Movement

So I have to say, I have not once since moving to Korea been so completely pissed off to not be in America. Yup, that's right. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like it over here. I'm having a blast, eating great food, drinking with Koreans, fishing in the ocean and what not. And it's not because I've suddenly gotten unbearably homesick. I mean of course I miss everyone, but that increasingly gets easier the longer I'm here. No, I'm pissed off because for the past 5 years I've been so hungry, so ready, for the kind of hippy fueled, politically charged, youth based activism that is happening in the states as we speak. I wanted so bad for something to happen, for someone to start protesting, and I was gonna be there as soon as it did. But nothing significant ever seemed to jell, and so I gave up. And then I moved to Korea. And then, less than two months after I leave, the damn hippies decide that maybe it's time to start speaking out. Mother fuckers.

In all seriousness though, I really do think it is spectacular what is happening. If I were in the states right now, I would be in Zuccoti park with all those passionate crazies, banging a drum and shouting at the top of my lungs. You know I would. And it's not just exciting because people are finally willing to shout, it's because other people are finally starting to notice.

I've had a couple different friends point out to me that this isn't the first time by any means that there's been protesting. One mentioned the labor protests that occurred relatively recently in Wisconsin, and the other mentioned the very large anti war protest in D.C. back during the bush administration. And that's true. There were those. And the Wisconsin protests came very close to actually preventing the anti-labor legislation from going through. But both of those were still different then this, they had a different vibe than this. The Wisconsin protests were really about a localized issue, and while a lot of people had sympathy for the cause, it's hard to really rally a ton of excitement around a state issue that most people feel no direct connection to. And while the D.C. anti war protest that my other friend mentioned was certainly enormous, and most definitely revolved around an issue that people across the country could connect to, it didn't last. It never grew into a sustained movement. There was this giant outcry against the war in Iraq, and then....everyone just sort of went home. And so nothing ever really came out of it. Additionally, that was before the economy jumped off a cliff, and so really, while people were mad about that one issue, they weren't mad at everything, and desperate, and at a loss for what to do with themselves. The climate is different now, and conditions are prime for a real movement to take root.

And that's what I think is happening. Because you have this group of people, of a wide range of ages and backgrounds, that are just plain mad. And they're mad about a lot of things, about unemployment and bailouts. About healthcare, about religious fundamentalism, about Bush. About Obama too. Most definitely about congress. They're mad about greed and growing wage inequality, and about beurocracy. They're mad about the fact that the whole damn country seems to be going to shit, and and they're really mad about the fact that no one seems to have any fucking clue what to do about it.

So there isn't a specific issue or a specific person, or even a very concrete concept for them to rally around. They're just really mad about a whole lot of different things, and they want to let everyone know about it. So they made some signs and they're camping in the park outside of wall street. And some come and go, but a hardcore group of them have been there every single day for almost a month now. And the media started to notice, and to report on it, and people all over the country started to hear about it. And a lot of them said "Ya know what? I'm mad too! I'm mad about a whole lot of things!" So they made their own signs, and organized their own groups, and they don't have a specific cause, either, but they want people to know that, damn it, they're really mad.

So now it's sweeping across the country. Now progressives all over are coming together to express how mad they are. It's just like the tea party, only liberal, and more genuinely an actual grass roots movement, because it's happening without the financial support of the Koch brothers, or the publicizing of Glenn Beck. And I think that it's really exciting. I think it's a kind of unifying energy we haven't seen from progressives in a very long time, perhaps for the first time in my life.

Some have argued that we had that same energy when we elected Obama, but I disagree in a large way. Because back then we needed a singular person to rally around, because we didn't have enough energy to just start rallying. So we fed on his personality, and poured all of our hopes and dreams into him. And perhaps with us having that mentality, he was destined to be a disappointment. In a sense we were so excited about Obama, because it meant that we could continue being a lazy progressive populace. "We'll just elect this one guy," the subconscious logic went, "and then he can fix everything and we won't have to do the work of actually being activists." I'm not trying to play a blame game here. In retrospect I know I was certainly guilty of that kind of thinking to some degree. And maybe that is our lesson as a progressive movement, that real change is something that must be continuously fought for and strived for, something that is never really secured. Because, yea, we worked real hard to put Obama in office, but then what? We went home and assumed that the job was done. We didn't actively fight, and remind him what we wanted. We didn't force him to push back against the republicans. Yes, he compromised far too much, but didn't we compromise too and allow that when there wasn't a major outcry against it? Now is that outcry. And now is the time to cry out.

Listen, I don't judge for an instant anyone who isn't completely into this. Some of you are tired. Some of you are apathetic. Some of you are so cynical of the system as a whole that you really don't think anything can make a difference. And you might be right. Some of you have already put so much anergy and effort into failed movements of the past, or colossal letdowns, that you can't imagine doing it again. And some of you are so affected by circumstances, forced to work such obscene hours, that involvement in anything is simply not possible. And that's totally fine, in every single case. I do want to say, however, that the opportunity to get involved in this movement is one that I am extremely envious of right now.

The title of this post is simply "Movement" and is meant to have a double meaning. Of course I am referring directly to the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. But also expressed is something more philosophical. Movement refers to the changing nature of society, and the shifting that occurs between and among cultural subsets that results in the overall outlook and direction of society. For most of my life, that particular societal movement has been relatively consistent. There has been a very gradual liberalization of the culture over the past 20 years, but that gradual shift is punctuated by bursts of conservative idealism that occurs because conservatives are willing to make a whole lot of noise about how they think things should be. For the most part, I've never seen progressives willing to make that same amount of noise. I hope this movement is a sign of movement in that direction.

Please, I warmly welcome debate and disagreement. And for those of you who are more politically and/or socially minded, and who have friends who are as well, please do not hesitate to share this post with them. I'm realizing more than ever that this type of writing is what I would really like to do in the future, so it would be very nice to have this type of post read.

-Mongoose