic as a minor inconvenience. I wonder if he would feel that way if an ambulance on its way to help one of his loved ones was inconvenienced. He then continues to ignore the fact that people’s homes being taken from them may have something to do with them not paying their debts. It’s really simple, if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. As a physics professor you would think he would understand Cause and Effect. I guess the bottom line is that if you can understand the dangers of Socialism, then this movement won’t make sense. Or maybe looking back at the history of Socialism and the millions of innocent people murdered because of totalitarian powers can also be misleading. One thing we can all agree on, sure, bought and paid for politicians are ruining this country. Call is cynical, but this is Massachusetts, where we have reelected the same corrupt bought and paid for politicians year after year. Barney Frank gets caught flying to a private island on the private jet of a hedge fund guy who also happened to be one of his biggest campaign supporters, and he wins his reelection. Tierney’s wife gets caught laundering money for the mob, he gets back in. When you guys want to go after guys like that, let me know.
The media’s demand for a “single guiding message” or an “identified leader” are not only “premature” and/or “misguided,” but blindly irresponsible in those who claim to be journalists. Conspicuously this is a major, major movement, historical in its nature and scope. It is the journalists’ job to delve into it to find out what is going on to create such an extraordinary coming together of so many groups and individuals, in such far-flung and diverse areas, with so many grievances, and yet all powerfully unified regardless whether or not they have yet articulated an objective.
And the fact that they are at present leaderless — isn’t that just further testimony to the powerful unity of purpose that is causing massively growing numbers to come together?
As the professor indicates, a real movement is not a matter of an Athena springing full-grown and fully clothed and armed out of the head of a Zeus.
I understand that, but there is a flip side. People can’t support a mystery movement. This is what I am struggling with. Here is what I wrote in my blog today …
Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements across America are giving us hope. We need that. Barak Obama famously offered hope but never delivered. Since the 2008 crisis, our hopes have been crushed again and again by a government that no longer represents people and by executives whose sole purpose in life appears to be money—money not so much to buy things as to inflate their own pathetic egos.
What will come of this newfound hope, as people camp in city parks and march through the streets? That is unclear. The Occupy movements are pure democracies without appointed leaders. Propelled by legitimate grievances, they have failed to endorse specific solutions. They had a clear plan to organize demonstrations in New York. That has been achieved and more, but what is the plan from here? So far, there is no plan.
On Tuesday, labor unions rallied to march with the demonstrators. Some demonstrators were exhilarated. Others were nervous. One commented on-line:
“Please BEWARE of being Co opted. I am heartened by all the unions supporting you/us…but lets not be tempted into having ‘leadership’ or ‘a clear message’..lets not let them take over and use the movement to dilute the power of the 99%. How do you destroy a movement? Infiltrate it.”
The Arab Spring uprisings are a model for the Occupy demonstrations, and they should serve as a warning. The Arab movements have been either leaderless or had weak leaders. This makes them surprisingly resilient, but it creates power vacuums. In the Middle East, all eyes are on the Muslim Brotherhood.
For the Occupy movement, inaction is the path of least resistance, but it is the path to failure. Demonstrations and occupations are exciting for a while, but you have to give people a sense they are heading somewhere. What is the plan? It may take a month, or it may take six months, but without a plan, supporters will drift away. Already, people are refusing to support Occupy demonstrations simply because they don’t know where the movement is heading. I can attest to this from personal experience.
I am executive director of the United States Proxy Exchange (USPX), a grass roots movement that formed in 2008 in response to the same concerns that propel Occupy Wall Street — out-of-touch Washington and out-of-control corporations. The USPX started with a clear plan: organize individual shareowners to take back control of the corporations they own. We count as shareowners, not only individuals who own shares directly, but also those who own them indirectly through mutual funds or 401(k) plans. That includes much of America’s middle class—teachers and computer programmers, mothers and uncles. The middle class—as shareowners—have power to control the very corporations that are the problem. For three years, members of the USPX have been organizing—attending shareowner meetings, submitting shareowner proposals, confronting do-nothing regulators, participating in lawsuits and, most importantly, shining a light on abuse. Our membership is sophisticated, small but growing. Our only funding is modest dues the members pay, so we are answerable only to them. No one is going to co-opt us.
Comparing the Occupy movement and the USPX, it would appear that we are perfectly matched parallel movements. Our supporter bases overlap, and where they don’t, they complement. The USPX has a clear plan that should integrate well with whatever plan Occupy demonstrators may embrace — or will it? That is the rub.
