We might, for a point of reference, remember the movement for civil rights. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was the leading organization at some of the most dramatic events, but it was certainly not the only one. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had its share of dramatic events, as did the Freedom Riders. The NAACP was constantly translating issues into demands on elected officials. Up north, the Congress of Racial Equality did some significant organizing. In different locations, different churches and unions lent their resources to the movement. Black Muslims and Black Panthers provided a definite edge in their rhetoric and their actions.
The movement for civil rights was a true movement, not an organization. No particular organization was in control. Not all organizations in the movement agreed entirely on the goals or on the means to those goals. However, all parts of the movement challenged business as usual and together changed the character of politics, forcing both parts of the two-party system to address, in one fashion or another, all the issues involved.
The civil rights movement was developing some very serious potential to upset the whole political system because a variety of unions got involved, the student movement got involved, the anti-war movement got involved and the nascent feminist movement got involved. The civil rights movement was showing signs of merging with all these, or absorbing them.
One could easily point out that the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy served to allow aggressive promotion of the war in Vietnam. Whether this was the intention of the assassin or not, escalation in Vietnam was one prominent effect.
If this way of looking at John F. Kennedy's death is correct, then the subsequent string of assassinations - Malcolm X in February of 1965; Martin Luther King in April of 1968; and Robert Kennedy in June of 1968 - were increasingly desperate attempts to shut down this plethora of movements against the American Establishment.
Killing some leaders, however important those people were, did not shut down the movements. What it took to quiet those movements was giving in to a number of their demands.
The Voting Rights Act and similar legislation was passed. A number of schools and more slowly, many neighborhoods were integrated. The draft was ended. The war in Vietnam wound down slowly, culminating in a clear defeat for body counts, pacification of the countryside and all the other idiotic strategies for American military dominance in South-east Asia. Sexual harassment was made illegal, though the effectiveness with which the law was implemented left a lot to be desired. Many unions got cost-of living raises built into their contracts. Service unions entered on a period of growth even as manufacturing unions started their long decline.
In general, we can say that all the movements so active in the 1960's won at least some concessions and reduced their activities greatly during the 1970's. The American political scene then became quieter and more contained in the two-party system for several decades - until just recently. Now it looks like a movement is starting again, or perhaps it will prove to be many movements.
No doubt anyone with a little knowledge of history could find flaws with this short summary of several decades. It leaves out a lot, including the beginnings of the environmental and GLBT movements. It leaves out peak oil, which happened for the United States in 1970 but was not widely understood until much later.
No matter how much the summary leaves out, the point is a new movement with a lot of parallels to the civil rights movement has started. Like civil rights, this movement challenges business as usual and politics as usual. It is not contained in the two-party system.
The new movement is not going to be controlled by any one organization. It can't be defeated by breaking up any one encampment or discrediting any one organization or event.
We have a political system promising democracy, freedom and justice for all coupled with an economic system promising fairness, rewards for hard work and prosperity. The failure to deliver on any of these promises is both obvious and painful. The failure to deliver drives a movement of protest. While there are a few true believers who will imagine the American Dream is viable in the face of all evidence to the contrary, most of us are more attached to our everyday reality than to dreams.
The everyday reality is no job security for those who have jobs, and many do not. Those of us who have homes - and many do not - could see them taken away as soon as a paycheck fails to arrive or savings are eaten up by unavoidable medical expenses. Seniors who worked for forty or fifty years paying into Social Security and Medicare and now depend on both are seeing both programs threatened by both parties, in order to balance a budget in which hundreds of billions for the military cannot be questioned. At least, it cannot be questioned by the politicians in office, no matter how many ordinary citizens question it.
We are told the economy is recovering, although it is a recovery without jobs, a recovery without prosperity. It's a recovery for the 1% and not for the rest of us. It's a recovery which has no solution for climate change; no solution for acidification of the oceans; no solution for desertification; no solution for overpopulation; in short, no solution for most of the real problems which mean the future can easily be worse than the present - and we are not happy with the present.
This is an economy in crisis. The clowns who are contesting to be nominated for president are not trying to be political leaders. They are trying to be the least worst in a field which does not have a clue about solving real problems. If they cant be the least worst, they will settle for appearing to be the lesser evil.
This includes Obama in the field of clowns. His performance to date demonstrates he has not only not solved any economic or social problems; he hasn't even tried. The policies he has followed have been Bush's policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, China, and so on. His policies are Bush's policies with respect to torture, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, the Federal Reserve, bank bailouts, no prosecutions for mortgage fraud by banksters, etc. Many of his appointments have been a continuation of Bush officials or replacement of them by their friends and proteges, especially in anything having to do with the economy.
This economy was in undeniable crisis during the Presidential election of 2008. Anyone hoping for change during that election has been disappointed. A tremendous amount of money has been spent propping up the institutions that failed, but practically nothing has been done to either change those institutions or to replace them. With no solutions, politics as usual is perpetuating the crisis.
The Occupations are the most recent expression of a movement to protest the simultaneous failure of prosperity and democracy. If encampments continue, occupiers will strain to create better tactics and strategy. If encampments are shut down by force or by weather, other and more effective organizations will be created.
Occupy organizations are not the whole of a movement, though they are at the moment an important hub. The movement will not go away unless and until the crisis that called it into being is resolved. The 1% can't give in to the demands of this movement without losing their own political power. There is no indication that will be happening anytime soon. We are just getting started.
Art Myatt
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