Everybody Loves OccupyWallStreet... Well 99% Do

Like I said in my red velvet rope post a couple days ago, it's probably best for anyone who's angry-- in a nonviolent sort of way-- about Wall Street and the inequities imposed against the 99% of us by the plutocracy, to be welcomed into the #OccupyWallStreet movement. Shutting out supporters, like several professional hustlers are suggesting, is a poor idea that's mostly being ignored. Earlier today, fresh from marching in New York, Jonathan Tasini exulted in the participation of union members... and the optimism.

Jammed in yesterday with the thousands of others of people in Foley Square, I turned to look at the crowd all around. I felt an incredible burst of optimism. I turned to one friend and said, "looks like the revolution will happen before I die." We laughed. I hope people hold on to the optimism that was coursing around that plaza yesterday-- despite all the challenges we will face in the days, months and years to come.

I write this partly because I don't want to lose the great spirit and enthusiasm of yesterday that was marred by the violence and craziness ignited by the police.

I feel optimistic because of the many unions members who came out.

I feel optimistic when I read this quote from a union brother who I have worked with in labor for a long time:

“The labor movement needs to tap into the energy and learn from them,” Mr. Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said. “They are reaching a lot of people and exciting a lot of people that the labor movement has been struggling to reach for years.”

I am optimistic even when I read this:

Despite questions about the protesters’ hostility to the authorities, many union leaders have decided to embrace Occupy Wall Street...

Some more traditionally conservative ones, like those in the construction trades, stayed away. [emphasis added]

I am optimistic that it will be easy to remind a broad section of the labor movement how the modern labor movement was born: out of opposition to authority and mass protest, mass arrests and a lot of spilled blood.

Like this:

The 1936–1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike changed the United Automobile Workers (UAW) from a collection of isolated locals on the fringes of the industry into a major labor union and led to the unionization of the domestic United States automobile industry.

...The police attempted to enter the plant on January 11, 1937. The strikers inside the plant turned the fire hoses on the police while pelting them with car parts and other miscellany as members of the women's auxiliary broke windows in the plant to give strikers some relief from the tear gas the police were using against them. The police made several charges, but withdrew after six hours. The strikers dubbed this "The Battle of Bulls Run," a mocking reference to the police ("bulls").

When blood was spilled for workers' justice:

Mattie Woodson tore off a piece of her dress and leaned down to wipe blood off the neck of Joe DeBlasio, desperately trying to save the life of the young demonstrator. It was too late. DeBlasio was dying. He lay in Miller Road in Dearborn, Michigan, just a few yards in front of the gigantic River Rouge complex of the Ford Motor Company. He had been shot when Dearborn police officers and thugs from Ford’s brutal “Service Department” opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. It was March 7, 1932. The protest which had originally been called “the Ford Hunger March” had just become a massacre.

DeBlasio was one of five people who died after being shot that day. Dozens of others were wounded. The Ford Hunger March took place in the midst of the Great Depression, just 28 months after the stock market crash of October 1929. The month of March 2008 marks 76 years since that massacre, but its effects can still be felt.

I am not urging or advocating or hoping for violence. I only remind us that the labor movement was forged through very tough struggles--we should not find Occupy Wall Street odd or alien.

I am optimistic because we just need to keep reminding each other of the history that built a movement.

I feel optimistic because when I looked around at all the people in the march, I didn't recognize a lot of people. I saw people who I felt were, maybe a bit uncomfortably, marching for the first time--but they were there.

I feel optimistic because of the growing number of people who understand and are willing to act and say: the system is broken.

I even feel optimistic--and I know this may seem like turning lemons into lemonade--by the police reaction. I ran into a union organizer, long-time friend of mine last night. I told her that my sense was that the movement took off partly because of the first over-reaction by the police to the march near Union Square. She reminded me: the bosses are always our best organizers because they show people why they need a union-- or change.

I do not think being full of optimism is being ignorant of the challenges ahead.

But, I like the optimism.

I don't know what to make out of Obama's comments on the movement today (video above), but Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan was the latest progressive to voice his own optimism and support.

"It was only a matter of time before the American people realized what gave rise to the highest level of income inequality since the Great Depression: a runaway economic system devoid of compassion or patriotism and a political system that would rather fight ideological battles than pragmatically fix the problem.

"The demonstrations we see are a direct expression of the frustration of 30 years of stagnant wages for the middle class and diminished opportunity for our youth while the people who shipped our jobs overseas or closed our factories received exorbitant bonuses. These rallies should be no surprise to anyone. World history is full of examples where economic repression led to social discontent.

I support the peaceful protests that are happening, and hope that they serve as a wake-up call to Congress. Thousands of people from all walks of life have come together at these rallies to say that we need to get on our country back on track. We should be able to get 500 members of Congress to do the same. The economic problems we're facing transcend ideology, and demand action immediately on policies that will help restore a vibrant middle class, not a perpetual race to the bottom. It's time to bring fairness back to the system and get people back to work."

And the AFL-CIO officially endorsed the movement as well

Occupy Wall Street has captured the imagination and passion of millions of Americans who have lost hope that our nation’s policymakers are speaking for them. We support the protesters in their determination to hold Wall Street accountable and create good jobs.  We are proud that today on Wall Street, bus drivers, painters, nurses and utility workers are joining students and homeowners, the unemployed and the underemployed to call for fundamental change. Across America, working people are turning out with their friends and neighbors in parks, congregations and union halls to express their frustration-- and anger-- about our country’s staggering wealth gap, the lack of work for people who want to work and the corrupting of our politics by business and financial elites. The people who do the work to keep our great country running are being robbed not only of income, but of a voice.  It is time for all of us-- the 99 percent-- to be heard.

As we did when we marched on Wall Street last year, working people call on corporations, big banks, and the financial industry to do their part to create good jobs, stop foreclosures and pay their fair share of taxes.

• Wall Street and corporate America must invest in America:  Big corporations should invest some of the $2 trillion in cash they have on hand, and use it to create good jobs. And the banks themselves should be making credit more accessible to small businesses, instead of parking almost $1 trillion at the Federal Reserve.

• Stop foreclosures:  Banks should write down the 14 million mortgages that are underwater and stop the more than 10 million pending foreclosures to stop the downward spiral of our housing markets and inject more than $70 billion into our economy.

• Fund education and jobs by taxing financial speculation:  A tiny tax on financial transactions could raise hundreds of billions in revenue that could fund education and create jobs rebuilding our country.  And it would discourage speculation and encourage long term investment.

We will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.

On one show The Hermanator claimed the demonstrators are "unAmerican." This from the guy who boasted in his book of choosing to go "to the back of the bus"-- his phrase-- during the height of the Civil Rights Movement! Here's a clip of him babbling his nonsense to some talk show host while he was out on his book hawking tour:



And here's an update from this morning, Eric Cantor-- who's taken more in bribes from Wall Street than anyone else in Congress except Boehner (and just a tiny bit less than Boehner)-- continuing to defend the 1%, his constituency, by smearing the OccupyWallStreet patriots and trying to rile other Americans up against them: