I have had the privilege of doing a lot of talking about money and finances with the amazing Hillary Augustine, my dear friend and owner of Excela. Hillary is formally trained both as a therapist and an accountant; she has also been on a gorgeous journey the past many years to understand the intersection of a multiplicity of justice issues. As she talks about money—and helps her clients learn to think and talk about their relationship to money—she also asks people to consider larger structures of economics in this country.
Thus, when she starts some of her classes, she puts a picture of her anglo-family in front of the class and asks, “Let’s look at this picture and talk about money and privilege and social locations.” Her point is to communicate that she comes from a white, middle-class family that has historically benefited from the exploitative capitalistic system as it currently functions in the U.S. And while she has a lot to teach her clients—based on her training and experience—she also wants her clients to understand she speaks and “knows what she knows” from a particular place.
Particularity matters. Hillary is honest about the particularities that have formed her life experience:
- She has the privilege of “whiteness.” (I am putting “whiteness” in quotes because this is a historically constructed category, and we need to remember that the designation of “white” has been historically created to serve exploitative economic systems).
- She has the privilege of being in a heterosexual marriage with many financial benefits. (Heterosexual marriage includes privileges like: workplace health and pension benefits, social security retirement and survivor benefits, lower auto insurance rates, and potential tax breaks for some. See this article to learn more.).
- She has the privilege of coming from a family not in danger of being deported or falsely imprisoned or traumatized by the police.
It is from that context that she speaks, and she is courageously willing to wrestle out-loud with those privileges. These days, she is also connecting with scholars and activists as she launches a new amazing project intent on mixing-up class systems in Seattle and re-destributing all kinds of resources more fairly.
You might be thinking at this point…wait…re-distributing resources? Sounds like socialism, or even worse, communism. But, that’s not what Hillary is talking about, UNLESS you ask her to highlight the ways resources are already being re-distributed (i.e., funnelled) through tax laws and other legislation to benefit the few and marginalize the masses. What she is interested in is questioning the mythology of a “free” market society where everyone supposedly has the same opportunities for happiness, prosperity, and wealth. She recognizes that from the beginning of this country, the game has been rigged, meaning that all people are not equally endowed and societally privileged. The game is rigged by contemporary corporate exploitation, for sure, but it’s also rigged by a selective cultural amnesia among many white folks regarding who has stolen from whom all along. And not just Wall Street stealing today…but entire histories of theft.
Think genocide of Indigenous people in the Americas, stealing of land and resources, slavery and racism and exploitation of immigrants doing the hardest work in this country.
See, what Republican AND Democrats often aren’t getting is that many historical injustices still need to be accounted for. What I mean is that some people’s communities in this country have been historically assaulted, killed, and stolen from, while other people’s communities have not been enslaved, have not been treated as objects of genocide or racism, have not been set-up to do the hardest forms of labor without fair compensation, but rather have been allowed to exploit others (directly or indirectly). These differences matter a great deal. The playing field isn’t fair. And the trouble is that these contrasting histories of privilege and oppression are barely acknowledged—let alone adequately dealt with—in much of popular media.
The issue is not just that some people are struggling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps because they don’t have bootstraps, but rather their bootstraps have been stolen to benefit the economic interests of others. And those thefts have usually been quite violent, such that those communities stolen from have also survived profound traumas. Furthermore, the reality is that people “of color” (again, set off in quotes to draw attention to how race is historically constructed) have done a great deal of the work that has led to the wealth in this country, wealth that often has been historically, inter-generationally passed down by upper class whites.
I am stating the obvious question, but I will ask it anyways: Just how did such a young country get so rich so quickly? Just from sheer hard work? Yes, but whose hard work? Whose labor built the railways, built educational institutions, cared for the crops that brought in so much money in the 17th, 18h, and 19th centuries? And where did the land and resources come from that helped create the factories or provided for the farms and plantations? There have been many stolen goods in this nation’s history, many wages unfairly paid or not paid at all. (Contemporary example: Are you eating tomatoes this fall/winter? Chances are, some of those tomatoes have been picked in near-enslaved or actual enslaved conditions. Read more here or here.)
