My husband has several Facebook friends who aren't fans of the Occupy movement. So when I told him I'd created a photo blog, Otherwise Occupied (http://otherwise-occupied.tumblr.com/), as a way for people to show their support for the occupiers, he thought of those naysayers and suggested I try to win them over.
Give them the facts, said my husband, who once asked for books by Bill O'Reilly for Christmas. Tell them that the people getting gassed and arrested are exercising their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble and air their grievances.
Tell them, said my husband, who in a past life refused to watch Keith Olbermann, that what they are seeing on TV is democracy in action, and that it's a beautiful thing.
So having never voted for George W. Bush, as my husband did, once upon a time, I searched for facts. It didn't take long to find them, in a report by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank that researches and analyzes working America's economic status. http://www.epi.org/...
• The top 1 percent of households have secured a very large share of all of the gains in income—59.9 percent of the gains from 1979–2007, while the top 0.1 percent seized an even more disproportionate share—36 percent. In comparison, only 8.6 percent of income gains have gone to the bottom 90 percent. The patterns are similar for wages and capital income.
• As they have accrued a large share of income gains, the incomes of the top 1 percent of households have pulled far away from the incomes of typical Americans. In 2007, average annual incomes of the top 1 percent of households were 42 times greater than incomes of the bottom 90 percent (up from 14 times greater in 1979) and incomes of the top 0.1 percent were 220 times greater (up from 47 times greater in 1979).
• Growth in wealth, not just incomes, has also become greatly skewed in recent decades. Most of the wealth gains of the last generation went to those who already had the most wealth, a group increasingly distant from the vast American middle-class. The wealth of the median household actually declined over this time period. As a result, in 2009, wealth held by the wealthiest 1 percent of households was 225 times greater than that held by the median household.
Staggering income inequality. More Americans slipping into poverty. http://www.nytimes.com/... A stalled unemployment rate. All facts. Plus, a political system with its head so far up Corporate America's butt that the forceps required to remove it hasn't yet been invented. Can I prove that? Actually, I can. http://www.nytimes.com/...
This is why Americans are pitching tents in parks from coast to coast. Why they're risking arrest and injury. Why, when they're gassed, pepper-sprayed and dragged away in zip-ties, they go back.
And why, if you cheer them on as you commute to a crappy job, care for your kids or an aging parent, or otherwise deal with the obligations of everyday life, you should show your support for them.
Here's what to do.
1. Make a sign supporting the Occupy movement. Let it reflect its commitment to peaceful resistance.
2. Have someone snap a photo of you with the sign.
3. Email your photo to otherwiseoccupied433@gmail.com so I can post it on the blog.
As someone who spent a day holding my homemade sign in Liberty Plaza, and holds another at my city's weekly solidarity protest, I can tell you that it's fun to make a sign and liberating to hold it high. Especially if you typically occupy a black hole of fear about your future and our nation's turmoil, barely hidden by a crust of normality.
Push past that fear. Imagine your sign. What do you want it to say? How do you want our country to change, what do you want it to be, how might you contribute to that vision? It's a creative act, this sign-making thing. You tap into your power and our collective power as a people. You dream again of possibilities and potential.
Get others into the act, too. Meet with a friend and make your signs together. Help your kid or a chronically ill friend or family member make their own sign.
Remember, too, that your small action sends a message to the occupiers: We can't be there, but we're with you. We are you.
Just as important, the occupiers are us. My husband's Facebook friends are us, too. We're all we the people, and the people, united, will never be defeated. Hopefully, my husband's nay-saying friends, and yours, will dare to believe this.
Hope to post your sign soon.
I'd like to acknowledge the creators of WeAreThe99Percent, http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/... which inspired http://otherwise-occupied.tumblr.com/.