OWS isn't a Relevant Movement to Change Society and May Hurt Us More then It Helps Us

[Douglas Carpenter]

40. does every opinion have to be one crazy extreme or the other!?

Last edited Thu Feb 2, 2012, 05:36 PM - Edit history (1)

On the one hand we have some folks who clearly don't know working class America at all who think that burning the America flag at OWS rallies is a good thing. But here we now have an equally ludicrous and equally extreme opinion which is now proclaiming that because the first political entity in more than a generation to successfully raise income disparity and economic injustice into the mainstream of political conversation - because this movement is not perfect it is not relevant and it might even be harmful.

My God, even Forbes Magazine is talking about income disparity. Both political parties are already adopting the language of OWS. I cannot think of another movement that has been so successful at changing the public dialog so rapidly and in its earliest stages of development. Every other movement in history, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the gay rights movement - all of these movements had their unflattering moments. They all had plenty of extremist who probably repelled more people than they attracted. But they were all very successful because they were addressing an idea whose time had come.

No, the OWS movement is far from perfect. It has made mistakes. No doubt it will make some big mistakes in the future. It has elements that are counterproductive - like every other movement for social change in the history of the world - movements that like OWS changed the conversation and turned basic assumptions of mainstream politics upside down or perhaps rightside up. The other great movements of the past could do this in spite of all their many mistakes, in spite of having some leaders who sounded extreme. They could do this in spite of moments in which elements seemed to undermine them with language and activities that embarrassed them. They could do this and OWS can do this because they are addressing real needs that has been on the back burners of public consciousness for a long, long time and they succeeded by first moving the idea to the front burners of public consciousness and changing the public conversation.

At this stage like every other movement in its early stages OWS is more an idea than a specific list of proposals. That will come later just as specific proposals came later in every other great movement. So right now OWS is a more an idea that an agenda specific movement. But it is an idea whose time has come and there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

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