October 20, 2011

In Support of Occupy Wall Street

..."These times are disheartening and heartbreaking in newly excessive ways. The excesses of the rich and corporate/government brokers have become so unconscionable that people from the center and the right and the left—whatever these categories mean today—are coming together to say that this is enough: “Basta!” ...
By Zillah Eisenstein and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, October 14, 2011

“Occupy Wall Street” is an incredible movement even if there is no easily ready-made pre-existing political language to describe it.  Its newness—multiple concerns across the wide-swath of “99 percent of us” that may seem unfocused—is really not.  Instead we see decades of lead up work done by the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panthers, the 1970’s women’s movement, all forms of anti-racist feminist activism of the `90’s, gay rights activism, AIDS organizing, anti-globalization/anti-militarization mobilization, the labor, immigrant, and peace movements, and so on… OWS is its own new form/less inclusive frame coalescing around the shared—however differently—suffering and vulnerability of a growing number of us.  Some say that OWS is a result of the attack on the middle class(es) that has created a huge swath of economic suffering that connects us/them with the poor, and the working classes of all sorts, and students, and Tahrir Square, and….

..."OWS has a first `official’ statement that calls attention to the mass injustice of today; of the illegal foreclosures, and perpetual inequality and discrimination of age, color, sex, and gender identity; the poisoning of the food supply; the outsourcing of labor; the destruction of the education system; the huge student loan debt; the torture and murder of innocents; colonialism at home and abroad, a system hell bent on weapons of mass destruction.  Finally, millions of people are coming together to say: we need a fair and socially just society; end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; forgive the mortgage debt and student debt; extend unemployment benefits, create jobs by investing in infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and our public schools; create a single payer health care program; send the banking crooks to jail. It is a time for our polyversal embrace and support of each other across all differences.  It is time to make them listen to the “99 percent.”  It may also be time to begin to mobilize this discontent towards specific ends.  What of demanding that Obama and Congress, together, openly commit to curtailing corporate power and its excesses and redirect the agenda to the health and economic rights of the “99 percent”?"...

Read full article here:
http://thefeministwire.com/2011/10/in-support-of-occupy-wall-street/