Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/tikkun-admin/page/57/)
What does the Christian Right have to say about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement? I have been asking that question for weeks and have not found much about it on the websites I regularly visit. Now, Pat Robertson has finally spoken out. He says Christians should not be involved in the OWS movement. I think this is a rebellion.
Several days ago, I described how Occupy Wall Street is approaching – or has reached – its Tipping Point. However, there’s a much more subversive, and equally interesting, way to view the manner in which Occupy Wall Street is quickly being embedded into the American consciousness. And that is by thinking about the movement’s progression in consumerist terms.
The chart below illustrates the general way in which a new technology or inventive product becomes firmly entrenched in the marketplace:
First you have the inventors, those who create a product and launch it into the marketplace. In the case of Occupy Wall Street, the inventor – the creator of the idea to occupy Wall Street as a Tahrir-style tactic – would be Adbusters magazine and the 700 brave souls who marched to Zuccotti Park on September 17. (An argument could be made to include those who began to increase that initial encampment in its first week, as well as those who have begun occupations in different cities around the country.)
Next, you have the early adopters, those souls who choose – at a very early stage – to try out a product before it catches mainstream appeal and sales.
We just heard from a colleague who was arrested in Oakland for…. assembling. While he was getting arrested we were having dinner with friends, one of whom said that he wished there were a simple, clear message coming from the 99%. Well, this morning, our friend Jim Burklo (The Center for Progressive Christianity) wrote one of his “musings” and in it he had a short and sweet message:
Protect the poor and middle-class with a strong public “safety net”, take strong action to protect the environment, raise taxes on the rich and cut military spending to balance the federal budget, and rationalize regulations so that private enterprise will thrive on a more level playing field. Want more?
The moment inaccurate negative branding can be fractured and utterly torn asunder is the moment Occupy Wall Street will reach its tipping point. And I believe it’s now standing on the precipice, ready to make the mainstream plunge as both military veterans and even active duty police officers begin to stand in opposition against those forces intent on ending the Occupy movement.
United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas confronts the NYPD after scenes of police brutality in Times Square.
Over a five week period, we have witnessed in our country the coalescence of thousands of small, meaningful moments that comprise an ever-expanding movement: The Brooklyn Bridge; Zuccotti Park’s canceled eviction; Times Square.
It’s clear that King’s concerns resonate with Occupy Wall Streets (OWS) protests against corporate greed, unending wars, dangerous foreign policy and a broken political system. He called for a “radical redistribution of economic, social and political power.” King had courageously spoken out against the U.S. for engaging in a war that “seeks to turn the clock of history back and perpetuate white colonialism,” at a time when 70% of the country still supported the war.
This summer, thousands of social justice protesters built tent cities across Israel, occupying public spaces in dozens of cities. Taking inspiration from Cairo’s Tahrir Square – and enraged by skyrocketing costs of living and the growing economic divide between the country’s wealthiest elite and everyone else – protesters fought against what they viewed as corrupt economic systems by being perpetually present, by sleeping. This seemingly simple form of civil disobedience – sleep – is fittingly what awoke within Israel a slumbering populace and brought them, marching and chanting, into the streets. Sound familiar? -§-
After one month, the Occupy Wall Street movement has remarkably mirrored what occurred in Israel this summer.
Last night as we helped our friends at Design Action Collective celebrate their many years of successfully empowering justice movements (including being the art designers for Tikkun Magazine for a long while), we met a young man who told us a stunning tale. He had tried to get his wife onto his health insurance plan and the company turned them down. Why? Because they weren’t legally married. He and the woman he loved had decided that marriage equality was an important enough justice issue that until their GLBTQ friends could get legally married, they wouldn’t.
Two years ago, Shlomo Sand, an Israeli professor of European history at Tel Aviv University, came to New York to promote the English-language edition of his book, “The Invention of the Jewish People” (Verso Press). I found his arguments infuriating. I don’t think there’s anything wrong in a serious study on the origins of the Jewish people, whether looking at this subject historically or even genetically, but I felt that Prof. Sand was making a totally tendentious case for ideological reasons, without examining the issue honestly. Instead, Sand set out with a mishmash of evidence, including much with little or no merit, to invalidate the Jewish claim to Israel/Palestine as the historic homeland of the Jewish people. I hasten to add that I am not an advocate of an ethnically-pure Jewish state of Israel, nor do I believe that most Zionists (now or in the past) have ever advocated such a thing; Zionism has always included a broad spectrum of factions, including some on the extreme right who would deny non-Jews equal rights as citizens.
Although I shouldn’t be surprised, I have to say that I do find myself angered and appalled by a reaction that has recently emerged in opposition to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, a reaction by working people who claim to speak for “the 53%.” According to Slate, the 53% figure refers to the number of households that actually pay federal income tax. The other 47% do not have to pay either because they have so many deductions or they are simply too poor. The 53% Tumblr site I discovered this week has the following ridiculous tagline: “We are the 53%: Those of us who pay for those of you who whine about all of that … or that …
This is a guest post by Jason A. Kerr, a doctoral candidate in English at Boston College. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On 7 October, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, was speaking to reporters outside the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC, where he had just introduced Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. Taking aim at Perry’s rival for the nomination, Mitt Romney, Jeffress said that Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “is not a Christian.” Jeffress went on to say, “This idea that Mormonism is a theological cult is not news….