Mickey Z. -- World News Trust
Dec. 20, 2013
We will ask nothing. We will demand nothing. We will take, occupy.
(graffiti: Paris, 1968)
For more than two years, we heard some version of this simplistic gripe about Occupy Wall Street (OWS): But what are/were their demands?
Please allow me to first address this distasteful demand for demands: To ask such a question is to willingly succumb to the craven compliance that conscientiously cloaks a commodity culture.
Yeah, if only OWS (or any activist group) would’ve just put itself in a damn box -- with a familiar, easily identifiable label, of course -- it would’ve made life so much easier for all those who’ve long surrendered the capacity for critical thought.
A list of demands allows lazy, fearful thinkers to categorize, to compare and contrast, e.g.
“Oh, I see, it’s like the opposite of the Tea Party.”
“Ah, they’re just like the hippies in the 60s.”
Un-American, extremists, selfish, unwashed, anti-Semites… blah, blah, fuckin’ blah…
Anyone -- from individuals to entire movements -- who strays from the predetermined path forces others to question their presumptions. The central supposition being challenged here is that the “problems” exposed by OWS are merely flaws within an intrinsically fixable system.
Reminder: Demands do not challenge the power structure. Demands validate the power structure.
If we have to ask the 1% to modify some of their behavior, we are acknowledging and accepting that the possibility of change is their choice and we thus authenticate their freedom to exercise their power over us. (Plus, of course, they’ve long figured out that offering the occasional minor concession further reinforces this tacit arrangement.)
In addition, a demand often removes a concern from its larger context. The 1% have little problem with the rabble focusing on single issues. While such debates have a place, they are still only a symptom of a disease now in its terminal phase.
The only “demands” worth having are those that challenge the entire culture... before it’s too late. As I have written before, let’s “demand” an end to classism, sexism, racism, homophobia, patriarchy, ageism, ableism, transphobia, body shaming, speciesism, and all other forms of hierarchical privilege.
The predictable, fearful response to this holistic and revolutionary approach goes a little something like this:
"What you're talking about is Utopia."
"You gotta stop dreaming. Get realistic and learn how to play the game."
"Don't you understand that things just don't work like that?"
Blah, blah, fuckin' blah…
But, as Eduardo Galeano sez:
“Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps,
it retreats two steps.
If I proceed ten steps forward, it
swiftly slips ten steps ahead.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It is to cause us to advance.”
#shifthappens
Note: To continue conversations like this, come see Mickey Z. in person on Jan. 11 at Bluestockings Bookstore in NYC.
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Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on a couple of obscure websites called Facebook and Twitter. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here.
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