So, all that said, I am excited about Occupy Wall St. because more people are starting to talk about the forbidden—money and resources. And now more people just need to start talking about what that 1% has to do with histories that have allowed certain folks to exploit, steal from, and kill in the Americas and beyond in other locations of imperialism and colonialism. We need to talk about how this country did not begin with well-practiced ”Christian principles” (I am so tired of hearing this right-wing fantasy being used to co-opt votes), but it began with the most large-scale genocide and enslavement of human beings the world had ever known.
In other words, capitalism in this country has always functioned in part by theft of people’s bodies, theft of fair wages, and theft of people’s homes/land. The current exploitation of multi-national corporations has a history—and it looks a lot like the East India Company, a lot like the governmental policies that stole land from Mexico to redraw national borders and augment the territory of a slave state (always good to mention in conversations on immigration and how national boundaries came to be in the first place), a lot like the policies that killed the buffalo and drove people from their land and ruined ecosystems necessary to the survival of certain folks.
So as we protest and think deeply about the Wall St. corruption in this country that led the economy to the brink of collapse, it is the perfect time to think out-loud about what might be the connections between the 1% and the history which has led to the 1%.
It is tragedy, indeed, that so many folks—of all colors and classes and backgrounds—have lost their homes and investments largely due to the lack of integrity on Wall St. I am so grateful this tragedy is being named. But this contemporary tragedy has a long history, too, and let’s talk more about that.
The reason I am excited and hopeful about Occupy Wall St. is because I see the potential for more honest, more public, more rigorous discussion on not just contemporary theft, but histories of theft. So as we grieve the loss of homes and livelihoods and savings, may more of us (particularly those with vast amounts of unearned privilege) consider how many people’s communities in this country have always historically endured the theft of their homes, labor, livelihoods, and resources. This historical theft has been due to many predictable pattens, most notably policies of white supremacy; sexism; classism; privileges associated with being in the Protestant majority (“Manifest Destiny” was largely a Protestant policy); and xenophobia towards newer immigrants. (By the way, this country has always relied on the innovation and hard work of immigrants to make it what it is—so the public rhetoric on immigrants must change, too.)
This time in our country might be a historic time for bridge-building among various communities, as many people feeling profound loss can unite to create change. But, these alliances must be formed honestly, must themselves lead to transformation among race and class and gender and colonial relations. As a collective people, we can’t be freed by the truth until more of us who have benefited from exploitative systems of race and class and gender and Protestant religious privilege are ready to be truthful about these complex economic histories that yet shape present economic realities. I am hoping that the Occupy Wall St. movement is leading more voices to that kind of truth-telling.
Follow-Up Resources: Want to check out a 5-minute video with the brilliant political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry and anti-racist educator, Tim Wise? This clip includes some good reflections and questions on Occupy Wall St., including the idea that instead of “Occupying” Wall St., a problematic historical term, let’s “de-colonize” Wall St. Maybe not the same ring, but a better narration of what needs to happen!
Hey Kim!
I know you are tough so I’m not going to sugar coat my analysis of your article.
“Bridge building” is an interesting phrase to for a message encouraging guilt and envy. On one side of the bridge is guilt, where oppressors are encouraged to acknowledge that they are in debt to a degree that can never be repaid. On the other is envy, where the oppressed are told the system is rigged to a degree that they have no chance of individual success. I don’t buy into this worldview.
