My second-grader Scout and I talk a lot about words and their definitions.
Today in the car we were listening to NPR and she asked me what "Wall Street" is.
I wish grownups would ask when they don't know what a word means.
If they did, someone would tell them that it makes perfect sense to protest a situation, even if you don't propose a solution—even if you don't know what the solution is.
They would learn that there is a difference between a protest and a proposal. At a protest, people are protesting things they don't like, not proposing solutions. Whereas, at a proposal, they are proposing solutions, not protesting problems.
Now sometimes, people protest problems and then propose solutions, all in the same day! But not usually. Usually, the problems are really big at first, or really hard to see, and you've got to spend all the time just trying to get people to agree that they are problems.
Okay: Maybe you still don't understand the difference between protests and proposals.
That's okay. I don't think Scout understood my definition of "Wall Street," either. I'm not the best at explaining stuff.
Also, it's possible you're just not old enough yet.
Does it mean I’m old if I do understand what you’re saying? I think you’re right. But don’t those protesting eventually need to get around to proposing something too?
After all, if you’re protesting against “The Man” but you don’t have a solution to propose, then you’re kind of just leaving it up to The Man to propose a solution, which you probably won’t like because you’re fundamentally opposed to The Man having the power in the first place.
So, at some point, it’s in the best interests of those protesting to get around to proposing (and to proposing something actually viable). Otherwise they’ll be too easily dismissed as people who just bitch and moan all the time. And, like our attention spans in general, I think the time people and media are prepared to allow between protest and proposal is getting much shorter than it once was. If they want to be successful, I’m not sure protesters today have the luxury of waiting for answers that are blowing in the wind.
Rueben, the people who are protesting HAVE no solutions to propose. Some are kids. Others are pissed-off, laid-off people. Some are professional protesters. Some are political radicals.
But few if any are Karl Marx, Peter Drucker, Franklin Roosevelt, or General Eisenhower. They are NOT people with a plan. They’re people with a complaint.
An analogy they might resent: Two kids under nine years old are living with violent parents who feed them crap food, neglect their health and make an unclean atmosphere.
If the kids miraculously escape their context sufficiently to approach child welfare agency, does the case workers then grill them about their game plan for improving the household? Ask them to say exactly why their parents are violent, demand that they recommend a course of Narcotics Anonymous, Al-Anon and family therapy?
No. They’re kids. It’s enough for them to say: “Help!”
We’re kids. Or at least most of us feel like kids, when it comes to knowing how to reorder society to increase the size of the middle class, and decrease the desperation of the poorest among us.
Complaining is not a “luxury.” It is, if the complaints continue to resonate with a wider section of Americans, a beginning.
I take your point, David. Really, I do. But if not them, then they need to find somebody who actually has the will to take up their cause in a meaningful way to find solutions and advance them.
I think the abused kids analogy isn’t quite the same because in that instance almost anyone would agree that it is wrong and they need help. Most importantly, “the system” agrees and is set up to help them. The dynamic is different with the Wall Street issue. Many may agree with them, but many won’t. And the system is the target.
I’m not saying they can’t or shouldn’t complain, or even that the complaints aren’t legitimate. Such is the nature of a free society. I’m just acknowledging the unfortunate reality that they’ll remain complaints until someone steps forward with a solution. And that’s all the more challenging when a) they’re fighting the system in which the people most likely to have the power to change are your targets and b) I’m not entirely convinced the rest of the “99%” actually agree with them.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s futile by any means. As the unveiling of the King monument in Washington the other day reminds us, if the right person comes forward, things can change and be changed against all odds. But somebody – from within or outside – needs to at some point move from just protest to proposal.
Agreed, Rueben. But to pick up on your analogy: The Civil Rights Act started with some bus boycotts 10 years earlier, and lunch counter sit-ins.
Not everybody agreed with civil rights legislation, or even the sit-ins.
And even those who did agree might have protested that regional and seemingly random tactics were no way to achieve racial equality.
I’m not sure everyone will ever agree with this 99 percent business. (Americans, even downtrodden ones, have a real hard time giving up on the idea that they’re gonna be as rich as Mr. Drummond someday, and they insanely and hilariously defend his billions on the odd chance they’ll get that rich someday too. We like a blue sky around here.)
But already it’s got the U.S. (and now Canada!) talking about a host of undeniably important economic issues that were only being muttered about a month ago, for fear that Eric Cantor or somebody would tar such talk as “class warfare.”
When you think about how the speed of social movements–this one is not moving slowly, but pretty damned fast.
Yes, re: the civil rights movement – that’s my point that it shows this isn’t futile. Profound change can happen and can start with people standing up and protesting for sure.
It’s interesting to see how the occupy movement isn’t really getting the same sort of traction in Canada – at least not yet. The general sense is that’s because we haven’t had as hard an economic hit and so we’re less disgruntled. So the dynamic is different so far.