Occupy What?

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
~Proverbs 29:18

"An unjust law is no law at all."
~ St. Augustine

It is no surprise to me that a left-leaning political movement has caught on in response to the right-leaning (and seemingly fading) Tea Party. Both sub-groups have plenty to be angry about. A societal lifestyle of debt and rising unemployment is both real and tragic. Both groups deserve to exist and both need criticism.

There are aspects of the Occupy movement that appeal to me (others that don't). The movement offers a critique of an irresponsible and corrupt government, which tends to make policy that preserves the status quo, that is to say most of the wealth and power that lies in the control of a few.

My beef with Occupy Movement isn't new, but I think it has yet to be answered. What is the vision? What do they hope for? What is the intention? What policy changes do they want? And what sacrifices are they willing to make to achieve those goals?

So far, I have mostly heard some version of "We want jobs!" (From the 15% of the movement who needs a job, anyway). I suppose those who are employed want a better job or a raise. But how? And whose job is it to institute these changes? So far, I have not heard coherent answers to these questions.

The United States and the world as a whole maintains a steep tradition of civil disobedience, both successful and unsuccessful. Our own nation, in fact, started with civil disobedience against the British. A short memory of what has taken place in the Middle East during "Arab Spring" can point to violent and non-violent protest that accomplished several regime changes, hopefully (but no guarantee) for the betterment of the world. Either way, though, the movements had vision. They knew what they wanted in a concrete sense.

The same is true with the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. or the Vietnam protests. Those people didn't just show up in parks with signs and chant slogans into television cameras. They had objectives, not just rage. (Note: if you set things on fire and throw rocks and other items at police officers who are definitely "a part of the 99," you will probably get arrested and it may be forceful). My point is, the action in successful protests--restaurant sit-ins, burning draft cards, etc.--is purposeful and intentional.

It also interests me that the chief complaint of the movement seems to be economic, and yet the demographics of the crowds suggest most of their members are white, have jobs, and perhaps are even alarmingly middle class. This does not mean that they don't have a legitimate complaint. My interest in that dynamic, however, is that I know that the people who suffer the most are often minorities. Why are those minorities less interested in the movement? (For one response to that question, check out this article). And why doesn't the mainstream media report the racial demographics of the Occupy movement as much as, say, the Tea Party?

I have a theory about why this movement has not yet stepped in the direction of coherent arguments and specific actions. Most of the crowds are left-leaning (the numbers of who claim to be democrats are in the thirties, percentage-wise, but many of them claim some sort of independent status), and they are aware that to be too specific would implicate their beloved President Obama and his (formerly) Democratic Congress. If the movement lasts long enough and Obama does not get re-elected in 2012, it will be interesting to see how Occupy changes.