I am “White”. I’m also male, strait, and Christian. I am married to a beautiful wife whose full time job is to be our daughter’s mom. I’m the provider and protector for our family. I have always spent less money than I make. Consequently, I own a house, have a savings, and plan to be able to send my kids to private school and pass along wealth to my children when I die. I have a great job at a large multi-national company that makes a large profit by selling products and services that people, organizations, and companies want. I pay more in federal income tax now than I made in my first job out of college. I love my country and if called to do so I will fight to protect it. I own firearms and I have trained to properly and effectively use them to protect my family. I don’t spend my time classifying others by how they look, their ancestry, or who they want to have sex as long as they don’t constitute a threat to my family. I focus on my own problems, those in my family, and those in my community rather than those that are outside of my control. To summarize, in the worldview you define, I am the enemy. I am the oppressor.
Yet, I feel no guilt whatsoever.
It is easy to find historic examples where similar fomentation of guilt and envy drove significant change. Exactly 94 years ago today for example, Lenin led the Bolsheviks to the conclusion of a revolution where those that don’t subscribe to the worldview of guilt and envy were shot in the streets and utopia was briefly achieved, that is until the civil war started. Maybe that is where we are headed here eventually.
A few years ago the surge in guilt and envy I witness daily reached a level where I began to consider it a threat to the long term security of my family. Consequently, I started managing the risks I perceive. Part of this included studying history and observing how this scenario plays out over and over again when a sense of entitlement pulls a large enough population to the false hope of forced redistribution.
If you want to continue the path to revolution, discount this as the opinion of a privileged “white” male and carry on. Just be advised that should we go there I will need to be taken by force, and I will be prepared.
I speak for myself, but I suspect that I am not alone.
You’re right, America isn’t, and has never been a Christian nation. A great book to read on that subject is “Myth of a Christian Nation” by Pastor/theologian Greg Boyd.
Hey Evan! Thanks for chiming in. I will check out the book you cite.
Certainly, religion—and Christianity in particular— is a really important part of American cultures. But, whether the U.S. is a “Christian” nation or whether our founding fathers were “Christian” is a complex historical question. That complexity, of course, usually gets elided in political soundbites.
There’s definately a lot of politics in the whole “Christian” nation debate, as well as whether or not our founding fathers were Christians themselves. However, all of that is irrelevant, because America is the kingdom of the world, not the kingdom of God. Today, we think of the kingdoms of this world as secular, which is certainly true, but throughout history most kingdoms of the world have been religious.
I’ll also add that there’s nothing Christlike about a nation that is awful at helping the poor and doesn’t love it’s enemies. The way we were founded, which was stealing this land from Native Americans and enslaving Blacks, isn’t Christlike at all, for everyone who says we need to “take America back for God.”
Off-topic: I’ve read some of Greg Boyd’s blog in the past and he supports women in ministry.
I find the whole Occupy movement fascinating and frustrating. Kimberly, I do not share your view that capitalism is per se exploitative, although exploitation certainly happens. Nor do I worry too much about the many horrible past injustices that have happened in America, the repercussions of which are still alive and well.
I think all we can do is make today better. That doesn;t mean ignoring the past by any means, but the past sometimes becomes a crutch (even as I recognize that sometimes it is a sorely festering wound).
America has never lived up to its ideals, but we continue to struggle to reach them on a daily basis, and that’s what makes us, IMHO, the greatest nation on Earth. Even when we fail badly (slavery, suffrage equality, McCarthyism, civil rights, Iraq), we have a way of self correcting which constantly renews my faith in this country.
And as you know Jed, we share many attributes in common. I’m happy to say I have quite significant home equity, for example, because I never bought more house than I could afford, and I never believed the lie that real estate is a monotonically increasing asset.
But the last decade has been, financially speaking, one of those great American failures where we not only failed to live up to our ideals, but abandoned the pursuit of those ideals entirely. And I think Occupy is the start of one of the great America corrections that will again renew my faith in this country.
So let me say why I think we lost our way.
We tell ourselves in America that anyone can make it. Every little boy, and more recently every little boy and girl, is assured that they too, can grow up to be president. We believe in the idea that with a lot of hard work and fair play, that everyone has a shot at a comfortable middle class life, and that a few among us who can build a better mousetrap will become truly rich, and we will all benefit from their genius.
