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Occupy Revolution/Movement: Next Step Convergence

Joel S. Hirschhorn - 11/30/2011

There is a growing convergence of thinking about where the US Occupy movement should go as a next step to turning its values, concerns and commitments into changing what most Americans see as broken government under control of corporate interests. When it comes to political and social movements, history shows us that they usually fail not because they disappear, but rather because they become marginalized, unimportant despite a core group of committed people and groups.


They lose popular appeal and support or never expand beyond a small early group of supporters. The nation and many supporters move on. Other movements grab the interest of the most informed, dissident-type people seeking truth, justice or change. A good example of such a failed contemporary movement is the 911 truth effort. The groups, websites and true believers keep on pushing their objectives a decade after the historic event. But the goal of revealing what really happened that the official government story does not divulge is like a moldy piece of forgotten food in the refrigerator.

Movement death by inattention happens despite good resources, charismatic leaders and even great organization and communication skills. Critical mass of public support simply never materializes, in large measure because diverse segments of the population never buy into the central arguments of the movement. The Internet is littered with websites of activist groups that persist despite clear evidence of decay and wide disinterest. True believers have a mission in life tied to their egos that prevent them from admitting defeat. They do not move on.


The biggest mistake that passionate advocates for a cause make is overestimating their ability to reach critical mass and underestimating the competition of other movements with greater appeal which rob them of both attention and supporters.

Make no mistake; I totally and enthusiastically support the Occupy movement because it offers the prospect of producing reforms to fix our broken government and attracting very wide public support for a nonviolent Second American Revolution. What worries me, however, is that many of its participants seem over confident, as if they cannot fail. On the other hand, I have become impressed by a convergence of thinking about what the next big step for the Occupy movement can and should be. I will briefly identify examples of this convergent thinking.


Canadian author Erich Koch has written a compelling article: An Objective for the U.S. Occupy Movement: A Constitutional Convention. He buys into the view that the Occupy movement could embrace the thinking of Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig who has presented the case for amendments to fix Congress. Like others Koch is correct in saying that “No one in the movement would disagree with its main point: the fundamental problem is the corruption of Congress.” Unlike others, Koch recognizes the path for obtaining reform constitutional amendments is using the provision in Article V for a convention of state delegates, having the same power as Congress in proposing amendments that still must be ratified by three-quarters of the states. It has never been used despite many hundreds of state requests for a convention because, clearly, Congress and most status quo forces fear such a convention.

Koch cited a great article by Alesh Houdek: Has a Harvard Professor Mapped Out the Next Step for Occupy Wall Street? Most is a review of Lessig’s book. Correctly noted about using the convention option is “it bypasses the usual means of reform (Congress, presidential elections, etc.) which the lobbyists and other interested parties have learned so well to manipulate. And lastly, such a convention would be free to propose solutions that would otherwise be subject to be stricken as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.” This is critical to understand. Houdek concludes: “Properly presented, the strategies and aims of Lessig's book could make it the handbook the protesters have been looking for -- and provide a pathway for them to ride out the winter ahead.”


Dan Froomkin also has presented the same case in: Lawrence Lessig's New Book On Political Corruption Offers Protesters A Possible Manifesto. He quoted what Lessig himself had said in an article about the Occupy movement and the concern that I share, namely that the Occupy movement “will become too diffuse and not focused" on the root issue of corruption of government. And that the movement will only grow "if a wide range of people can be part of it." This requires coalescing around an issue "as fundamental as the corruption of the system." Only a constitutional amendment can fix the corrupting impact of money in politics. This is also the focus of Dylan Ratigan’s fine effort, except that the use of the convention path has not been emphasized.

A specific call for an Article V convention was made by the pro-Occupy US Day of Rage group: “We are organizing a coordinated national campaign at local and state levels, including where necessary the occupation of state capitols, in order to demand an article V constitutional convention be called to restore representative democracy to our nation.” A set of specific reforms to be fix the corruption-money problem are presented.


The 99 Percent Declaration group has also presented an important statement centered on the call for a National General Assembly, where delegates would formulate a petition of a list of grievances that would be delivered to the main parts of the federal government on behalf of 99 percent of Americans. A suggested list of grievances includes the need for constitutional amendments to achieve solutions, but only for a few of the issues. Not explicitly acknowledged, however, is that constitutional amendments, not ordinary laws, would be necessary for other solutions, such as term limits for Congress and abandoning the Electoral College. Moreover, there is no specific recognition that serious amendment reforms will not be proposed by Congress, and that an Article V convention is needed. Inattention to method was also the shortcoming of a similar list of solutions by Ralph Lopez.

Author Scott Turow has presented: How Occupy Wall Street Can Restore Clout of the 99%. His recommendation to the Occupy movement is “work across the nation for a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to regulate the expenditure of private money on elections. … The best antidote to this imbalance of income and influence would be to greatly reduce the role of private funding in our elections. …As for the Occupy Wall Street movement, it has been criticized by some for not having a realistic agenda, even though polling shows that millions of Americans, including me, are sympathetic to the basic message of the protests.” His prescription: “rally around a single goal and reinvigorate their movement.” Fine, but missing from his analysis is the recognition that Congress will never propose reform amendments, only an Article V convention will do the job.


