Let Sunny Ways Occupy Us

Justin is in the house

A thoughtful deconstruction of the Occupy movement from 2011 reveals the confusion that keeps people from meaningful political action.  This insider's account of what caused the Wall Street movement to fade away isn't so surprising.  Newcomers to social activism often shun the tools that allow dissenters to disrupt the status quo.  It also wasn't astonishing that it happened in the U.S., where the republic's usual mechanisms are so tightly seized.

Since October 19 our own form of parliamentary democracy has shown it still has the flexibility to break the grip of the vested interests.  Working within the parliamentary framework that Winston Churchill called the worst form of government except for all the others, the new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has declared that it will use the parliament itself to consult Canadians on how to reform their first-past-the-post electoral system.  The self-interested are already starting to howl.  Like their recently-deposed leader so often did, they would rather dump the conventions that  have sustained this nation through war, depression and existential crisis.

Improbable as the new Trudeau mantra may be, it offers possibilities for change. Until somebody conceives of a better system, it makes no sense to abandon the procedures that history has bestowed.  But if tweaking can make them work better -- that is, to respect principles of democracy that vest power in  the  majority instead of  a privileged few -- why not support it?.  

          

Brinkmanship Blues

While North Americans are staring over the precipice, it’s worth reflecting on how we came to the brink.  The credit collapse that began in 2008 occurred when too many Wall Street whiz kids arrived at the same calculation:  that the smart money was on anyone who could arrange to make a few points by betting on defaults and then selling their bets.  Credit default swaps became the rage just long enough to crash the gasbag of false hopes that sustained an economy held aloft by expectations of perpetual growth.

Meanwhile, most economists were caught up in the same assumptions.  They figured on endless upward curves that held an unbreakable allure for anyone whose own fortunes were based on the same assumptions. Throughout the last half of the 20^th Century in America, the economy was held aloft by vested interest as surely as it was by any superior ability to predict human behaviour. 

The whole house of glass, held up by hubris, is about to come down.  Political leaders who depend on mass support seem unprepared to make the selfless and unpopular  decisions required to set things right.  They have no models to fall back on to pattern their responses.  The New Deal-style solutions that propelled America out of the Depression under Roosevelt have proven to be insufficient under Obama.  It looks like we’re heading back into recession – or worse -- despite all the stimulus of the past two years.

With the global scope of the problem now confronting us, America can’t buy the rest of the Western world out of trouble.  China or India can’t be expected to do so either, 

As David Cameron told the House of Commons in Ottawa yesterday, it’s a “DEBT” problem we’re really facing – not a credit crunch, as it was called the last time.  People can blame the tight-fisted banks for their misfortune – and there is plenty of blame to go around among all those who extended easy credit to people who didn’t know how deep a hole they were digging, or seem to care.

But it comes down to the realization that the same individual choices that created such a mess will have to dig us out of this one.  Debt-driven consumerism held the postwar economy aloft because people who were bombarded with marketing hype believed their bubble would never burst. 

When it comes right down to it, sovereign debt is a collectivity of personal choices.  National sovereignty is little more than the aggregation of individual rights, bounded by historic geographic hopes. 

In the end, the same stiffened resolve that carved new nations out of wilderness homesteads will be the only salvation.  It’s going to be painful but pure and simple to behold.