Within the USPX, a debate is raging. Should we work with the Occupy movement, or is there too much risk? Will Occupy embrace an agenda like ours of repairing capitalism, or will they decide that capitalism is the problem and needs to be scrapped? The same debate rages within Occupy itself, with every viewpoint represented. Each city’s occupation is charting its own course. Reading on-line discussion forums, it appears Los Angeles is leaning towards a broad, radical agenda. Boston, for the most part, appears more main stream, more practical. With Occupy failing to define itself, the media — not all of it friendly to the movement — is starting to do it for them. Yesterday, Bloomberg ran a story entitled “Without Capitalism”, including a quote by an 18-year old demonstrator:
“We are here to show America we can live differently than the way we’re living, without capitalism.”
Members of the USPX read that, or they see photos of demonstrators waving signs for communism, and they are troubled. I have promised that the USPX will not endorse the Occupy demonstrations unless and until they embrace a program to repair capitalism, not scrap it. But that promise need not sideline us for now. Engagement is not endorsement. We need to be engaged.
I have encouraged members of the USPX to join in discussions, and to point out that America’s casino capitalism in 2011 is not the capitalism of Roosevelt in 1933 or of Adam Smith in 1776. We need to fix what works, not throw it out for something worse. That is what the USPX has been working on for three years. We hope the Occupy movement will join us.
Regarding the issue of Occupy Wall Street (and other Occupy actions) not having articulated a sufficiently integrated and coherent message/demand that educates, informs, and consolidates a proposed solution to their multiple issues:
While there really is significant tactical value for the Occupy Together movement(s) to encourage and allow all of the entirely valid and important goals, issues, qua ‘demands’ of the now organizing 99% of us to be aligned against the well funded, elitist, corporate, financial, and status-quo ruling interests of that tiny 1%, Jim Hightower in Common Dreams and everyone supportive of being part of Occupy Together need to be cognizant of what this NYT reporter, GINIA BELLAFANTE, (and all counter-revolutionary forces in the media, corporatist, political, and other reactionary elements of the 1%) are leveraging as anti-liberation barbs and potential counter-strategies — including this more subtle NYT criticism of Occupy being an “intellectual vacuum” — all the way to FOX’s violence provoking taunt of this movement being anti-capitalist, and thus “communists” like bomb-thrower O’Reilly has already shouted on air.
Occupy Together is not an “intellectual vacuum” nor “communist” in the sense that a former and truly “vacuous” president shouted about the “evil (communist) empire” — as if all empires were not by definition “evil”, and elitist, and violent, and guileful, and hierarchical, and inexorably lead to extinction!
However, in order to disarm such counter-revolutionary taunts and distractions, in order to confront all serious ‘symptom problems’, and in order to keep this popular revolt valid in the eyes of all 99% (and to avoid the possibility of violence by some who may be tricked by propaganda of the ruling 1%) it WILL ultimately become essential that the Occupy Together logic and justification of our movement/revolt against the 1%, and for the 99%, articulate clear reasons that are unassailable as being any “intellectual vacuum”, and based on universally popular logic, language, narrative, and emotions that can not be attacked by the subtle reactionaries of the NYTimes, nor the fascist reactionaries of FOX.
In order to do this and create the narrative of justifiable revolution that attracts all the 99%, disarms the 1%, and insures non-violence, it will be necessary to have an airtight strategy, believable narrative, and certainly the inverse of an “intellectual vacuum” — which means that this narrative must be the ‘intellectual truth’, just as were all democratic revolutions throughout history “Against Empire”.
The starting point for such “intellectual truth”, and an unarguably popular narrative, will have to recognize that we are now in a post-nation-state world — and that the 1%’s strategy of lies and deceit is already dominating in this ‘new world order’ — and by the way things are devolving that new world order is disguised as the vague-sounding lie of “globalization”, but is really the hidden and undiagnosed cancerous tumor of ‘global Empire’.
It is absolutely essential, that by being intellectually rigorous and accurate, that the Occupy Together movement focus, like a laser, on the disguised and violent ‘global Empire’ being the consummate villain of this narrative. The global corporate/financial/militarist Empire that has captured our former country, by hiding behind the facade of its modernized TWO-Party “Vichy” sham of faux-democracy is the real underlying villain of this truthful narrative, just as surely as the occupying Nazi Empire, with its crude, single-party “Vichy” sham of government in France was the villain that all 99% of French people recognized.
