The news this morning reports that the NYPD went in the dark of night and evicted the protestors in Zuccotti park. I do have to credit the authorities with their practiced craftiness...a surprise in the middle of the night, when the OWS protestors couldn't get on the wire and call in reinforcements, when they were either uncomfortably asleep in a cold tent or groggy from trying to stay awake during a night watch. The outrage can only be after the fact now as we all roll out of bed and realize that the flagship of this movement has finally, as we all knew it would be, sunk while we slumbered. This should come as a surprise to no one; it had to end someday. We knew that the amorphous change they wanted to affect would at best take years to implement, and that would be assuming a sympathetic congressional majority, a sympathetic president and a balanced Supreme Court. We also knew no one was going to allow them to set up a little permanent socialist utopia in a city park. I mourn the passing of the protest not as I would protest something vibrant and alive that was cut down in it's prime, but as I would mourn the passing of spring flowers; a thing that was beautiful but by its' definition fleeting. But to extend the metaphor, spring flowers die on plants with every intention of growing throughout the summer, and that is what the OWS people should be considering. So what next?
I think the OWS protest is not dead, and I think the manifestation of it that was just evicted was important in bringing attention to the gross disparities that exist in this country. But it is time for it to mature. My thoughts on this have evolved over the past couple weeks, and it boils down to this question (in the form of another metaphor): Do We Blame the Shark for Having Teeth? Wall Street, the financial industry, the bankers, all the rogues and morally bankrupt money changers are what they are. They are all part of Corporations. Corporations are chartered organizations whose sole purpose, by definition and by legal mandate, is to maximize shareholder return. Corporate mission statements, statements of their devotion to ethical principles, charitable contributions; these things mean nothing. At their core, at the very base of their being, they are chartered to make profit above all other concerns. Expecting them to act morally is like expecting a shark to not eat fish. (Anyone see Finding Nemo? "I am a nice shark, I am not a mindless eating machine...") I am not excusing their behavior as individual humans, their greed is good Machiavellian outlook, but I'm under no illusion that it is going to change. They are cogs in a soulless machine.
So where does the 'blame' lie? To quote William Blake "Tyger Tyger burning bright....whose fearful hand formed thy immortal symmetry?" Who wrote the laws (and the revisions of the laws and the addendums to the laws revisions and the addendums to the addendums) that outline the form that a corporate charter can take? Who decides and designates the framework within which they work, who constrains them? Who designates the size of the shark tank, who decides which fish to feed them? That is the government. And by government I don't mean the 'external other' of the Tea Party's vilification, I mean us, We the People, and all that. That is where OWS should now focus it's energies, take the good will that it has garnered through sacrifice from the American people and point it at something that is actually chartered to be affected by our collective morality. Our government is broken. It does look hopeless. But you know what? It's the only one we got. Winston Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." We're not going to change the course of this great beast by wiggling our fingers at it. But it sure beats having your fingers bit off after you wiggled them in the shark tank.
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