WARNING! The following post will be deemed overtly negative and cynical by a majority of readers.
I was reading a transcription of the speech of Oct 6 made by Naoimi Klein to the Occupy Wall Street protest in this week’s Nation magazine when I was once again struck by waves of despair. OK, not anywhere near that dramatic. If you have been following reports on the OWS protests, you may know that electronic sound amplification equipment is forbidden (more on that later). In response, the protesters have been utilizing what they call the Human Microphone - the speaker shouts out their speech in small bits and the crowd repeats them in unison so that all might hear.
That said, Ms. Klein opens her speech with, “I love you.” She goes on to praise the protest, highlighting what she feels that have gotten right this time, separating it from the many “failed” protests of the past. She ends with, “Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is the most important thing in the world. Because it is. It really is.” (gag)
I really want to believe that we still have a chance to save this republic. I am highly doubtful that we can. What we are witnessing is a return to business as usual. After a post World War II aberration in which our economy flourished as we rebuilt the rest of world that was destroyed, we are returning to a capitalist status quo. For a generation or two there was enough trickle down cash to make significant improvements in the lives of the middle class. It didn’t take long, however, for the other nations to catch up and surpass us.
We are left now with no real manufacturing base which means no real employment for our shrinking middle class. A friend of mine recently posted a pic on Facebook (she is a small business owner): “We offer three kinds of service: Good - Cheap - Fast You can pick any two. Good service Cheap won’t be Fast. Good service Fast won’t be Cheap. Fast service Cheap won’t be Good. Of course, we want it all - good, cheap, and fast. Corporations took their manufacturing overseas where labor is good, cheap, and fast, leaving our unemployed, formerly middle class workers in the dust - but, hey, we can still buy our stuff dirt cheap at WalMart et al.
This is why consumer capitalism has been so successful. It has allowed enough of the working class to rise up to the middle class and buy enough frills that we have turned a blind eye and allowed the rich to rob the system…truly trickle down economics at its best. Now we are starting to grumble and moan as we are forced to give up more and more of the frills and we see more and more of us sinking back down to a lower rung on the economic ladder.
Madpriest commented on a thread on his blog about wanting a society in which everyone is provided enough income to maintain a reasonable standard of living. However, that’s the rub. We in the West, even at our worst, are so far beyond where most of the Third World poor exist. I look at the people in my life - large homes, relatively cheap resources (water, electricity, etc.), multiple vehicles, multiple televisions, multiple computers, multiple bathrooms with indoor plumbing…
For all the good intentions of the OWS protesters, they are still demanding a Western reasonable standard of living - something that has to be denied to the vast majority of the rest of the planet in order to continue. I don’t believe that we are really ready to redistribute wealth on a global scale. The lives of the middle class and much of the lower class would have to become much simpler.
In blog posts and articles about the protests, writers repeatedly feel the need to emphasize that they are not protesting success or luxury…one writer wrote (and I paraphrase) “It’s not like they expect us to live like the Amish.” Yet, that is exactly what needs to happen (IMHO).
Am I suggesting that they should all pack it up and go home? No. I am glad to see the 98% finally waking up from their slumber and calling for change. It is a beginning.
However, Naomi Klein also links the protests to Climate Change and this is another kettle of fish. She says, “The point is, today everyone can see that the system is deeply unjust and careening out of control. Unfettered greed has trashed the global economy. And it is trashing the natural world as well…What climate change means is that we have to do this on a deadline.” I am one of a quiet minority of people who upon reading the science has come to the conclusion that we’ve already missed the deadline.
Nothing we can do can reverse what has been set into motion. Nothing. The negative feedback loops are already in play. The arctic tundra is no longer frozen and is releasing thousands of years of built up green house gases into the atmosphere. The melting of the ice sheet is allowing direct sunlight to warm up the oceans - dark water absorbs the solar heat whereas the ice reflected it.
Studies have suggested that even if we cut our carbon footprint down to zero it would take over fifty years for the planet to begin to recover. We can’t even get ourselves to a significant reduction in our carbon output, let alone bring it to zero.
Rather our politicians continue to argue over the cause of the climate change. We argue over what kind of light bulbs we should be using in our homes. We complain about expensive gasoline and high heating bills. We think that if we recycle all our Western consumer waste all will be well. Folks, we’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic (I LOVE that expression).
I don’t believe that we will necessarily suffer the consequences in the near future. Perhaps we won’t begin to really experience Baghdad in the Midwest until I’m old enough to miss the Social Security checks I used to think I’d have. The real beneficiaries of this will be our children and grandchildren. They will be the ones who have to grow old in the age of Soylent Green.
Folks will argue no doubt that “but we have to do something!” That is so classically liberal. We love nothing more than good theater to keep our denial going strong so we can get up in the morning and get out of bed. And so we slog our way through “airport security” when we travel believing that it is really keeping us safe. We carefully recycle the tons of garbage we generate purchasing are prepackaged, processed, so-called “food.” We dutifully buy those atrocious fluorescent bulbs. We do all those things so we don’t have to face the fact that the party is over.
And so I follow the protests and dream. For now the Corporate Powerbrokers will allow these protests to continue under carefully controlled conditions. Should they ever really begin to threaten the status quo they’ll be shut down right quick.
