It’s almost November, and the occupations are continuing. With so much bad news on so many fronts, this is a little bit of good. Movements often emerge at the most unexpected times, in the most unexpected ways. And while the titanic unfairness of our economic system (as currently operated) should lead us to expect a massive uprising, I think we have experienced so many years of seeing so little reaction to outrageous assaults by the powerful that we have come to believe the response will never come. Well, the occupation movement is a response; how broadly it will resonate has yet to be seen.

I think it’s worth remembering that in Egypt, in Tunisia, and likely elsewhere, it was economics that really lit the fire under people. Torture in police custody, exclusion from meaningful political participation, persecution of minorities … abuses of every kind and character were endured by Egyptians – not without resistance, mind you, but without broad outrage. It wasn’t until Mubarak instituted substantial neoliberal economic “reforms”, opening up the Egyptian economy to greater international corporate penetration, that people had had enough. Now not only did you lack a voice in government and enjoy no constitutional rights when detained; you also could not make even the meager living you were making a year or two before. In a nation of extreme economic inequality, this was more broadly felt even then the hard end of the police baton. Everyone was affected.

Something similar has happened here. When Bush invaded Afghanistan, relatively few people stood in the street. When he invaded Iraq, the crowds were much bigger, but still not massive enough even to slow the administration down. But when our overleveraged, underregulated banking system imploded, exposing the corruption within these massive institutions, and our government’s only response was to throw literally trillions of dollars at them while millions of Americans were put out of work, that was a little hard to ignore. Now banks and businesses are sitting atop a pile of cash probably larger than any in history. Now firms are making their remaining employees do the work of two, three, perhaps four, knowing that they will not complain in this job market. Now people are seeing that without meaningful intervention on the side of working people, capitalism reverts to its core principles – one of which is maintaining a large surplus labor force to keep pressure on wages down.

Perhaps now people are waking up and realizing why the 1% is not adding any employees: because this economy works for them. It just doesn’t work for the rest of us.

luv u,

jp