TAKING TO THE STREETS: IT’S THE AMERICAN WAY

Taking to the streets and ‘getting in the way of power’ has moved our nation forward at many critical moments in our history — mobilized groups of citizens coming together in a struggle to improve society and promote justice are important themes in America’s history.

The social movements for abolition and women’s suffrage, civil rights and the minimum wage, the campaigns for clean air and water, equal pay for equal work, the eight-hour workday, an end to discrimination, the right to choice, peace, consumer safety and unemployment insurance — all are major stepping stones in the story of America.

This is what America is all about: social movements driving cultural and political change. Some would have you believe that America is about ‘law and order’ — that following the rules is most truly America. But, in actuality, America was born of a social movement that brought people together who wanted freedom from England — even seizing the property of a British corporation, The East India Company, and illegally destroying their tea by dumping it into the Boston Harbor to make their point. (It was enough tea to make 24 million cups of tea and was valued by the East India Company at 9,659 Pounds Sterling or, in today’s currency, just over $1 million!)

Today we may be witnessing another great social movement in the streets of many American cities. Occupy Wall Street has become Occupy Together in more than 1,400 cities and has even spread beyond our borders, across the globe to more than 900 cities outside of our country. These people are mobilized to protest growing income inequality and the recent financial meltdown, caused by financiers, that resulted in even more income disparity.

Conservative David Brooks writes in the NYT that “Americans are trying to re-establish the link between effort and reward. This was the link that was severed on Wall Street, where so many made so much for work that served no productive purpose. This was the link that was frayed by the bailouts, when people who broke the rules still got rewarded.”

“In sphere after sphere, strong majorities want to see a balance between what you produce and what you get. The bank bailouts worked and barely cost the government anything, but they are ferociously unpopular because the unjust got rewarded.”

And Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University and the author of The Price of Civilization explains, “The protestors are not envious of wealth, but sick of corporate lies, cheating, and unethical behavior. They are sick of corporate lobbying that led to the reckless deregulation of financial markets; they are sick of Wall Street and the Wall Street Journal asking for trillions of dollars of near-zero-interest loans and bailout money for the banks, but then fighting against unemployment insurance and health coverage for those drowning in the wake of the financial crisis; they are sick of absurdly low tax rates for hedge-fund managers.”

“Here, then, Wall Street and Big Oil, is what it comes down to. The protesters are no longer giving you a free ride, in which you can set the regulations, set your mega-pay, hide your money in tax havens, enjoy sweet tax rates at the hands of ever-willing politicians, and await your bailouts as needed. The days of lawlessness and greed are coming to an end. Just as the Gilded Age turned into the Progressive Era, just as the Roaring Twenties and its excesses turned into the New Deal, be sure that the era of mega-greed is going to turn into an era of renewed accountability, lawfulness, modest compensation, honest taxation, and government by the people rather than by the banks.”

And on a more practical note: Most economists agree that this inequality is more than just unfair, that it is actually dampening economic recovery. Because of a shrinking middle class and growing income disparity, there are less people with money to spend and therefore fewer and fewer buyers to provide ‘demand for products and services’ — which is the only thing that will lead to a growing economy.

Most important goals or accomplishments in the last 200 years have come about as a result of vast numbers of people coming together to protest wrongs they see and to demand change to promote their common ideas and ideals.

Americans have long used our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and assembly to mobilize others to make the nation a better place. The lofty struggle to improve society and promote justice is one of the enduring themes in our nation’s history.

From the areas of economics, labor, government, politics, women, ethnic groups — to wars, the environment, current events, or global justice … it is impossible to understand the 19th and 20th centuries without understanding the role of social movements in the United States.

Thank ‘gawd ‘for the American spirit and our people who are willing to endure … but only up to a point: and then WE TAKE TO THE STREETS!