November 18, 2011

Occupy Wall Street: Whatcha Gonna Do?

So, I've been watching this OWS thing and I think they've got a point about inequality, corporate overreach and corruption in the financial sector that is wrecking democracy. I'm down with protests and what not, but thats NOT ENOUGH.  Changing these issues for the better means opposing powerful, entrenched interests that fight back.  So whats needed are strategies and action items to create the outcomes desired by the movement.  I've got some ideas about what that is, but I don't have all the ideas.  So, I invite you dear reader to join me in crowdsourcing experiment to generate those strategies and action pieces.  I've got it started. Use this link to add your input to the Prezi below. Lets see where we end up.


The Occupy Wall Street movement has come to a cross roads.  If they are going to mature as a real movement that actually creates change effects in the real world, they have to articulate principles, derive strategies based on them and engage in tactics to implement those strategies.  This requires becoming more concrete, more specific, and prioritizing your issues.  The OWS movement folks in New York are resisting this.  They don't want to accept the constraints that come with making choices about whats important.  I consider this basically a natural maturation point for the movement and the turning point thats going to decide whether this movement becomes a true political/cultural/social force for change or devolves into not much more than a temporary spasm, a civic tantrum.

What the OWS folks are confronting is the need to put their beliefs into action in the real world beyond the parks and the state house lawns.  You can't stay in those places mentally or physically and change the world.  Its analogous to Christian faith in the church.  The great commission is to go out and reach the lost with the love of God.  You can't do that sitting in church alone. You gotta get out on your mission field, whatever that is, and take action. So too with OWS.


Comments (2)

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Here's what should have been the biggest warning sign to them that what they were doing was useless.

They got favorable media coverage.

The media companies are the corporations they think they are fighting. If they were really getting under the skin of the corporations, then they would have gotten Tea Party style coverage. Instead, they were fawned over, like a precocious child. Why?

Because they didn't scare the corporate interests. They thought they were cute.
My recent post Occupy Pasadena
No, I disagree. Their targets are financial sector companies, to the extent they articulate that. Its not Occupy Hollywood. I don't think those folks are scared either, but the issue for OWS is whether they are going to get serious about the hard work of change. The Tea Party folks buy into a principles narrative thats good, but just like the GOP, their political practice leaves much to be desired often.

OWS has gotta grow up and decide if they want to get real and effective, or just act out and settle for that as their contribution to changing the world. Are they gonna grow up and be activist citizen adults or remain civic adolescents. They have to decide.

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