The Occupy Wall Street protests are spreading incredibly fast across the country. In New York, they are getting larger, and not only because of the instant participation of labor unions--which is remarkable in itself. It took awhile for Labor to align itself with the Civil Rights movement, although it was there in force in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It never did join the antiwar movement--it was more often on the other side with the "hardhats." But Labor has changed a great deal since the 1970s. There are a lot of members employed by government at some level. Industrial unions have become advocates for green technologies and green jobs, as well as smarter workplaces--along with greater worker participation in decision-making. But the antipathy to today's equivalents of the industrial barons is deep in their DNA.
Now quickly joining this Instant Koalition along with the Van Jones group are the heirs to the Civil Rights movement, about to March on Washington for Jobs and Justice on October 15. Through his TV show, the Rev. Al Sharpton is making common cause with Occupy Wall Street.
And now through Bill McKibben and a coalition of groups, the environmental activists have joined up--they were marching with Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday: For too long, Wall Street has been occupying the offices of our government, and the cloakrooms of our legislatures,” wrote Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, in an email urging supporters to join the march, “They’ve been a constant presence, rewarded not with pepper spray in the face but with yet more loopholes and tax breaks and subsidies and contracts. You could even say Wall Street’s been occupying our atmosphere, since any attempt to do anything about climate change always run afoul of the biggest corporations on the planet. So it’s a damned good thing the tables have turned.”
This is a particularly natural move for McKibben after his blistering New York Times oped claiming corporate influence and cronyism between an oil lobbyist and the State Department to get the tar sands oil pipeline approved.
The Instant Koalition includes such natural allies and also some strange bedfellows, as well as the just strange, but that's all part of the energy at this stage. This is still building. Like previous movements, it can claim roots and common cause to very American ideals and American history, as in this brilliant piece in Think Progress which shows these protests are much more in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party than the TPers ever were.
But unlike previous movements, it can claim to be representing the direct and obvious interests and (in the main) the views of the majority--of the 99%. There's plenty of time for it to fracture and falter and make fatal blunders, or to be infiltrated and subverted--all the kinds of things that have happened to movements in the past. But a movement for the 99% has potential that can't be measured or predicted.
And so far it is getting some of the same reaction against it, that keeps it in the news and probably helps to build it: the ongoing police violence in New York, for example, which continued Wednesday. That news is still coming through so there's no point in linking to anything now, it will likely change hour by hour. (But the Fox station news crew that reportedly got pepper sprayed by police is again a predictable development, just not so soon.)
There's also the scorn from established (or Corporate) media, like CNN and (of course) the Wall Street Journal. That alternately discourages but mostly energizes participants. But only energy comes from predictable scorn from the likes of Herman Cain. With descriptions that will remind demo vets of back in the day, Ezra Klein wonders what it will become. So do we all.
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