But the rules over the last decade or so have been consistently titled to favor those who are already rich, and the effects have been clear: most of the economic gains go to the top 1%. The growth in their incomes has been astounding.
This growth isn’t the result of a free market — indeed the opposite is true. The republican party, while on the one hand championing free market principles, has in fact been operating to favor big businesses.
For example — the tax code has been changed to let corporations perform arbitrage on the cost of labor: that is, it has been made far easier to “ship jobs overseas” through a variety of special-purpose tax breaks. A free marketer would say that, sure, its inefficient to pay too much for labor — it distorts the value of labor, and shouldn’t companies be free to go whereever the labor market offers the best value? Okay — but notice at the same time that the laws have become harder for consumers to perform arbitrage over the price of many goods. You cannot legally purchase many kinds of drugs, entertainment, software, electronics, of vehicles from another country and import them into the US. If consumers were free to do arbitrage over the price of goods, then labor arbitrage wouldnt; be so bad. Instead, these rules work to artificially increase corporate profits.
The same is true of labor unions. Various “right to work” laws are sold in terms of free market principles. In fact, these laws are a specific limitation on the rights of people to bargain for their services and strike the best deal they can — that’s the very definition of a free market. But — you say — but why should a union be able to dictate who a company can hire? The answer is simple: they struck a contract to be the exclusive provider of certain functions to a particualr corporation. Exclusivity is a corner stone of a variety of business contracts: a McDonalds franchisee wants an exclusive deal from McDonalds that he will be the only McDonalds in a certain area. Why should McDonalds be able to enter into an exclusive contract but not a labor union?
Now, lets talk about retirement, including pensions, 401ks, and social security. What are pensions? They are simply deferred compensation. That money should in no way be considered an asset of the corporation, but in fact it often is. The stories of companies “raiding” pension funds are legion, and in a bankruptcy proceeding, pensions are often among the first assets of a corporations to get wiped out to creditors. That money shoudl be held in trust for the employess, and never exposed to creditors. It is ALREADY SPENT and no longer an asset of the company, but the workers get — frankly — fucked way to often.
Which brings us to 401ks. I *love* 401ks because they solve one of the big problems with pensions. A 401k is the employee’s asset, not the company’s asset, at least after it has vested (and ignoring the all-too-common bullshit vesting rules). But the problem with 401ks is that they are structured as a freebie to wall street. An enormous number of 401ks get consumed by (bullshit) fees, robbing the employee of a secure retirement and lining the pockets of wall street. Now, Jed, as you know, I am familiar with the 401ks of two of your major empoyers, and I helped form a committee to examine the 401k practices of your current employer. And I’m happy to say that both of your employers are operating 401ks with the best interests of the employees front and center, including a focus on keeping fees low. Awesome. But many 401ks are nowhere near as well run, and are often outright scams.
Should we really expect every empoyee to investigate the 401k practices of their employers? OR isn;t it more reasonable to have standards and practices around 401k management such that even a non-sophisticated empoyee can have reasonable assurance that their retirement money isn’t being pissed away by someone using the money to benefit themselves first?
And now, the republican party wants to do the same with social security, with all the usual appeals to free markets and rugged individualism, along with the clearly true arguments that the market is likely to give you better returns than the government. But the way it will play out is jsut like a corrupt 401k: many employees will be at the mercy of shisters operating in theor own best interests, while they are being fucked over the course of four decades.
The fact of the matter is that I could go along with social security privitization if only I trusted our financial industry. But I don’t.
And there’s good reason not to trust the financial industry. While the mortgage industry was busy selling a giant pile of subprime loans, they were simultaneously betting againt them, and building up a financial house of cards leveraged 30x, that came crashing down in 2007, to be rescued by a gigantic $700 billion baliout, and follwed by the great recession.
The bailout was rushed through congress by President Bush with no constraints whatsoever. Any suggestion that their ought to be some strings attached to this bailout was met with cries of socialism!