This sampling of recent writings clearly shows convergent thinking that the Occupy movement can and should focus on key reform constitutional amendments and, second, that some better informed critical thinkers recognize, this requires advocacy for using the Article V convention option that Congress has refused to honor.

As to Occupy movement success, I want again to emphasize that there is always competition for the attention and support of concerned Americans who recognize how broken our system is. In particular, the well financed Americans Elect effort is impressive. Because it is offering an alternative path to nominating a presidential candidate in 2012, over 2 million Americans have already signed up to be delegates for a web convention, with millions more very likely as the mainstream media keeps giving this effort attention. The Get Money Out campaign has over 250,000 signatories.


Disgust with the two-party plutocracy is surely shared by Occupy participants and supporters. But for movement success based on enticing many millions of Americans, the Occupy movement cannot ignore competition such as Americans Elect. This means that the Occupy movement must explicitly start making the case to the broad public why their effort can achieve more of what is needed. This is easily done.

Here are some key concepts that the Occupy movement could use. No matter who is nominated by Americans Elect, the odds are that either the better financed Democrat or Republican candidate will win the presidency. This may just require spending even more millions of dollars on campaigns. And whoever is nominated by the group will likely be strongly linked to one of the two major parties, rather than some courageous reformer and enemy of the status quo. Moreover, this group does not offer a realistic path to getting the key reforms of the system that most of us see critically needed, such as constitutional amendments, already recognized by many Occupy supporters.

A sign of trouble for the Occupy movement is a recent national poll that found: “In the latest survey, 33 percent voiced support for Occupy Wall Street, down from 35 percent in a previous poll, while opposition to the movement climbed from 36 percent to 45 percent. Twenty-two percent were unsure.” These results are worse than earlier polls. From the left, Chris Bowers commented: “the decline in Occupy Wall Street's image is probably more connected to the increasingly negative coverage of the clashes between protesters and police than it is to declining support for movement's message.” Now is the time to move the message from what is wrong to solutions, using an Occupy Congress approach. Otherwise, this view from the conservative right might prevail: “OWS will linger … but I’d argue we’ve seen the movement’s high tide. It will now recede into a mere annoying shadow of itself as support is withdrawn by political figures and organizations.”

True, Occupy movement success is not inevitable. The movement must better define what success means and how it can be achieved if it is to attract and keep the support of many millions of Americans. It needs specificity for its solutions that ordinary Americans can relate to. Never underestimate the power and commitment of status quo forces to maintain control over the political, government and economic system that has so harmed most Americans. The fight against the Occupy movement mostly seen as local police violence against peaceful demonstrators and protesters as well disinformation from some news outlets and pundits are nothing compared to what could be mounted if the movement is viewed as more threatening to the status quo delusional democracy with its delusional prosperity.

History tells us that it is nearly impossible to know in real time whether some kind of national, grassroots public protest ends up being the beginning of a true revolution against a ruling government system. This is true for the earliest beginnings of the revolt against the British that produced the successful American Revolution and the creation of the US. The British at the time surely thought that they could retain power and control. More recently, the revolts in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya certainly could not be accurately perceived in their earliest stages as likely to topple well established dictatorships wielding incredible and cruel power. Even now, the rebellious actions in Syria are not widely seen as surely resulting in successful revolution.



My central point is that the Occupy movement in the US offers the possibility of being seen, eventually, as the seed of a successful Second American Revolution, which I and many others believe is desperately needed to fix our corrupt, dysfunctional and unfair government, political and economic system.



What are the main similarities among successful revolutions?



At the beginning of ultimately successful revolutions the focus is almost entirely on what the rebels oppose and only in the most general terms what they want instead. What rebels are always against is some form of tyranny that takes the form of repressed freedoms and economic pain for most ordinary people. In other words, it is clear at the beginning what causes citizen anger and passion; what is intolerable and far less on the exact changes in the nation’s political and government system most desired. Mostly what is being fought for is either a true democracy or a better one, a system where elections are open and free and really matter, where status quo powers can be replaced. The more you think about it, the more sense it makes for nascent rebels taking great risks to have a single minded focus on what is wrong, unjust, corrupt or just plain evil in order to build wide public support for fighting a powerful, oppressive government.



Second, despite various forms of peaceful protests at the beginning, history tells us that violence usually becomes crucial for successful overthrow of a hated political system. More pointedly, violence is usually precipitated by violent actions of the existing regime against early peaceful protestors which then causes rebels to also become increasingly violent, even though they may have few weapons to match what the reigning government has. Relying on civil disobedience alone has rarely been sufficient, with a few notable exceptions. But even though India and South Africa may come to mind it is easy to forget that violence was practiced by the then reigning governments against protestors and their leaders, especially imprisonment. That the protestors seeking fundamental reforms do not become citizen armies but nevertheless ultimately become successful in overthrowing oppressive regimes should be seen more as the exception than the rule. In other words, violence is sometimes one-sided, but still is an essential part of the revolution process, in large part because it motivates not only more widespread public support, but often international support, including economic sanctions, for achieving the central goal of the rebellious protest movement.



