Occupy Wall Street Comes (Sort Of) to Bay City, Saginaw, Midland
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The serious issues that have led to social unrest in an estimated 500 cities across the globe deserve some attention and reflection.
The movement has made only minimal impact in Bay City, Saginaw and Midland and, with the rapid onset of winter, evidently will be damped down until spring.
The main reaction of many local residents seems to be condemnation of the protesters and expression of mystery about their goals.
Oliver Stone, in his latest movie "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," makes a point that may provide some explanation: "The next generation of young Americans can be called the NINJA Generation - no income, no jobs, no assets."
Religious groups seem to be somewhat involved in the so-called Occupy Wall Street movement in mid-Michigan. The moral focus of the movement may have initiated some of this involvement.
Rev. Jeff Liebmann was involved in a mild Midland protest action recently and posted this comment:
"Occupy Midland held its first protest on Monday (Oct. 17) in front of a Bank of America branch at the corner of Ashman and Eastlawn here in Midland. About 50 people participated and I am proud to say that about a quarter of them were members and friends of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland."
Rev. Liebmann continued: "The Occupy movement is expressing the rage and frustration of hundreds of millions of Americans who feel betrayed by their institutions and politicians. What better place for ministers to be in this time of national distress. Second, the emphasis of the Occupy movement spans all demographics, including religion. Every religion teaches that the love of money and the pursuit of wealth only leads to unhappiness and despair. Every religion teaches the value of charity and being our brothers' and sisters' keepers. Every religious person is part of the 99%."
According to one report, a Catholic fringe group is active in Saginaw, although we have not seen evidence of that on the street.
The group is part of Pax Christi International, a non-profit, non-governmental Catholic peace movement that states it is "working on a global scale on a wide variety of issues in the fields of human rights, human security, disarmament and demilitarization, just world order and religion and violent conflict."
College students and professors have been involved in various aspects of the protest, hoping to raise awareness of poverty and unemployment, according to a report in The Delta Collegiate, campus newspaper.
A little activity was reported at the Friendship Shell in Bay City, at Bank of America and Chemical Bank locations, at Court and Michigan and Borchard Park in Saginaw and other random spots.
Robert E. Martin, editor of The Review, a Saginaw entertainment publication, has been vocal in print defining the issues for local readers from his viewpoint:
"If nothing else, Occupy Wall Street is the latest in a long line of Populist Movements that begin with people seeing they are all in the same boat and being ready to come together to fix the leaks.
"The Movement needs to step up its game and do more than flash placards and engage police into pulling out their cans of mace.
"After more than a decade of thievery and corruption, with an unprecedented 14 percent of Americans relying upon the Federal food stamp program and millions more losing their homes thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices and corruption in the mortgage markets, things have come down to stark black & white issues - why should Congress balk at spending $71 billion for supplemental food assistance programs when it gave 10 times that amount to the very financial institutions that created the situation?"
Filmmaker Stone complains with obvious justification "with all the chicanery that Wall Street and Congress has allowed, suddenly we have 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less every year."
Mr. Martin notes Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi's comments about the protests: "The essence of this particular type of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: it's worse crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and usurping the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen readily by the public of put on TV into a simple sound bite.
Citing the magazine, Mr. Martin cites position points "I encourage citizens in this upcoming presidential election year to use as a litmus test for any and all candidates running for public office:
Break Up Monopolies. We need to polish off the dust from the Sherman Anti-trust Act. The so-called 'Too Big to Fail' financial companies, or more accurately, 'Systemically Dangerous Institutions' - are a direct threat to our national security. They are above law and market consequence, making them more dangerous than the Mafia. There are about 20 such firms in America and they need to be dismantled. A good place to start is by repealing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks, and commercial banks. Lobby your legislator to modify and enforce anti-trust legislation.
"Return Taxpayer Money & Make AIG, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Citicorp Pay For Their Own Bailouts. A tax of .01 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back on the bailouts and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits that banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider trading schemes like High Frequency Trading and force Wall Street to go back to the job it's supposed to be doing: making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.
"No Public Money for Private Lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him. Either suck on the public teat or influence seats that are up for election, but you can't do both.
"Tax Hedge Fund Gamblers. We need an immediate repeal of the preposterous carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge fund titans like Steve Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes on only 15 percent of their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that amount for teaching kids or engaging in simple jobs to make everyday ends meet.
"Change the Way Bankers Get Paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront on deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be structured so that if you make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years down the road, which forces everyone to be invested in his own company's long term health - no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multi-million-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIG's of the world.
Martin notes that George Lakoff has written a 'framing document' for the Occupy Wall Street movement that has been circulated across the country.
Basically, he argues there exist Two Moral Framing Systems in American politics. Conservatives have figured out their moral basis, which you see on Wall Street: It includes the primacy of self-interest, individual responsibility but not social responsibility; hierarchical authority based on wealth or other forms of power; and a moral hierarchy of who is 'deserving' defined by success.
The alternative view of democracy is progressive: Democracy starts with citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that sense of care, taking responsibility for both oneself and one's family, community, country, people in general, and the planet. The role of government is to protect and empower all citizens equally via infrastructure, laws and enforcement, health, education, research, protection of public lands, trade policies, etc.
A disproportionate distribution of wealth robs most citizens of access to the resources controlled by the wealthy, so in this sense, immense wealth is a thief, Lakoff argues. "It takes resources from the rest of the population - the best places to live, the best educations, the best health facilities, access to the best in nature and culture, the best professionals, and so on. Resources are limited and great wealth limits access to resources for most people."
"It seems to me that the OWS movement is moral in nature," he continues. "Occupiers want the country to change its moral focus. If the movement is to frame itself it should be on the basis of its moral focus, not a particular agenda or list of policy demands. If the moral focus of America changes, new people will be elected and the policies will follow. Without a change of moral focus, the worldview that has brought us to the present disastrous and dangerous place we are at in our history will continue to prevail."
Condemning such a widespread movement out of hand may be the expected reactionary response, but when social movements reach places like Midland, Saginaw and Bay City, even peripherally, we need to pay attention. ###
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mosher Says:
On November 14, 2011
at 07:17 AM
Good overview and digest of the issues, Dave. Keep following this story. Have any local GOP politicians or businesspeople come out in vocal opposition to the Occupiers?
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