And now we are engaged in a great debate about whether we should rebuild our crumbling infrastructure with money we can borrow at 0%. What a fucking no brainer! Debt is only bad if you aren’t making a return on it. Fixing our infrastructure has enormous ROIC. And it would put people back to work immediately.
There’s a seemingly *endless* pile of money for war, “intelligence,” TSA, DEA, NSA, FBI, etc. etc. Those expenditures have less-than-zero ROIC — they are by definition destructive. Indeed, the only thing Rush Limbaugh ever said that I agree with is that the military is for killing people and breaking things. I’m not a pacifict, but let’s not kid ourselves that military expenditures have anywhere near the social benefit that infrastructure does.
And even traditional law and order causes like cops and firefighters are not supported by republicans these days, let alone such pussy causes as teachers and schools. Let them eat cake indeed.
So god save us is all I can say. I hope we wake up and realize the harm we’ve been doing. I had to overcome a great number of obstacles to get what I have, moreso than most. I know what its like to be poor (by American standards). What saved me was some social security, some public education, some food stamps, and a few Pell grants. There are lots of people just as smart and jsut as hard working as me who don;t have it nearly so well, including many in my own family.
So, Jed, while I know you are a fine human being, you must realize that your situation is not entirely a consequence of your work and character: it is also part luck, and part an outcome of the rules we have set up that happen to favor intellectual property over labor (for example). A simple change in the rules could change your situation pretty dramatically.
And so while you intimate violence — you have a gun and you are willing to defend the status quo with force — are you willing to shoot people for being pissed off at a set of rules that have put the lie to their version of the American dream? Would you shoot someone for voting for the return of Glass-Stegall? Would you shoot me for calling bullshit on your bullshit? It certianly seems that my friends on the right have become accustomed to the current set of rules, and will fight violently to preserve them, fairness be damned.
Oh — and let me say one MORE thing: I really do believe that capitalism in the form of free and fair markets (and a dash of social safety net) is THE vehicle to lift people out of poverty and deliver the goods and services we all want, even the ones we haven’t though of. CApitalism is good magic, even if it has a dark side.
Hey Jed!
You raised a lot of thoughts worthy of conversation over an extra foamy latte from Uptown, but I will just address a few points here, given the limitations of talking via words on a page instead of face to face, as friends.
You wrote:
“I am married to a beautiful wife whose full time job is to be our daughter’s mom. I’m the provider and protector for our family. I have always spent less money than I make. Consequently, I own a house, have a savings, and plan to be able to send my kids to private school and pass along wealth to my children when I die. I have a great job at a large multi-national company that makes a large profit by selling products and services that people, organizations, and companies want.” And also, “I focus on my own problems, those in my family, and those in my community rather than those that are outside of my control.”
Ok, I have a couple honest questions/concerns. That you have extra money is in part because you have made really good decisions all along and done all the right things—I have always admired your brilliance in finance and business. However, your savings account is in part because you started on at least second base and are claiming you hit a home run. I could be wrong here, so please correct me if I am, but, I am guessing you had a decent education as a child, that then helped position you to get into a top university. I am guessing (again, correct me if I am wrong) that you did not go to school hungry, like 20% of children who live in poverty in this country might have to deal with as they are trying to learn foundational school skills. I am guessing you weren’t targeted by the police as a teenager because of the color of your skin, like so many black and brown men in this country face. I am guessing you weren’t then falsely imprisoned, and then raped and left to deal with that trauma, as happens to many young men who end up in prison. And, more simply put, both of us as white folk have no idea the daily, micro-aggressions many black and brown men and women face in this country, so neither of us are in much of a position to understand how racism makes financial success (including owning a home) a lot harder for some than for others.