Third, what follows successful revolution is usually messy, chaotic and painful, in great measure because entirely new, effective democratic systems must be created to replace what previously was used to implement political and economic injustice. Even in the case of the American Revolution, it took quite some time to actually create a new government system (including an early constitution that was ultimately deemed a failure and replaced). Presently, the renewed violence in Egypt by both the military controlled government and the same rebels that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship testifies to the considerable difficulty in establishing a true functioning and stable democracy. Ditto for what we see in Libya. And many would say that Russia has not achieved a first class democracy despite the downfall of the Soviet Union. The point is that it is best to think of two-stage revolutions, beginning with attacking the status quo, oppressive government and second creating a better system to replace it. Nevertheless, we can conclude at some point that a revolution has been successful, merely on the basis of a successful first stage, letting time tell whether it becomes fully successful.



Apply this thinking to the current Occupy movement in the US. What can we assess? First, the Occupy movement has been focused on what is wrong with the US, principally economic injustice, and unfair wealth of the top one percent to the detriment of the 99 percent. The focus on the terrible actions of the Wall Street, banking and whole financial sector that has wrecked the economy and the failure of government to punish the guilty and truly fix the economic system makes perfect sense. Economic inequality is the target. The Occupy movement clearly is against the status quo establishment, political parties that are both controlled by financial interests that manipulate the government and economy to benefit the few. The Occupy protestors want to replace what they see as a system that no longer serves the overwhelming majority of Americans.



Second, it has become increasingly clear that mostly one-sided violence has emerged, with local police forces using violence and even anti-constitutional means in attempts to kill the Occupy movement. Civil disobedience has been attacked with violence; free speech has been attacked; media access has often been prevented. What is most interesting is that, unlike other revolutions around the world, it is not the national government using violence against this protest movement, but rather local police such as that widely seen in New York City. Mayors seem to have taken the lead in protecting the status quo against the public distrust, dissatisfaction and disgust with the prevailing political and economic system. Occupy means disrupting, and local governments are fighting back.



Third, even though it certainly is unclear whether the Occupy movement will turn out to be the beginning of a successful two-stage revolution, we cannot rule it out. It is important to understand that about one-third of the US population has been experiencing great personal pain produced by many failures of the system, including those losing their homes and jobs, those experiencing hunger and poor health care, and those unable to find any financial security despite hard work or incurring debt for college educations. However, the top 20 percent of Americans, not merely the top one percent, or some 60 million Americans are not suffering; they benefit from the corrupt, unfair system. What is uncertain is whether the Occupy movement can expand its public participation and support to reach a large majority of Americans.



Here is some basis for optimism about the ultimate success of the Occupy movement.

A new report by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project asked Americans if they agreed with the statement “our people are not perfect but our culture is superior to others.” Only 49 percent agreed, compared to 60 percent in 2002, the first time that Pew asked the question. That shows the malarkey about American exceptionalism, especially from conservatives, is being recognized. Notably, among young people (those ages 18 to 29), the percentage who believed that their culture was superior was lower than young citizens of Germany, Spain and Britain.



Besides all the findings that Congress only has 9 percent public support, it is even more important to recognize that Americans do not feel very positive about their country. A Time Magazine/Abt SRBI poll conducted last month found that 71 percent of Americans believed that our position in the world has declined in the past few years.



Add to this that an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted earlier this month found that beyond current hardships most Americans see their nation at “the start of a longer-term decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world.” There is no rational basis for being optimistic about what the president or Congress will accomplish.



There is, in fact, enormous public support for addressing both political dysfunction of the two-party plutocracy, economic inequality, money in politics and a host of other public grievances.



James B. Stewart wrote a timely article An Uprising With Plenty of Potential that offers an optimistic view of the Occupy movement. And David Carr has also offered an excellent analysis of the future of the movement. Two leaders of the Occupy movement have also presented an important analysis worth your time, including this view “Occupy was born because we the people feel that our country and our economy are moving precipitously in the wrong direction; that America has evolved into a kind of corporate oligarchic state, a ‘corporatocracy’; and yes, that what is needed is a regime change.” For a great history of the Occupy movement read this. The role of the media in the Occupy movement has also been assessed and because I spent time at the Occupy Wall Street activity I know how inaccurate many media reports have been. The mighty effort at takemoneyout.com is worth supporting as well as numerous efforts to get the first Article V convention.



Every American should use critical thinking to not only follow the Occupy movement but explicitly decide whether it is the seed capable of producing a Second American Revolution that truly reforms what is now a delusional democracy with delusional prosperity. For sure, voting for or against Democrats or Republicans will not suffice.