The Occupy movement is at a crossroads. Although it still carries a wide, sympathetic base of popular support, this very depth has become a problem. Occupy was originally the young and disenfranchised, those who carried the flame that reawakened political consciousness. The cry from the encampments was to radically alter the economic and governing structures of a monstrous system. This cry crept up into the middle class, awakening them to their own insecurity and vulnerability.
But the middle class doesn't really want radical alterations. The middle class wants reform, a yearning to return to the old way of stable employment even if that employment is wrecking the earth and is dependent upon militaristic imperialism. This way of life gives the shrinking middle more toys, money and access to privileges. The beneficiaries of this system don't want an end to capitalism, or even an end to global corporations. Basically, they just want the dream of a stable job, home ownership, reliable health care and the ability to get their kids through school while saving for retirement.
Many who committed to the encampments desire a new way of life; but the housed sympathizers mostly just want the old ways to be renewed. The campers desire a world that moves toward holding all things in common, a world of military stand-down and no more borders. This is not the vision of the majority who admire the courage and passion of the campers, but who do not share their communal values. Most of the 99 percent still want private property and segregated, hierarchal wealth.
As a clergy member who has been pepper-sprayed, my heart is with the anarchic energy of the campers. But I serve an institution whose heart is with incremental reform, not revolution. And that's why I think Occupy and the progressive justice church need each other. Both of us have narratives of revolutionary desire, yet both of us are embedded in diverse movements of conflicting values. It's not just the 1 percent who need to be tossed off their thrones, it is also the
99 percent. They need a radical conversion of desire if all of creation is to survive and thrive.
Throughout Central and South America, and in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, movements of resistance met within church buildings to strategize for liberation. I think creative neighborhood partnerships should be forged between the progressive justice church and the Occupy movement. This would benefit us both in our efforts to rid this nation of its governing malfeasance and awaken a changed national consciousness.
It is a long game. It took corporate forces of neo-fascism forty years to affect their American coup d'