Your skill sets also happen to get a lot of reward in this current economic set-up. I know people who work jobs that I will argue are some of the most important jobs in this country–they take care of children, particularly traumatized and low-income children–and many of those workers have no possibility of having a savings. They simply don’t make enough. They scrape by and go to the food bank when necessary and can’t afford fruits and vegetables–all the while contributing some of the most important work in this country. (I don’t know if you have ever lived on minimum wage as an adult, but it’s harder than it looks!) It is not their fault that they are working a minimum wage job. It is the fault of a larger society, where we celebrate providing for our own children, but have a bit of a “be damned” attitude toward children who had no choice in being born into situations where there is not enough. It seems to me that Jesus (since we are both Christians, I will play the Jesus card:), might have something to say to us on this point. Maybe it’s not the job of our government to supplement these folks’ income, but maybe wealthy churches in Bellevue might be interested? What might be some creative solutions so that jobs that don’t have as much status in our current system , but are really important jobs, could still offer live-able wages to the workers?
OK, now a bit more on why your multi-national company is able to pay you good wages. As you rightly say, yes, your company is successful because it produces products that benefit all our lives and that people want. Yet, from my understanding (please correct me if I am wrong) is also successful because it ships off labor to China, where human beings are employed in near slave-like conditions. I see this as an ethical challenge that we all have to figure out. I mean, I type this blog on a computer whose parts are fueling wars in the Congo. I don’t claim any kind of innocence here–but, I think collectively we have to figure this out. The blood is on all our hands.
You mentioned focusing on your family and community rather than those problems that are outside your country. You raise an issue here that is so important, especially given globalization. In a sense, the lives of the workers in China are “outside my control.” Children getting raped and their limbs hacked off in the Congo is “outside my control.” Or, is it? I benefit every day by the products that lead to other people’s suffering and death. Do I not have responsibility to a more global sense of family, given that I participate in this massive flow of products and resources? Given our shared Christian commitments, I wonder more about our sense of who our “neighbor” is in a historical moment in which so many lives are linked in unprecedented ways?
Finally, you offered some good reminders about how often historical revolutions of this kind turn violent. So often violence replaces violence…instead of a new system rising up that is just. I think you are right to remind us of these realities. In my mind, violence is not successful at combatting injustice…there has to be another way for change to happen.
In peace and gratitude,
Kim
p.s. I wrote: “And, more simply put, both of us as white folk have no idea the daily, micro-aggressions many black and brown men and women face in this country, so neither of us are in much of a position to understand how racism makes financial success (including owning a home) a lot harder for some than for others.”
Just want to correct that statement. While white folks like us may not be able to intuit how racism works, I think we can makes steps towards understanding it by choosing to educate ourselves. I didn’t mean to imply that we are cut-off from understanding, only that we might have to work a bit harder at understanding.
One more clarifier! Just for the record, this post is not in any way endorsing communism, for goodness sakes. It’s endorsing a transformed system of capitalism, in which historical and contemporary thefts and injustices are talked about and creatively struggled with to be set right. It’s endorsing a transformed system of capitalism in which human and environmental rights (after all, environmental rights are human rights for the folks living on the polluted land!) are given as much attention as the “bottom-line.” I am just asking for integrity and care of the neighbor within capitalism. I am asking that consumers realize our complicity in other people’s suffering.
Kim
Well, this is a hot one, isn’t it? Not one I even have time to fully read or devote to, but I do want to chime in to say just one thing:
No economic form – be it capitalism, communism, or some meld – is good or evil in and of itself. It’s what people do with these forms that matters. Historically, there have been abuses in each of these systems. Both communism and capitalism have been abused and derided, and the abuse has occurred by those of us who have the time, money, power, and privilege to take advantage of it (we do so in our “best interest” because it just “makes sense.”)
It seems to me that the question is not whether one form or another is the “best” one, but whether or not we are taking advantage of the system for our own benefit, rather than the benefit of the whole. It’s always the people with the least who are the losers, no matter the system, unless we stand up for them rather than just for ourselves.
Just a quick thought on a very big discussion.
