For thirteen days, as of this writing, hundreds have been occupying Wall Street to protest what many see as an evolving plutocracy in the US. Many of the occupiers have been angered at the dismissal of their movement by the corporate press. (see Ginia Bellafante's article from the New York Times of September 23) Many seem to automatically reject this movement for its lack of a centralized, organized center. O.W.S. is grass roots in the strictest sense. (unlike the so-called Tea Party, for example: an organization funded by large organizations attempting to appear as an upswell of popular rage)
A common canard (often heard these days in this anti-union climate) is that a labor union is but its own clunky organizational machinery, which serves to feed itself, rather than to facilitate and uplift the will of the group with common aims that formed it. Local 100 of the Transit Workers Union or TWU, has joined O.W.S. So has Teamsters Local 814. My hope is that all unions, including the performers' unions, Equity, SAG and AFTRA, will throw their support behind this movement. After all, there are more of us (i.e. non-rich people) than them (e.g. millionaires who hold undue influence on our government and economy). The same epithets lobbed at protestors of the Viet Nam war, The Civil Rights Movement, Women's Rights and the like, are being yelled from the balconies of the rich upon the regular folk below (See video at the end of this post). Despite characterizations of "the great unwashed" and "unemployed trust fund babies," change was forced.
Keep up the pressure! Make the American Autumn a force that changes our world. Solidarity forever!
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