31
Jan
“Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.” • Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions (1957)
“What Have We Done?”
The thought struck me, and I got a pit in my stomach like you’d experience in freefall. The reality of the grave situations so many citizens in this country find themselves in, despite their best efforts, was staring me right in the face. I wasn’t having a debate or discussing a policy agenda with a colleague—- I was talking to a man about the daily struggles of his life. Let me back up and set the scene for you, to give you the context and line of reasoning that made this realization so profound, on a macro level.
Most of you reading this, those who know me, know that I have been highly supportive and involved in the Occupy movement since I first learned of it in August. Many of you know I joined the movement out of a fairly basic notion: our society has become an ugly place and I want it to change. We live in a country where millions are not able to earn a livable wage. Those who unscrupulously pursue wealth for their own use have ruined the American Dream for the rest of us, who want a good life for ourselves, but not at the expense of our own happiness and certainly not at the expense of others. In my twenties I made a series of career choices, ruling out “good careers” (politician, business executive, lawyer) one by one, until I found myself working in a very lucrative field when the financial crisis of 2007 brought the world down around us.
I saw people in this country struggling. I read the headlines. In my Park Avenue office in Manhattan I enjoyed a rigorous, energetic work atmosphere, with colleagues who were intelligent and who I greatly respected. However, we were all too comfortable. Our business was fully secure, because we operated in the world of the 1%. I got a bonus, a raise, took vacation, I was fine. However, when I left Park Avenue and spent time in my blue collar, New Jersey town on the weekends, I saw the pain of the 99%. I knew my place was not working for those who had so much, isolated from the problems of our society. I knew I could walk away from the paycheck and the perks because I wanted to do something about the homeless, the jobless, the debt ridden, over-worked, underpaid, uninsured, underserved. I couldn’t work in such a world of privilege knowing there was work I could do to help those in need.
I didn’t know what I could do, but I took some advice from a former boss “In order to understand why things are the way they are, you need to understand how we got here.” I entered a Master’s of Public Policy program and fully immersed myself in policy for the past two years. I got a job as a researcher studying workforce development issues. It may seem fairly obvious, but I realized most of the social issues I care so deeply about go back to work. People need good jobs, at livable wages, to care for themselves and their families. That solves poverty, which is then the root of so many other problems such as education, healthcare, housing, and all things concerning an individual’s well-being and thereby their contributions to society and engagement as a citizen.
So I had spent more than two years studying social issues, understanding, discussing, debating…but of course I did not empathize. I was in the Ivory Tower, meaning well, but not in the trenches by any means. Occupy found me at a time when I wanted to take to the streets. I wanted to find a productive way to speak my mind without the confines of an employ that requires funds from those who profited from the system in place, which I so vehemently oppose. As we all know, more often than not, those with “the funds” want to maintain the status quo. I had long since decided the status quo was insidious, divisive, and self-destructive.
When I first heard of Occupy in August, I had become fed up with the fact that there were egregious crimes against the American people by their fellow citizens, we had become an ugly society, decimated by greed. I joined Occupy out of my sincere belief that we, as global citizens, can and should fight for a system that regards us all as dignified human beings. And on a basic level, if you work full time, then you should be able to support yourself, plain and simple.
Monday nights we have a General Assembly planning session where those who are interested come to discuss what we think we need to decide on at the GA. Usually the conversations are more in depth than at the GA, we really get into the issues we are addressing, what our objectives are, and how we can accomplish are goals. We are passionate about the issues, but I guess I just get lost in the rhetoric and the romantic aspect of being an “activist” after spending most of my life on the corporate trajectory. At recent GA planning sessions, the gravity of what we are really up against, the system, the ugliness that we are trying to overpower… it hit.
I find that I am generally in one of two situations: either I am in a high level policy discussion about a policy issue (most of the time), or I am face to face with someone affected by economic injustice and we discuss their specific problem and possible ways out. I was never in a high level “the system is so F—-ED up and we need to do something about it” conversation with someone who has been systematically screwed by the system. That happened Monday night, and it hit me then and there that all these grievance we discuss at Occupy, again, are people. We are mad about the things that are happening to those around us… or US.
In our meetings we talk about our various actions on the various issues we are addressing, and community members in the room can speak about each issue in depth given their experiences in life. And then I thought about all of them, all the various reason we “Occupy”, because after all “99 reasons to protest isn’t disorganized…. It’s 99 reasons to protest” (my favorite Occupy sign so far). Some of the people who had come to our meetings could speak about all of them from personal experience, because in many communities people are up against a myriad of systematic injustices. I can rattle off disgusting statistics about economic and social inequality in this country, but we all lose sight of the very real ways in which these affect people. And when you think about the fact that there is a population affected by more than one, many times all of them, which are the same reasons this movement is so diverse and so strong, you realize how gravely we have WRONGED one another. Yes. We are all to blame, and before too long we will ALL be victims. I leaves me thinking, “What have we done?”
“Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.”
― Rumi
*** I will be following up on this post with data/research on the damages the current economic/political system has inflicted on our fellow citizens in the coming days***