I saw this on Twitter today:
Occupy Wall Street
@OccupyWallStNYC, here is my answer: FOCUS!
I support the Occupy movement, but…
Occupy must maintain its focus, and it has not. I, and others I’ve spoken to, agree that Occupy has lost influence and impact in direct correlation to dilution of its focus.
The uniting focal points of Occupy could be summed up in these 3 Principles:
- End economic unfairness
- Bring financial institutions under control through regulation and a renewal of Glass-Steagall
- Get Corporations and Big Money out of politics
These three principles united people across the political spectrum, from socialists to libertarians.
Occupy Wall Street is not about the Israel-Palestine issue. There are other political groups for that.
Occupy Wall Street is not about the XL Pipeline. There are other environmental groups for that.
Occupy Wall Street is not about renewable energy. There are other ‘green’ groups for that.
Occupy Wall Street is not about Vladimir Putin or Gay Rights or Creationism, or any other worthy (or debatable) causes.
These kinds of distractions only serve to fracture the central movement into factions who agree or disagree on these (for the purposes of Occupy) peripheral issues, and have been (imho) the root cause of the decline of Occupy as a powerful social movement.
In its relatively brief phase of great influence, Occupy managed to literally change the political conversation and direction of this country. It has been enormously consequential. Now, leaders of the Occupy Movement must take deep breaths and consider how to re-focus the movement on those issues which garner trans-philosophical support, and rebuild it; perhaps as a social movement, perhaps as a political party, perhaps as a PAC (ironic though that might be), but NOT in the fractionated direction in which it is currently headed.
OCCUPY Lives! But it is in serious need of a critical self-evaluation.
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig 