Everyone is talking about the Occupy Wall Street protests and what they mean for American politics and culture, so it seemed to make sense that Lev and I should do the same. Last week, at the invitation of my colleague Maxim Matusevich, I published a short piece on the Russian site "Balt-Info" with my impressions of the protests as of the end of September. Here's the link. And for anyone who doesn't read Russian, my original English text, which, I should note, is rather different from the Russian version, follows below. But Lev suggested that some balance would be appropriate here and offered the following text by the blogger Vladimir Davidenko to provide a conservative counterpoint.
Oct. 3, 2011
Not long ago, I found myself rather unexpectedly amidst the “occupiers” of Wall Street. My reasons for being there had nothing to do with politics, although their protests against the greed and impunity of the titans of American business arouse in me no small degree of sympathy. But no, it was music that drew me to Zuccotti Park on a warm late September afternoon.
That morning rumors starting to crop up on the internet that the group Radiohead, well known for their anti-corporate views as well as their innovative compositions, would be making a surprise appearance at the demonstration. My daughter is a big fan of Radiohead, and I like their music too. Our attempts to procure tickets for a rare concert appearance a few days earlier ended in disappointment. So when we went to the protester’s web site and found a notice confirming that Radiohead would appear we had the same reaction – Let’s go! We rushed down to the train station just in time to catch the commuter train into the city and were on our way.
Less than an hour later, we were wandering around the encampment. The park turned out to be fairly small—about half the size of a football field. A huge orange metal sculpture stood at one end, trees poked out of holes in the brick pavement in the middle and at the other end a set of steps led to the street just around the corner from “ground zero” where the twin towers one stood. One could imagine how in ordinary times employees of Wall Street banks and investment funds might come out here on their lunch breaks or relax in the park at the end of a long day. But now the park was filled with a motley assemblage of young people—probably about a thousand—accompanied by the thunder of drums echoing off the walls of the surrounding skyscrapers. It was clear right away that a concert was out of the question—there was no stage, no sound system, not even electricity—it seems we were victims of a hoax. On the other hand we had the opportunity to observe this rather colorful scene.
For someone of my generation with faded childhood memories of the 1960s and 70s, the appearance of the protestors immediately evoked familiar associations—long haired youths, unwashed, bruised and beaten, shirtless, with beads and tattoos; girls in long skirts with pierced noses and multicolored hair; earnest, sincere faces—the usual style of American nonconformist youth. One second glance, though, other types emerged from the crowd—veterans in camouflage, well dressed men in ties, elderly ladies. Who were these people and what were they doing here?
Judging by the content of their signs, which were displayed in abundance around the perimeter of the park, the protesters themselves didn’t seem to know what exactly they were protesting. The slogans ranged from the strident (Eat the Rich!) to the naïve (I love everyone. Let’s figure this all out together!) to the downright bizarre (I am a goat. Ignore me. Go Shopping). When the first reports of the protests appeared it was easy to dismiss them as a bunch of latter day hippies and muddle headed leftists trying to get attention. But over the past week or so, to the surprise of the participants themselves, the movement has caught fire. Every day more articles and reports appear in the news and more people make their way, as I did, down to Zuccotti Park to see what all the excitement is about.
In part the success of the protesters may be due to pure persistence—if you stay in one place long enough and make enough noise (they make plenty!) someone is sure to notice. On the other hand, the protesters had one of the best publicity agents anyone could possibly ask for—the New York City Police Department. For the most part, the police have exercised restraint in their dealings with the occupiers. In part they have no choice. The Park which the demonstrators have occupied is technically private property. The owner was given permission to build a skyscraper next door on the condition that he create the park and keep it open to the public 24 hour a day. Without permission of the owner, the police do not have the authority to clear the premises. So the police stand around the edge making sure traffic isn’t blocked, but leave the park to the young people.
There have been a few occasions, however, when the protesters have left the refuge of the park and the police have abandoned their restraint, inflicting excessive force, and applying questionable tactics including mass arrests. Invariably videos showing police misconduct surface right away and go viral on the internet arousing a wave of sympathy and support. After two or three such events, the protests had become national news and inspired analogous protests in cities throughout the country.
But all police brutality in the world could not have helped the Wall Street protesters gain support if their message had not resonated with a set of widely held, if not always clearly articulated, beliefs about contemporary American life.
Three points in particular come to mind. The first is that something has gone terribly awry with our financial sector. Instead of providing necessary services and investment opportunities for ordinary Americans, Wall Street has become a crazy game of smoke and mirrors conjuring unimaginable wealth out of thin air through arcane and opaque instruments with names like credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations.
Of course, such games could not continue forever. Eventually the whole thing came tumbling down in the crash of 2008, and giving rise to a second widely held belief--Wall Street walked away from the mess it made leaving ordinary Americans to suffer the consequences. All throughout America people are losing their jobs, losing their homes, struggling to stay afloat under mountains of debt. Meanwhile the great banks and investment firms have received generous government bail-outs and are back to making record profits at the expense of the very people who are suffering the most. Huge banks are deemed “too big to fail” and given help at the tax payer’s expense while ordinary people are abandoned to their fate.
As if this wasn’t enough, Wall Street is clamoring for Congress to remove the few regulations that still remain in place. Hence a third key idea— American political life is controlled by large corporations and ordinary people no longer have a say. Corporations spend millions of dollars on powerful lobbyists and campaign contributions without which no politician can even hope to be elected. Naturally, after the elections, the corporations collect the political returns on their investment and although the politicians come and go, nothing really changes.
In part this perception reflects the disillusionment that many people feel with Barack Obama who came into office promising change only to pack his cabinet with Wall Street insiders and give the banks everything they could ask for and more. The banks, far from being grateful, responded by financing the Tea Party, setting the stage for the decisive victory of the extremist wing of the Republican party in the last congressional elections. As a result, the activists feel that if any change is to occur it must come from outside the framework of the traditional political system. This may be one reason for the lack of specific demands or goals on the part of the protesters. Unlike the Tea Party, to whom they are often compared, the protesters show little interest in supporting political candidates, organizing referendums and otherwise participating in the give and take of American politics. This may come later. But for now they have already made a more profound contribution. By drawing attention to the abuses of Wall Street and its impact on ordinary people, the protesters have given voice to a deep frustration felt throughout the country and opened a new framework for discussion and action. No one knows how long the protesters will remain encamped in Zuccotti Park, but their message has already left its mark.
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