By
Douglas Rushkoff, Special to CNN
(CNN) -- Like the spokesmen for Arab dictators
feigning bewilderment over protesters' demands, mainstream television
news reporters finally training their attention on the growing Occupy
Wall Street protest movement seem determined to cast it as the random,
silly blather of an ungrateful and lazy generation of weirdos. They
couldn't be more wrong and, as time will tell, may eventually be forced
to accept the inevitability of their own obsolescence.
Consider how CNN anchor Erin Burnett, covered the goings on at Zuccotti Park downtown, where the protesters are encamped, in
a segment called
"Seriously?!" "What are they protesting?" she asked, "nobody seems to
know." Like Jay Leno testing random mall patrons on American History,
the main objective seemed to be to prove that the protesters didn't, for
example, know that the U.S. government has been reimbursed for the bank
bailouts. It was condescending and reductionist.
More predictably perhaps, a Fox News reporter appears flummoxed
in this outtake from "On the Record,"
in which the respondent refuses to explain how he wants the protests to
"end." Transcending the shallow partisan politics of the moment, the
protester explains "As far as seeing it end, I wouldn't like to see it
end. I would like to see the conversation continue."
To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many
of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as
incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is
difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of
the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still
steeped.
Occupy protests spread across U.S.
Unions join 'Occupy Wall Street'
In fact, we are witnessing America's first true Internet-era
movement, which -- unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even
the Obama campaign -- does not take its cue from a charismatic leader,
express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as
having a particular endpoint.
Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from
the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards,
housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices,
unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on. Different people
have been affected by different aspects of the same system -- and they
believe they are symptoms of the same core problem.
Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to
address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who,
in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have
consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as
cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's
many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one
another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the
disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and
services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the
creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama
administration
deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud.
Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not
being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what
they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers
working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest
of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking's defenders and
politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or
set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns.
That's because, unlike a political campaign designed to get some
person in office and then close up shop (as in the election of Obama),
this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product
of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory
than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and
groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the
Internet.
Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads
through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to
force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers
hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the
current economic system is broken.
But unlike a traditional protest, which identifies the enemy and
fights for a particular solution, Occupy Wall Street just sits there
talking with itself, debating its own worth, recognizing its internal
inconsistencies and then continuing on as if this were some sort of new
normal. It models a new collectivism, picking up on the sustainable
protest village of the movement's Egyptian counterparts, with food,
first aid, and a library.
Yes, as so many journalists seem
obligated to point out,
kids are criticizing corporate America while tweeting through their
iPhones. The simplistic critique is that if someone is upset about
corporate excess, he is supposed to abandon all connection with any
corporate product. Of course, the more nuanced approach to such
tradeoffs would be to seek balance rather than ultimatums. Yes, there
are things big corporations might do very well, like making iPhones.
There are other things big corporations may not do so well, like
structure mortgage derivatives. Might we be able to use corporations for
what works, and get them out of doing what doesn't?
And yes, some kids are showing up at Occupy Wall Street because it's
fun. They come for the people, the excitement, the camaraderie and the
sense of purpose they might not be able to find elsewhere. But does this
mean that something about Occupy Wall Street is lacking, or that it is
providing something that jobs and schools are not (thanks in part to
rising unemployment and skyrocketing tuitions)?
The members of Occupy Wall Street may be as unwieldy, paradoxical,
and inconsistent as those of us living in the real world. But that is
precisely why their new approach to protest is more applicable,
sustainable and actionable than what passes for politics today. They are
suggesting that the fiscal operating system on which we are attempting
to run our economy is no longer appropriate to the task. They mean to
show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between
the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture.
And in the process, they are pointing the way toward something
entirely different than the zero-sum game of artificial scarcity
favoring top-down investors and media makers alike.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Douglas Rushkoff.
