O.W.S. Marches To Washington !

Social Unrest Is Working !

First things first. The militarized police actions in breaking up the encampments may have had the unintended consequence of moving the 0.W.S. to it’s next stage. It is additional evidence, if needed, of how social unrest scares the pants off the ruling class. On the other hand it may have moved O.W.S. from the winter encampment problems to what do we do now? Under any circumstance the encampment tactic may have been wearing thin. They have focused attention and so on to the next.

Just checked my files. I started to write about “social unrest” over a year ago. Back then I was wondering how long it would take for people to get angry enough to to get them into the streets. I am happy to salute the Occupy Wall Street folks for getting them “Into the Streets.” Yes, in many places, London, Athens, Madrid, Rome the Euro demand for austerity have seen ongoing street riots for many months. What the US occupiers did was to help legitimatize that form of protest. They have also focused attention by their one percent versus the 99 percent. In previous blogs I was trying to understand how this, “leaderless” group was going to arrive at some kind of “To Do” list. Ahaa, so here it comes.

A group of O.W.S. people have already started to March to Washington to take on the "Super Budget Committee to reduce the deficit" If this committee fails to come up with 1.5 trillion in savings there will be an across the board cut in the Federal Budget. The evidence leaking out the Committee indicates the 6 democrats willing to make concessions. The GOP 6 say absolutely no tax increases on, you guessed it the richest one per-centers who control 40 percent of the countries wealth.

The unforeseen, or unintended consequence of this stupid Bi Partisan Committee idea has got the Pentagon arms dealers in a dithee over a major cut in defense spending, God forbid. That may force the Senate and House to find a way out of this very dumb idea. The arrival of the Occupiers in Washington, I hope would stiffen the spines of the Democrats including the President to start to understand the message of the 99 per-centers.

In another blog I wrote of the need for the protesters to find a "dancing partner" if they were going to bring about change. Though they have not set it forth in so many words they are demanding a redistribution of the countries wealth. That is where the one percent versus 99 percent leads you, or how wealth is distributed in the US. That's just fine with me.

O.W.S is marching to Washington to lobby the Congress in support of their constituents, the 99 percent. This is continuing in the tradition of the struggle for better life for the, working class now called the middle class. I am not sure when the decision was made that the best we could do is beat out concessions from the ruling class with the threat of social unrest. Our legacy in the history of that struggle is written in the Woman's Vote, Right to Bargain Collectively, New Deal, Social Security Minimum Wage Law, Medicare, Wages and hour Law, worker safety, etc. etc. How did we arrive at “lets just keeping on improving the system” instead of overthrowing it? In my years in the Labor Movement it became immanently clear that my union Brothers and Sisters had no interest in system change, They simply wanted the right to a decent life under the existing order of things, called Capitalism. I think that still holds true. They want a decent “middle class” life under the existing system.

That's what we managed to do and that's what the O.W.S. folks are carrying on. Yes they have found a different way to define the issues as well as how to fight the battle. I love that. Yet in the end there is an acceptance that there is not going to be a fundamental change from Capitalism. We tried hard to get the issue of socialism out there as an alternative. It just didn’t work. (Will get into that some other time.)

The issue now is, how the fight gets played out through the existing system, That ends up with the O.W.S. Marching to Washington. I did that many many times in the 30s, 40s 60s and I wish I could do it with this group that is going to raise hell in support of many of our hardest won gains. Maybe a could train to Washington and join up in front of the Capital with a sign.

“I’M A 94 YEAR OLD GEEZER. WE’RE NOT GONNA LET THE ONE PERCENT MILLIONAIRES TAKE AWAY OUR HARD WON GAINS OF THE LAST 100 YEARS”

Those gains are what I called in a previous blog our “imperfect adjustments.” They changed the country for the better.