Occupiers Remembered

Oh, I know once again I’m about to become a pain in your butt. Yes, this is about the Occupy Wall Street, O.W.S. now referred to as a “movement.” This is part of my own struggle to understand what is going on here. Yes ,I get the rage and anger. I don’t get what OWS is going to do with it. In my organizing days we would fan the flames of the discontent and channel the anger into organizing workers into unions. They did change the face of America.

Remembering some occupy experiences beginning with 1932. I was 15. From all corners of the US comes the Bonus Army marching to Washington. 43,000 of them strong. Their demand, the promised WW 1 War Bonuses they never received. They encamp on the Anacostia flats close to the capital. They put up a tent city and were determined to stay until the Congress Agreed to pay the promised bonus. Their tent city is orderly and peaceful. Alas it was not to be. Yes there were efforts in Congress to honor the promise but President Hoover did not think it was fiscally responsible to do so.

Army Chief of Staff, Yupp Douglas MacArthur with the help of Patton led a charge of infantry, Cavalry and tanks against the encampment that they then proceeded to burn to the ground. Defeated the bonus army retreated home. (The Long Island airport, not far from where we live is named after General MacArthur.)

Flint Michigan 1936, The Fisher Body Plant 1. The company G.M., was preparing to move the Plant out of Flint as a way to resist the Unions effort for recognition. The workers inside the Plant quickly realized that once the machine tools were removed from the plant it was goodbye jobs. How to prevent it? Flint Sit-down Strike was born.(A very dear friend, Henry Kraus, long departed wrote a great book about that strike. ”The Many and the Few.”)

The sit down strike went on for 44 days with the Michigan National Guard waiting out side. There was a band of tough women who were determined to to keep the strikers fed. There were lots of provocation to insight violence but the men inside the plant were determined to stay until they won their demands for Union Recognition and the rights that go with it. The sit-downers won and it become the turning point in the long fight to win union recognition at the GM. plants. The U.A.W. would become the most powerful union in the country. Helped change the Country by putting the assembly workers into the "middle class."

Okay, The next one I remember was “The Poor Peoples Campaign December 1968 Washington D.C. organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Council the had been led by Martin luther King. (King was assassinated April 4th in Memphis.) The Council then led by Minister Dr. Ralph Abernathy decided to go ahead with Kings original plan to bring thousands to Washington and camp there until they won their “Economic Bill of Rights.” That would mean equal employment opportunities for all peoples.

Seven to ten thousand people encamped on the National Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It was called Resurrection City. They stayed there for six weeks. They were literally forced out by an incessant rain that never seemed to quit. Knee deep in mud they decided to go home. Needless to say nothing came of the Economic Bill of Rights. I hasten to add the early young Black occupiers of the lunch counters changed America. Like the Auto workers they also were inside.

This of course brings me to, “Occupy Wall Street.” Yes, of course I am fully supportive of the “Movement.” It is now being called a “movement.” Well I’m not sure of that either. A movement need some clear definition or goals or both. ie, the Civil Rights movement, the Labor movement, the Feminist movement. All had very specific objectives. I know, i’ve been told that this is a knew way to bring people together without creating an organization that ultimately leads to leaders, bureaucracies and the end of participatory democracy. Maybe so. On the other hand I don’t know how the “movement” makes known exactly what it wants to do to change how wealth becomes distributed so the 99 percent can be part of the economic benefits?

Looking back at the experiences of the occupiers. I would suggest that comes this long hard winter somehow the OWS movement will need to define why these wonderful brave people are freezing their butts off for exactly what? In the case of the Flint Sit-ins they had very clear objectives and they were inside a building. Yes, the heat was turned off. Still easier to deal with the weather than on the street. Same was true of the lunch counter occupiers. Look I want the OWS to succeed and I don’t understand the reluctance to say clearly what is wanted. Yes I get clear inference from we are the 99 percent. Okay then what? If I were out there with those brave folks I would love to make this same argument. And I’d love to hear the response.