This post is about the message. The goals. Those oh-so-elusive sound bites that the media just love because everyone can replay them over and over and pick them apart. That’s what’s missing from OWS. Sound bites. Little bumper-sticker sized clips that the news outlets can peddle in a 15 second promo. It is my firm belief that the lack of these sound bites is why the mainstream media can’t get a handle on OWS and seems to resent it. And this is not an accident. It’s not the product of disorganized rage or unfocused malcontents in tents. It’s very deliberate. Because three things happen immediately when a movement or protest or similar action takes on a fixed goal. First, they get pigeonholed by that one thing. Once you give AP and Reuters a little clip, they’ll fling it out into the universe as “what the protesters want” and BANG! Any time you alter, expand, explain, add to, or take from that goal, you’re in hot water for moving the goal posts, changing the message, not knowing what you want, or just being whiny. Second, you become responsible for solving the problem or proposing solutions. Then you – the protester – own the outcome for better or worse. And third, you open yourself up to be undermined, argued with, picked at, and otherwise dispersed by the other side. Whoever they are. In my opinion, OWS has been brilliant in avoiding these problems and this is why I’m OK with that.
First problem – pigeonholing. I know, I know, it sounds dirty but it’s really not. It’s actually what happens to a lot of legitimate politicians who develop a more complex understanding of a problem or are presented with new facts and craft more sophisticated positions over time. Americans don’t do sophisticated. We like our politicians to say the same things over and over no matter what, and we like our politics presented to us in on-the-go, Happy Meal sized packets. We don’t like to have to wrestle with complicated arguments or multiple sides of a thing. So if OWS came out and said “we want caps on executive salaries tied to average non-managerial wages.” Done. That’s it. That’s all they want. If someone from OWS talks to another outlet in two weeks and says “we want higher corporate tax rates and the government to regulate gas as a utility and not a commodity” the media has a field day with the ‘splintered factions’ of the movement and the disorganized message and the lack of focus and they don’t know what they want and suddenly the whole conversation shifts to who said what when to whom and why.
Second problem is owning the solution. Once a protest movement makes a demand, they have to own the outcome. If the protesters went after oil subsidies specifically and then gas prices went up (because, let’s face it, there’s no limit at all on how much gas companies can charge and if Hugo Chavez comes down with a cold they jack up the prices), immediately the fingers point to the protesters and the fault is theirs. Every major act of legislation involves complicated balancing acts and nearly always yields unintended consequences. If OWS gets pinned with those consequences, then their larger message is undermined and the conversation stops because "they failed."
And finally, the risk inherent in any specific proposition is that once you pin down a talking point, you’ve pinned down a target. Then the opposition forces have a very specific place to attack. The opposition to OWS is generally very well-funded and largely shameless in their willingness to peddle misinformation, lies, and spin to get what they want. Make an argument, propose a solution, or suggest a course of action and the fight is on. Then you find yourself defending the larger goal from a death by a thousand cuts. This puts you on the hook for coming up with answers and responses for each individual attack. That’s not the point here.
The protests are not about specific solutions or even specific problems because it’s not their JOB to write laws or identify economic influences. That’s what politicians and experts are FOR. What we have is a crop of cowardly pols who are so afraid of attack ads that they can’t even speak to the nation’s real problems. OWS is pushing for exactly that – SPEAK! Speak for us! Don’t cow out and make the protesters do your dirty work so you can skate during the next election cycle because – hey, you didn’t say it, the protesters did. Kudos to OWS for not letting the pols off the hook. It’s about time someone on the ground said “HEY! We voted for you, now do your job!”
OWS has one simple message that isn’t being reported because the media doesn’t know what to do with it. “Talk about US!” It’s not about X law or Y regulation or Z treaty or C politician. It’s about US. The 99% of Americans who’ve been milked by the 1% for 30 years with government help. It's about us feeling like those farmed bodies in "The Matrix" - biological, economic units formerly known as humans that exist to power the Powers. It’s about talking about the Great Lie: that the 1% got there because they’re just that much more awesome than everyone else and the free market works. It’s about the fact that we don’t HAVE a free market – we have a market with not just a thumb, but an entire Congress weighing down the scale on behalf of the moneyed. It’s not about changing a law, it’s about changing the conversation from illusory and fleeting deficits that only matter on paper (within limits, of course) and talking instead about American families and workers who can’t keep up because the system isn’t working – it’s working against them.
OWS isn’t about making specific demands or proposing solutions, it’s about pointing fingers at the people we elected to do that for us. We the People don’t have the information and we know that. We CAN’T propose solutions because so much of the problem exists under the sheets where politicians and billionaires frolic out of our sight. It’s about making those politicians think about US for a change, and reminding them that the Koch brothers might have more money than a dozen third world countries combined, but they still only have 2 votes. Our leaders have the information and the resources to make changes and IT’S THEIR JOB! OWS is about reminding them of that. And in the process, hopefully, reminding us of that too. And reminding Americans that we all matter, and we can do better.
