By Hazel Henderson © 2011
We at Ethical Markets Media have been following and reporting on this growing movement – in support of its non-violent, peaceful aim to bring true democracy and fairness to the USA.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is an inevitable extension of the social networks now changing regimes in the Arab world and challenging those in Europe. While public officials, politicians and mainstream media criticize the “lack of specific demands” and spokespeople which their hierarchical structures expect, they fail to understand these kinds of grass-roots organizing strategies. I remember participating in Germany’s Green Party in the 1980s and their same “lack” of leaders and specific demands. Their wisdom was in not providing “spokespeople” who would become easy targets for co-option – as happened to the Tea Party in the USA.
This anonymity and “broad tent” approach allowed The Greens to coalesce widely disparate supporters in Europe as well and magnify their collective energy. It was years later, as the Green Party concretized its unfamiliar new agenda: environmental protection, peace, workers and citizens rights, fairness, economic justice, that their slogan appeared: “We are not left or right – we are ahead!” This led to their spawning of futures research, focusing on the likely outcomes of narrow economic and technological globalization and warning of the emergence of today’s out-of-control global financial casino.
All these issues have remained unaddressed by corporate and financial elites or their political supplicants and academic apologists. Thus, we welcome the Occupy Wall Streetmovement and expect that all the demands on their many signs will coalesce into a platform in due time as their “General Assembly” processes demonstrate a lesson in true democracy to the rest of us.
See our posts on Occupy Wall Street.