· Sunday,
September
15th,
2013 at 4:02 pm
Rebecca Solnit wrote an inspiring op-ed in today's L.A. Times, one I've been waiting for someone to write. If you need a morale boost,
please read it in full.
Solnit is an author who spent time at Occupy San Francisco, Occupy
Oakland and Occupy Wall Street in 2011. A longer version of the op-ed
can be found at
tomdispatch.com.
In her piece, she traces movements, activist groups, a unique person
here and there, and identifies their transformative moments. She
identifies milestones and special people who have made a meaningful
difference and changed the world because they galvanized others with
their mission.
Real change may at first be incremental, halting, and sometimes
frustratingly imperceptible to those who aren't really paying attention,
but eventually, it takes hold in ways unimagined.
In other words, the efforts can result in achievements that have
lasting impact. And that impact can be on the whole wide world, a
country, a legislative body, or on the very participants of a movement.
And then those participants pay it forward.
[T]he moment that counts is the one where civil society
is its own rule, improvising the terms of an ideal society for a day, a
month, a season [...]
Almost as soon as Occupy Wall Street
appeared in the fall of 2011, the national conversation changed and the
brutality and obscenity of Wall Street were suddenly being openly
discussed.
The suffering of ordinary people crushed by the burden of
medical, housing or college debt came out of the shadows.
California passed a homeowner's bill of rights to curtail the viciousness of the banks, and in late 2012, Strike Debt emerged as an Occupy offshoot to address indebtedness in creative and subversive ways. Student debt suddenly became (and remains) a topic of national discussion, and proposals for student loan reform began to gain traction.
Invisible suffering was made visible. And, though Occupy was never primarily about electoral politics, it was nonetheless a significant part of the conversation that got Elizabeth Warren elected senator and prompted a few other politicians to do good things in the cesspit of the capital.
Change often happens when the brutality of the status quo is made visible and therefore intolerable. [...]
Occupy Wall Street allowed those silenced by shame, invisibility or lack of interest from the media to speak up. ... [T]he media and politicians had to change their language to adjust to a series of previously ignored realities.
Part of what gave Occupy its particular beauty was the way the movement defined "we" as the 99%. That phrase (along with that contagious meme "the 1%") entered our language, offering a far more inclusive way of imagining the world.
Occupy is still working behind the scenes. I know this because I
communicate regularly with those who are deeply involved, and I see
reports of their impressive accomplishments. The tents are now gone, the
drums stopped beating... but Occupy's heart didn't.
