Friday, October 28, 2011

Somthing's Happening Here

There are no signs that the Occupy Wall Street movement is going away soon. It has inspired offshoot protests in major and minor cities across the nation, as well as sparking a global outcry. It's tapped into a worldwide vein of frustration and anger with I'm-mad-as-hell-and-I'm-not-going-to-take-it-anymore fervor. The movement has attracted the unemployed, the foreclosed-upon, the laid-off and the uninsured. It's served as a magnet for people of various political stripes, all united in their identification as the 99% who aren't benefiting from bail-outs, or reaping colossal financial rewards by playing fast and loose corporate games. Parents who marched for social equality, participated in anti-war demonstrations, or otherwise lifted their voices against the status quo are bringing their children along for the ride. It's the quintessential teachable moment. Tykes too young to remember they attended will one day tell their kids they were there.

Scenes from the front lines are reminiscent of the late Sixties, complete with cops trying to quell the mounting momentum with tear gas, mass arrests and conflicting accusations of violence on either side. My twenty-three-year-old son went to the Occupy Boston gathering last week. He was surprised at how well organized the event was, complete with job assignments for sanitation and safety & security. Also ongoing yoga and meditation classes. As for the news media's assertion that there was no consistent message coming from the movement, he said, "I think there's been a willful misunderstanding by the media as to the unifying statement emerging from the protesters. It's clear they're against an economic structure that serves the top 1% to the detriment of everyone else." Regardless of the disparate reasons that have drawn the participants into the mix, there is a striking commonality of purpose: We are the Little Guys and we're getting stiffed.

The hue and cry is long overdue. All the talk in the last presidential election about putting the concerns of Main Street over those of Wall Street has amounted to zilch. The average working Joe is still struggling against increasingly insurmountable odds, while CEOs of mega corporations continue to rake in obscene profits. None of the scoundrels have been prosecuted for ripping off the American taxpayer. No one has gone to jail. Jake Tapper of ABC News asked Obama about this fact at a recent news conference. Obama's tepid response on the question of accountability for Wall Street executives was that "a lot of stuff wasn't necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless." Well, it's time for those immoral, inappropriate people who've been reckless for so long to answer for their unbridled greed.

We don't know exactly where the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon is going, except that it's growing in size and scope on a daily basis. In viewing photos from the events I came across one that struck me: the sight of a young woman waving an American flag. The movement is rooted in our oldest constitutional traditions of peaceful assembly, freedom of speech and dissent. Any calls on the Right for action to stop it should be met with renewed passion and solidarity. The ignored and shafted have-nots are rebelling. The whole world is watching, again. Something's not only happening here. Something's gotta give.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Turn and Face the Changes

With apologies to David Bowie for paraphrasing his hit song, here are some thoughts on change... Sometimes the smaller, more subtle ones are harder to deal with than big, seismic shifts. I grew up addicted to soap operas, in particular All My Children, which was yanked by ABC a few months ago. I watched the last episode but it just wasn't up to par. The Seventies and Eighties were the heyday of Pine Valley; Erica Kane, Tad & Dixie, Phoebe and Langley, and Richard Simmons' aerobic workouts at the town gym. Another female favorite, Oprah (a late afternoon staple of the days moms aren't shuttling children to every imaginable activity) no longer appears at 4 o' clock.

In 2011, as recently observed with the passing of Steve Jobs, cutting-edge devices and gadgets make their debuts only to be upstaged by "smarter" newcomers within weeks or less. Facebook and Twitter keep the population in endless, frenzied commentary on what's happening to everyone at every moment. No sooner have we adjusted to the "very latest," a fresh take on what we've just absorbed rushes in to alter the previous impression. I find all this institutionalized chaos hard to abide. Sure, I buy into some of technology's split-second sound and sight strobe light. Much of it I avoid, abstain from, or generally disdain. Call me Luddite Lite.

In terms of the Big Picture, change is, as we've all been reminded by parents, mentors and drinking buddies, the one constant. Ain't no getting around it, even if one manages to subvert change or distract oneself from it, you never leave home without it. And home, in both the elemental and Thomas Wolfe way, is a staging ground for the changes we often wish would never come. To wit, how is it that two of my trio of merry pranksters, with skinned knees and uncomplicated dispositions, have grown into what we call, after they hit 21, adults? "Just stop getting bigger," I beg my 17-year-old, remembering the wide-eyed optimist who now wrestles with adolescent angst.

From the vast amount written on the subject of the maturation process, be it a child-rearing guide, midlife crisis self help book, or philosophical tome, one would think Homo sapiens would have mastered it by now, evolutionarily-speaking. Which is not to disregard those who actually have a handle on maturity. Some rare folk are born with a tendency toward it or acquire a knack. But in my humble opinion, a majority of people have few clues. That's why humans have goals like self-actualization or becoming a boddhisatva. Most of us fight change tooth and claw, and are therefore deemed stubborn, while those who embrace it get labeled visionaries. Change is the ultimate double-edged sword. Its benefits or deficits are seldom realized in the short run, making us dodge the unknown with clever or clumsy tactics.

What springs to mind is the psychiatric list of the top ten life stressors: Death, divorce, moving, changing jobs, etc. Nobody sails through any of these unscathed. For those who weather such upheavals with grace, my hat's off to you. For me, I greet many transformational life events with equal parts dread and ecstasy, sometimes simultaneously. At a relatively ripe Boomer age, I've discovered that when we at last surrender to a variegated, thorny metamorphosis, we frequently breath a sigh of relief, pat ourselves on the back and utter, "Well, that wasn't so bad after all." Meanwhile, I admit, since it's Friday, you'll find me anchored to the sofa tonight, surfing through the MLB playoffs and bad cable movies. A mere lump of protoplasm. Tomorrow it's time, as Bowie sang, to "turn and face the strain" of those "ch-ch-ch-changes."