This is just too broad a topic to deal with each point fairly. I will say that I believe the system is blatantly tilted to favor the wealthy and the white. But that’s not a result of some grand conspiracy from the privileged few. It’s just how it is. For example, just today the Seattle Times reported on a study finding widespread bias against blacks in rental housing. Now, did all the white landlords get together and decide this was how things should be? No. But I challenge any of you conservatives to convince me that these biases don’t exist. The same thing goes for corporate welfare. I love how conservatives claim that corporate America is so victimized by our government, when they’ve been posting record profits and are sitting on piles of cash in a recession. And this nonsense about “corporate person-hood?” To quote a sign from OWS: I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.” Lastly, let’s look at how our system treats crime by a corporation vs those who aren’t so privileged in our society: When the big banks and lenders deliberately mislead and defraud billions of dollars from their investors and clients, and raid pensions, they get bailed out by our mean, nasty government. When someone writes a bad check, sells some pot, they go to jail. Bottom line: Dont’ tell me everyone’s got an equal chance and a fair shot in this country until society starts treating corporate criminals like the rest of us,
For lack of time I’m going to avoid point by point retorts for all but a few things raised in the above comments by Kim and Shawn. Let’s save the details for lattes (Kim) or burritos (Shawn).
• Kim’s questions / concerns paragraph: Discussing hardship or lack of hardship in my life is not productive. I harbor no guilt as a consequence of those that have experienced hardships that I have not. I have no envy for those that have not experienced the hardships that I have. Engaging in that dialogue would do nothing but feed a codependent vortex that would hold me down, and influence others to do the same.
• Kim’s question about livable wage: In the long term, supply and demand governs wages. The solution here is to spread the understanding of that reality. Policy driven shortages or surplus on either side of that equation at best lead to waste and at worst lead to conflict.
• Kim’s WWJD point: We all sin. We are all flawed. Fair is a state that can only be achieved by God. The forgiveness offered by Jesus is fair to those that choose to accept it.
• Kim’s assertion that my employer is successful because slave-like conditions in China: False
• Kim’s “historical revolutions of this kind turn violent” retort paragraph: Obviously I know that is not your intent, and that is never the intent of most people. That is why it’s our duty to do everything possible to avoid this scenario and enjoy that our current systems foundation is built on checks and balances that are fueled by disagreement. I have more to say on this one, but we should save that conversation for next time you are in town.
• Shawn’s point – Bush pushed TARP through Democratic House + Democratic Senate, it was Bush’s fault, and conservatives think not doing TARP is socialism: I’ll call BS on that. TARP, that lame “refund” and a bunch of other crap at the end of the Bush administration (when the Democrats controlled the house and senate) are the seeds of the TEA party. Failed corporations should fail.
• Shawn’s point – Companies should not raid pensions: Agreed, and *.gov should not raid social security. Regardless we all need to face the reality that most won’t see a dime of a pension or social security. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the left starts going after the 401k’s of “the 1%” and/or white, male, oppressors that are assumed to face no hardship.
• Shawn and Kim’s point – A simple change in the rules could change your situation dramatically: Of course… That’s why I’m hedging in order to handle the transition into any scenario at this point and I encourage you to do the same. If we end up going totally commie, or get forced to all have conversations only with the “peoples mic”, or whatever the case – I’ll find a way to get ahead in that system. We just won’t get to have this discussion in the open.
• Shawn’s insinuation that my owning firearms means I’m going to shoot people that disagree with me: I’ll state this message another way for you to contort. I will protect a liberal’s individual right to non-violently disagree with me so long as they operate within the framework of our laws and republic long after they would fall on a sword or eat the pudding for solidarity. The only way for the collective to stop me from protecting the individual (even the ones that disagree with me) in the prioritized order of (family, self, community, country) is to do so by force, and should that ever happen I plan to make that a difficult and expensive proposition.
• My thoughts on Kim’s final point: “I am just asking for integrity and care of the neighbor within capitalism. I am asking that consumers realize our complicity in other people’s suffering.” And there we agree. I encourage you to use your research and your work in a manner that leads you and others to vote with your dollars. In most markets you control the demand side of the equation and have the power to hold companies accountable to standards that are important to you.
Whoa! Two of my favorite people commenting on the same post (Jed and Penny!). Small world
Thanks for writing this- I think it speaks to a lot of the important issues at work in the movement. I guess my biggest problem is always the questions of, well, where do we go from here? I am aware of my privilege, but what am I personally doing to change that? Probably not much in the grand scheme of things, beyond educating myself. But I think it’s very important to wrestle with the information, and to build bridges, as you so eloquently phrase it. I am so thankful for the people in my life who have done that bridge-building, and for the Wall St. folks who are asking these hard questions and forcing us to look at our own lives. I started off having a very dim view of the seemingly entitled kids who were protesting on their iPhones, unaware that even owning a car put them among the richest 5% worldwide, but over the last few weeks, I’ve come to really appreciate the movement for opening the doorway to conversation, if nothing else.
This is just a general thank-you to each of you for posting and contributing your time and energies to this discussion. I so appreciate it! Lots of valuable points being raised. I feel as though I have learned a lot.
I hope to respond in more detail later to all of you, but today I’ve got to get my other writing done (namely, PhD apps! Acck.)
(On a totally un-related note: Beth, how cool that you know both Penny and Jed, as they are two of my favorite people, too. Small world. And your picture of Anne on you website just made my morning.
I know I’m a little late in the game here on this discussion but I think a lot of interesting points have been raised. I think Kim is right to be excited “and hopeful about Occupy Wall St” because she sees “the potential for more honest, more public, more rigorous discussion on not just contemporary theft, but histories of theft.”
I also think it’s important to raise the question of guilt. No one in this forum (or anyone for that matter) should feel ‘guilty’ about oppression or privilege. It’s not productive.
That said, I think these two points are related and not in opposition. OWS is about empathy. Its about standing up for what you’re upset about while recognizing the injustice of someone else’s plight. If you’re guilty, you can’t do that. If you’re attached to your privilege, you can’t do that. If you’re disgruntled and defeated, you can’t do that. But if your’re “hopeful,” you absolutely can.
I’ve been down there almost every day and almost everyone down there is hopeful, empathetic, and energetic. It’s a movement without an agenda which doesn’t make for great TV but I think does make for what Kim calls (to borrow Hannah Arendt’s language) an environment for “truth-telling.”
No one should feel guilty for being white or financially sound but, as a woman who is inherently on some level those descriptions, I should feel emboldened to lend my voice to speak in support of all peoples. I can’t fully know my privilege just as I will never know my perceived deficiencies in the eyes of others. That said, in the spirit of MLK’s words “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” I cannot afford to live my life without confronting injustice head on just because it suits me right now.
Great discussion from everyone.
::Daphne
I was originally drawn here by Jed’s comments on Facebook, but I see now that this conversation is about so much more.
I hope we can all learn something about ourselves and our neighbors (in the larger sense) from the Occupy movement. This strikes me as really important now that my son, Sam, is old enough to walk around our neighborhood. These walks have forced me to realize just how important the prosperity of my neighbors is to my own.
I know some of them are in bad shape, financially. Some of them are hungry. They don’t talk about it, because it’s embarrassing & awkward. But I know that if I couldn’t feed Sam…I’d find a way. Regardless of consequence. Any person would. I have be aware of that when I walk down my street, and it hurts every time.
I want neighbors who have enough food, aren’t afraid all the time, and have something to lose. And I want that for selfish reasons–because that makes my family safer. Far safer than firearms ever could.
I am glad to see the Occupy folks because I have the sense that they want something similar for themselves and their neighbors. I don’t know if it’s the right way to go about it, but at least they’re doing something. If it’s wrong, it’ll become clear and people will try something else.
Best wishes,
Steve