In today’s real post-nation-state world which we 99% live in, but don’t control, the 1% ’empire-thinking’ elite have already been building the structure of their disguised ‘global Empire’ for decades — with global conditions, agreements, laws, organizations (IMF, GATT, NATO), labor slavery, military force, financial flows, et al all structured to their advantage, but with no allowances for the 99% of global peoples’ interests. There are no popular elements to this fast devolving imperium —- unless one counts the cynical lies of our recent ‘cowboy’ fascist president toward the disguised imperial wars of the “Pentagon’s New Map” in Africa and the greater Middle East as being his “freedom agenda” and “democracy project”. There has been no appreciable integrated and popular movement toward real ‘global democracy’ including political-economic and social-democracy, “Against Empire”, until this wonderful opportunity of Occupy Together broke out of the dark (or as Morris Berman wrote, “Dark Ages America”) recently.
Realistically, the opportunity for such a people’s “Occupy Together” movement to effectively recognize, expose, and then successfully confront this ‘global Empire’ is most likely to bear fruit in America. Attempts to confront the ‘global Empire’ within the empire’s oil territories of Africa and the Middle East are brave but likely to be met with the “tip of the empire’s lance in the face” for the 99% in these regions’ popular revolutions wherever their goals confront those of the “Core” of the empire itself.
This is because of the fact, that while the reality is of a post-nation-state world of empire, the disguised reality of the global corporate/financial/militarist Empire itself must still be maintained within such “Old Core” centers of the new world empire. The ‘global Empire’, while violent and viscous elsewhere, must still, perhaps briefly, maintain a modicum of democratic facade in those centers which have a “special relationship” of disguised partners within the ruling “Old Core” — most particularly the countries previously known as the US, UK, Israel, Germany, Italy, France and other supposed ‘functioning democracies’, which share intelligence, military resources, financial ‘arrangements’, media complicity, and other factors still necessary in protecting the disguise and effective control of ‘their thing’, the ‘global Empire’.
For the above reasons and effectiveness of ‘intellectual truth’ and historically accurate narrative, the Occupy Together now organically evolving among the 99% of people in what can non-nationalistically be called the former United States of America have a special opportunity, responsibility, and unique popular power to achieve the start of “a great friendship” in revolting for liberty & democracy “Against Empire” both here and throughout ‘our world’.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Liberty & democracy
over
violent/Vichy
empire
occupy boston
occupy wall st
occupy together
occupy every cities and town
occupy the planet
Petition Congress to repeal:
the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999.
the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
the patriot act.
Unsuspend the constitution done in 1929.
Stop adding Sodium flouride (poisoning) tap water.
Abolish the federal reserve.
Stop presidential executive order.
Stop THE NEW WORLD ORDER agenda.
Stop vaccination=depopulation.
Expose the big pharma-monsanto-war machine.
Expose the astrocities of the IMF and WORLD BANK.
Expose the CFR ( COUNSIL OF FOREING RELATION ).
Expose the longterm sideeffects of mammals generation consumption of GM FOOD = Depopulation.
Expose the real agenda behind global warming.
Expose building seven wtc.
Expose the real truth of 9-11.
Expose the corporate law-ordinance-justice-prison system.
Expose the the FEMA concentration camps.
Expose the black plastic coffins of fema.
Expose the posse comitatus violation.
Expose the foreign troops in the sovereign republic of the Unites State.
Expose the iluminnati.
Expose the healtcare corporation.
Expose the Hittler-Vatican connection.
Expose the free zero point energy available now.
Space to Add your owns.
Another act to repeal would be the The National Securities Markets Improvement Act, which Congress passed in 1996, and Bill Clinton signed. That opened the door to the explosive growth in unregulated hedge funds we have witnessed since. Up until its passage, hedge funds had received exemption from regulation under Section 3(c)(1) of the 1940 Investment Company Act. To protect the investing public, that section placed SEVERE restrictions on the nature and number of investors a hedge fund might have. The Improvement Act added a new Section 3(c)(7). This liberalized those restrictions, dramatically increasing opportunities for hedge funds to attract investors. Hedge funds have since gone from a cottage industry to a major component of today’s financial system, almost entirely unregulated and non-transparent.
I wrote a blog piece about this a few years ago, which I recommend everyone read. It is an eye-opener:
http://newcap.proxyexchange.org/2007/08/hedge-funds-wholl-take-the-toxic-waste/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZmPWcLQ1Mk&feature=player_embedded
Women’s Suffrage Movement was backed by the Rockefellas. they wanted women to work so they could have more tax money. look up Aaron Russo on youtube
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/rn-f00vynrY
Connie:
I did as you suggested, searching for “Aaron Russo” on YouTube. There were lots of videos, so I wouldn’t know where to begin to find him discussing specifically the Roosevelts and women’s suffrage. Fully admitting that I am uninformed about the specific allegations, I will say they sound improbable …. who would ever think of giving a group of people the right to vote as a means of controlling them?
Glyn