OWS: Bootstraps VS The Ghost of Lennon

While the protestors in the park burn the midnight oil and keep the hopes alive for those who can't be there in person, the chorus of critics of the movement persist. These criticisms range from claims that a lack of cohesive message indicates a movement doomed to failure to a preoccupation with how the protestors look (ie. hippies) and what they do to pass the time (ie. play folks songs on guitar).

It is not at all surprising that these people decry the lack of a single message. Corporations rely almost exclusively on iconography, simple ideas and slogans, messages that are so clear they are devoid of subtlety and poetry. Of course they cannot understand a multi-headed, multi-purpose movement. But these criticisms clearly miss the point. I find it more than a little troubling that more time has not been spent scrutinizing the 'criticize-ors' rather than the 'criticize-ees.' Those who have reached for generalizations, such as protestors being mostly 'young people', are, I would argue, as much the victims of corporatocracy as those protesting its destructive results. Are the criticizors simply rich people, happy with the status quo? Or are they victims of Gramsci's 'cultural hegemony', duped by the pervasive corporate message that says the interests of the super-wealthy elite are the same as the general populace? (ie. 'trickle-down' theory and the near-perpetual line that corporations create jobs and prosperity for all).

Those who don't sit on a Board of Directors for a multi-national know full well that these two sets of interests are not at all the same. And the truth is, 'economies' and 'deficits' are abstract notions, invented by human beings and therefore, subject ultimately to our control. Debt and interest are inventions, but the corporate big boys pretend, coyly, that they are forces of nature, beyond their control. So, if you are forced to declare bankruptcy or have lost your house to foreclosure you are simply a hapless victim of Mother Nature, with no one to blame but fate, at best, or yourself at worst, for failing to take the necessary precautions.

So, in the end, what separates the protestors (and those who cheer them on from afar) from the critics, is a sense of what has caused the rich/poor cleavage that has widened like the Grandest of Canyons over the last 30 years: for the protestors, it's plain old human greed, left unchecked and given the run of the farm for far too long; for the critics, it's lazy people, with no one to blame but their poor old selves. We are witnessing a return of the 1930s-1950s "bootstrap" mentality. If you're poor, just find some gumption and pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.

Except these days, bootstraps are expensive, made in a third world country by quasi-slave labour and really only available to the super wealthy.

The good thing is that the protestors have been singing the song of a man, shot in 1980 by a crazed ultra-US nationalist, who once stated in the simplest of terms: "War is Over" he plainly spoke, "If You Want It." A saccharine notion, perhaps, but utterly impenetrable for the simple truth it reveals: in the end, there is no escaping it, greed is something you choose.

That's the message of the 99%. I honestly don't know how much clearer it could be.