Occupy Wall Street
The general anti-corporatism theme of the protest has been reported widely, yet, a more detailed policy has not. That policy aim is very specific, a constitutional amendment addressing corporate personhood and redefining the role of corporations.
America's anti-intellectualism, the political powerlessness of its ordinary citizens, and society's mind-numbing consumption mentality - all of these trace back to corporate origins. Banks that are too big to fail, institutions that receive billions in bailouts but still pay their officers perverse salaries, companies that promote themselves as patriotic but then move jobs and tax residence overseas - all of these are the result of fictional corporate persons with no innate moral sense.
Despite this, the issue of corporate influence is almost never mentioned seriously as a key issue in American political campaigns. Candidates talk of taxes, the deficit, spending cuts, foreign policy, and occasional social issues, but they never squarely face the central issue that dwarfs all others in importance: corporate power.
Indeed, if OWS grows into a real movement, it could be more directly systemic than any in history. That is, although other protest movements have targeted specific issues, anti-war, civil rights, women's rights, no nukes... OWS challenges fundamentally the power of the corporate institutions that actually control the economic and political system itself, the megacorporations that Adam Smith would have found appalling to honest capitalism.
Andrew Young, a veteran of the civil rights movement, has said, it remains to be seen whether OWS will rise to the level of a real movement.
"There's a difference between an emotional outcry and a movement,"
Still, with news yesterday that Lech Walesa, the Polish Solidarity leader is traveling to New York to join the protests, there is reason for optimism.
Dave Niose
Psychology Today
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