I am definitely late to the dance here, although I did put a few Occupy related posts in my tumblr a while back. I read a status update on a friend's Facebook, which while I didn't completely disagree with, I wasn't exactly in support of, either. The gist was that given that most of the people who take public transit in Toronto are representative of the 99% and are people Occupiers should be engaging with positively, blocking the streetcar on King Street in the downtown serves more to allienate and anger would-be supporters than attract them. What worked for the Tamil protestors to bring their issues to media attention and a public otherwise ignorant to the issues, may not have the same effect for Occupiers, whose movement
is known to the majority of us, if not necessarily understood (or in the case of many, willfully misunderstood). The debate became heated, with rampant insults and flames being thrown about. The rampant anti-Occupiers assumed that the status update was reflective of their own judgemental and unmoving position, which it wasn't, which immediately raised the ire of Occupy supporters and one active Occupy participant. It degenerated. It was heated, angry, and did little to move conversation in a positive way. In a move I am more apt to make now than ten years ago, I did not jump in to the conversation and emotionally respond to the comments - no, not even the particularly idiotic comments.
Instead, I wrote my own status update, which I'll now share here.
I am
not involved in the Occupy movement, except that I do actively engage in often heated discussion with people about why it's happening and what makes it important. That doesn't mean I agree with all of the tactics and certainly feel that many Occupiers have lost the common thread of their protest thanks to internal fractures and clever anti-Occupy media coverage. It's NOT about the tents, or the parks, or any of the visible trappings. It's about people demanding accountability from Government, about economic policy that benefits the vast majority of real, living, breathing humans, not banks and corporations, and it's about everyone looking out for each other. You don't have to be a "socialist", a "dirty hippie" or poor and/or homeless to believe in the Occupy movement. I know plenty of independent, entrepreneurs who are supportive if not active participants. You just need a conscience and concern for your fellows.
Looking at that now, I'll add that the Occupy movement is about community standing up for community needs. It should serve to remind us that Government is for the people and that corporations and companies are as much expected to serve their communities as the rest of us, and moreso, because they owe it to the people they employ, to the places they exist, and to the people who support their interests. There's a little thing called civic responsibility or duty and it's about giving back. It's not meant as a way for corporations to appear conscientious or for positive public relations, but as an appropriate show of respect and gratitude to those who make it possible for the corporation to succeed. The system is designed to make sure large companies do not fail. Sixty years ago, when the vast majority of them were owned and operated by local people, not multi-nationals undercutting the local economy, a stronger case might have been made for their level of governmental support (which, by the way, was a great deal less than it is now). Again and again, we see the same stories repeated, where big business is encouraged to overtake the small and mid-sized businesses that are the direct engine of our local economies. Occupy is about raising awareness in the general populace to the unfairness of the current system, to stop allowing a shrinking piece of economic pie to be meted out to an increasingly large and under-paid population, and to make sure that those who have are active members of the community and can be held accountable for the often damaging decisions they make. I'm not calling an end to capitalism. I'm asking that we all, in our own small way, spend a little time thinking critically about why the majority of this world is in the economic mess it's in, while banks and big business continue to rake in enormous profits. How is this acceptable?
Occupy is about thinking, caring, and community. Occupiers also need to remember that the people with whom they are interacting on a daily basis are also part of the 99 percent. Thinking, caring, community.
