The American Autumn

Ralph Nader offered here what I consider an apt description of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s significance and its place within the greater political situation in the United States and the world:

In the Arab Spring of Cairo, Egypt earlier this year, it was said that a million people in Tahrir Square lost their fear of the dictatorship. It can be said that in this “American Autumn,” some 150,000 people have discovered their power and rejected apathy. They have come far in so little time because the soil for their pushback is so fertile, nourished by the revulsion of millions of their countrypersons moving toward standing up and showing up themselves.

I agree. Americans surely are now surpassing the collective denial which characterized the Reagan Revolution. They are learning that the United States is not what they recently believed it to be. An insistent and changing world has exposed the Reagan Revolution for what it is and what it was when first announced: A kind of class war occluded by myth. Therefore, I would not say that the Occupy Wall Street movement is more able than other recent social movements in the United States, and has succeeded where others have failed because of its abilities. Rather, Occupy Wall Street is, in part, a mirror reflecting the emerging — dare I say it?!? — class consciousness in the United States, a conscious experience of the essence of wage labor under capitalism by members of the popular classes.

Related articles

• Occupy Wall Street roundup for Friday, Oct. 28 (boingboing.net)
• Robert Scheer: Thirty Years of Unleashed Greed (huffingtonpost.com)
• Poll: 43% Agree with Occupy Wall Street (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Occupy Wall Street’s Got Beef with Big Food (thedailymeal.com)
• VIDEO: Harold Ford to Obama: Ignore Occupy Wall Street (theroot.com)
• VIDEO: 5 questions on Occupy Wall Street (cbc.ca)
• Tahrir Square protesters send message of solidarity to Occupy Wall Street (guardian.co.uk)
• Occupy Wall Street: Who Is Donating to Keep it Afloat? [STATS] (mashable.com)