To find populism flowering today, take a road trip across any stretch of America, or take a gander around your community. (File)
Mass
movements don't just appear out of the fog, fully grown, structured and
mobilized. They emerge in fits and starts over many years, just as the
American Revolution did, and as did the Populists' original idea of a
"cooperative commonwealth." A successful people's movement has to take
the long view, to learn about itself as it builds, nurture the culture
of its people, take chances, create fun for all involved, adapt to
failures and successes, stay steadfast to its principles, have a stoic
tenacity — and organize, organize, organize. A little serendipity helps,
too, so grab it when you can.
In 2011 a serendipitous moment for the populist cause rumbled across
our land, though later it was widely (and wrongly) dismissed as a
failure. That September, hundreds of young people, loosely aligned with
an upstart group called Occupy Wall Street, took over Zuccotti Park in
New York City and audaciously camped out on the front stoop of the elite
banksters who'd crashed our economy. Occupy's depiction of the
1-percent vs. the 99-percent struck a chord with the unemployed,
underemployed, and the knocked-down middle class. Occupy encampments
quickly sprang up in some 200 cities and towns from coast to coast.
The uprising was ridiculed (even by many progressive groups) as
naive, undisciplined and "not serious." Who's in charge? Where's their
strategic plan? Why don't they have position papers? All this carping
about Occupy failing to produce the usual trappings of a
Washington-focused interest group missed two essential points the young
people were making: (1) such trappings are not producing any change, and
(2) we're not an interest group, we're a rebellion.
Rebellion has to come first. As it builds, structure and process will
follow in due time. The great strength of Occupy is that it was a
genuine, non-institutional, social, non-wonkish, morally compelling, and
spontaneous stand against the culture of inequality that the moneyed
powers are imposing. It touched people in deeper ways than issue
politics will ever do. And the great achievement of Occupy is that it
prompted a cultural shift that turned Wall Street's barons into social
pariahs and put the issue of inequality directly at the center of our
nation's political debate.
To find populism flowering today, take a road trip across any stretch
of America, or take a gander around your community. You will find a
splendid array of ordinary folks rebelling against the bosses, bankers,
big shots and bastards who dare subjugate us to their greed, including:
— Mad-as-hellers in dozens of states, often in isolated rural areas,
now form an increasingly effective guerrilla network to combat the
massive invasion by global oil and gas giants to frack our land. Last
November, three Colorado cities beat back Big Oil's money and the lies
of some of their own political officials in a vote to ban fracking in
their areas. New York State and more than 100 other cities have imposed
moratoria or bans on this corporate plundering.
— Putting a specific face on Occupy's theme of gross economic
inequality, a nationwide revolt of exploited fast-food workers erupted
last summer, gaining the high ground against McDonald's and other
poverty-wage profiteers. While Washington sticks to the miserly federal
minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, grassroots campaigns are elevating state
and local minimums to $10 an hour and above. Last month, with much
pressure from the outside agitators, President Obama signed an executive
order, which says the minimum wage for federal contract workers is
$10.10 an hour.
— Two huge corporate/government cabals — the sovereignty-sucking
Trans-Pacific Partnership and the NSA's secret, Orwellian program of
spying on every American - are coming unraveled, thanks to public
outrage that has united a left-right coalition in Congress. Meanwhile,
the crucial populist struggle to salvage our democracy from the Supreme
Court's scurrilous Citizens United edict, quietly continues to gain
ground with 16 states and over 200 local jurisdictions passing proposals
in support of a constitutional repeal of the Court's ruling.
There's so much more underway, such as placing a Robin Hood tax on
Wall Street speculators; a surge in co-ops as a democratic alternative
to corporate control; getting Monsanto's genetically altered organisms
out of our food supply; a vibrant and positive campaign by immigrants
themselves for immigrant rights; battling giants such as Disney World
and Walmart to win paid sick leave days for low-wage workers; freeing
college students from Wall Street's loan sharks. All of these and so
many more are the sprouting seeds of a widespread, flourishing Populist
movement. The moment is ripe to bond them into something larger.
© 2014 Creators
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book,
Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow,
Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on
behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families,
environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
