Why the Occupy Movement will win

I'm on the theme of class warfare for a bit of time, and I'm been watching and thinking about the entire Occupy Movement and how its doing. I know lately the Mainstream Media has gone out of its way to ignore it. They covered the first few months and the times the police have gone in to throw all those smelly hippies out of various parks, but the Occupy people and the Occupy Movement is still going strong.

From what we can gather from the dispatches, its looking not that good. After all, the apparatus of the State is still beating people to near death and tossing as many of them as possible in jail. The 1% still acts like their running the place and their lackeys, the various governments of the world are keeping in step with their orders. Plus there are many who say that the gains, such as they are, from the Occupy movement have lost a lot of momentum. At least that`s what they would have you believe. We need to remember that for the most part, media outlets are there to make sure the point of view of the ownership group is expressed. The best example would be something like the Wall Street Journal. The owner, Rupert Murdoch hates Google and if there is any bad press to be generated about Google it will be reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Look around, its not going so hot. But ultimately that may be the sign we`re all looking for, the complacency There is a sense of confidence that the worst of the protests are behind and they are still in their jobs. However that fails in one point, governments and the 1% are scared. They are so scared they are doing all in their power to deflect. Case in point, the saber rattling going on against Iran and Syria. The Western powers would like nothing more then a military conflict because that`s a great way to fill up the news. Plus it makes money for those vested interests. As well, it sends a lot of young people away to get maimed and killed, the potential leaders of any and all protest movements get hauled off half a world away to get blown to pieces. Please understand, this is not against the soldiers, they are brave men and women called to do a ridiculously amazing job and they do it. The problem is, their governments let them down every time.

Their fear can be found in the fact that a young student was beaten nearly to death by the police and the UK and he faces charges in court. Then again, this is the sort of action that does ultimately back fire against the establishment. They will go to excess and usually go after the wrong group or people and this will be their downfall.

Plus, the excesses of the 1% will become greater because they will be self-satisfied, they will feel protected by the authorities, and so they will do what they want to do, to ever a greater degree. Case and point has to be Dominique Strauss Kahn, the poster boy of the excesses of the 1%. He had everything, wealth, power, was a rising star and then, he decided to treat women like he treated the third world, as objects to use and abuse. Now, he faces even more potential of jail time and his political career is in total tatters. It continues to grow for him too. He is joining a list of former high flyers and the power that are running into problems.

Governments too are beginning to fear. For the most part they are reacting with violence, because that`s the natural result of fear. But they are also afraid of losing power. Some governments are trying to hold on with the tried and true, and by that I mean the last couple of years, of hammering the lowest members of society- because they have almost no rights and certainly no power- so you go after the weak. However, this will be excessive as well and will soon backfire.

But I also think the Occupy Movement will win for another reason, because some where there is one police officer who is beginning to doubt what he or she is doing. Think about the police for a moment, their duty is to Serve and Protect. Who are they serving and who are they protecting, it's supposed to be the community. But the community is the people who are protesting. I think that's why the governments want their police force in riot gear, because it makes them not look like police. It makes them look like Imperial Stormtroopers. When you see a police officer in uniform, you see someone who is there to serve, help and protect you, when you see one in riot gear, you see someone who wants to hurt you bad.



But somewhere there is an officer who is beginning to question all this, he or she looks in front and realizes that this is the community they made a vow to protect. They are not called to protect the pampered 1% who don't pay taxes so don't pay the salary, or the politicians who call on the police to do their dirty work, it's the people with the signs and the songs they are called to protect. In that fleeting moment they have the moment Vaclav Havel wrote about in his brilliant essay, "Power of the Powerless". They become like the greengrocer who refuses to display the sign "power to the people" in his shop window:

The greengrocer has not committed a simple, individual offense, isolated in its own uniqueness, but something incomparably more serious. By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. He has broken the exalted façade of the system and exposed the real, base foundations of power. He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor in fact is naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world.

When that moments comes, the officer will turn to the next officer and ask "Why are we doing this?". They will have doubt, not of their calling or service but why are they dressed up in riot gear and why has the order been given to attack a group of people who are unarmed and only seek to yell a few slogans in the hope of getting their points across to a government and culture that is isolating them. The next officer will either give the book answer or will look at the same line of people and answer the only honest way 'I don't know, why are we doing this?'. Let me tell you that will spread through the line of police, each one will face that moment of existential crisis and not come up with a good answer.

At that moment, when the call is given to charge the line, the police will move towards the protesters, but the visors will be up and the shield will be at their side, they will join. Then you will see fear in the eyes of the 1% and their government lackeys. Because that is when the revolution will truly begin.

And remember this: