http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/05/occupy-wall-street-a-reply-to-skeptics/On September 27th Lauren Ellis published an essay in Mother Jones Magazine entitled “Is OccupyWallStreet Working?”
The essay argues that Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is not working because the movement has no clear message and is not demographically representative of those who are affected most by the current economic problems. While Ellis does raise important points about movement-messaging and political representation, she in no way tries to understand the internal logic and outward expression of OWS.
Ellis’ conclusions center around four main points: that OWS’s “kitchen sink approach” is a form of ineffective messaging; that the media’s focus on the police brutality distracts from OWS’s main message (or lack thereof); that the hacktavist collective Anonymous inhibits the OWS movement; and that the OWS participants are the “usual suspects” of “dreamers.” In what follows, I provide counter-arguments to each of Ellis’ points as an attempt to flesh-out some of the philosophies, practices, and communicative strategies of Occupy Wall Street. I want to note that I am not seeking to attack Lauren Ellis in any way. Instead, I am trying to demonstrate why her arguments—representative of many like-minded skeptics—are insufficiently substantiated.
1. Kitchen Sink vs. Multi-Issued Messaging. It is common practice to critique festival and carnivalesque protests (and radical social movement overall) as lacking coherent, effective messages. I agree that protesters and social movements (of all kinds) bare the responsibility of effective messaging. But we must realize that OWS does involve a rhetorical logic. OWS is not lacking a coherent message; instead, its message is multi-issued, politically complex, and systemic: economic inequality, layoffs, house foreclosures, bank bailouts, million dollar bonuses, overpriced health insurance, cuts to social welfare, credit card debt, the student loan industry, tax breaks for the rich, underfunded schools, climate change, genetically modified food, the burgeoning prison-industrial complex, war, as well as racism, sexism, and homophobia are interconnected issues. None of these occur in a vacuum; instead, each contributes to and affects the others. One of the root causes of “this current system” is corporate dominance. Most (if not everyone) can agree that corporations control this country. Political, educational, prison, mass media, and military systems are dominated by the corporate will-to-profit. Even the production of culture is a corporate manufacturing of brands, logos, jingles, and cradle-to-the grave advertising. How many people identify themselves by the brands that they wear, consume, and purchase? How much material support is given to independent artists, musicians, and film makers? How many words within the collective lexicon—like Google, Xerox, and Coke—are actually corporate titles? Corporate dominance is not the only root cause of these interrelated issues, but it is a good place to start. Protesters are thus occupying Wall Street because it is the epicenter of corporate dominance and condenses all of these issues into one symbolic force.
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