12-4-11 for pdf OCCUPY

[Pages:8]"OCCUPY!?!"

A sermon Delivered by Rev. Bruce Southworth, Senior Minister of The Community Church of NY Unitarian Universalist, Sunday, December 4, 2011

Readings

(1) James Luther Adams (1901-1995), Unitarian Universalist Minister and Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard Divinity School:

"The meaning of life is fulfilled only by those who enter into the struggle for justice in history and community."

Human existence "is always comprised of both the given fact and the responsible act."

(2) Excerpts from "The Round" ? Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning... this morning I saw light kiss the silk of the roses... A curious gladness shook me.

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow when a new life begins for me, as it does each day, as it does each day.

(3) "From Zero to 20,000 On Wall Street ? The Din of Inequity", Lou Dubose, Washington Spectator, November 1, 2011

DURING THE EVENING general assembly in Zuccotti Park on lower Broadway, a woman who appeared to be in her fifties addressed me in a soft voice. "I think there's a paradigm shift going on here," she said. "This is not the old model of organizing. It's a new model full of civility, cloaked in civility."

"What really hit me," she said, "was the young woman at last night's general assembly, who said we are experiencing a paradigm change. That, and the civility."

The woman asked me not to use her name. She said she stops by the Occupy Wall Street protest every day, after she leaves her office at a federal regulatory agency, where she works as a lawyer. She asked me not to name the agency she works for. .... {see for next 4 brief paragraphs]

Lou Dubose concludes, "Something is happening here: a critically important attempt to hold unaccountable power accountable."

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"OCCUPY!?!"

The Occupy Wall Street Movement has a signature graphic that I have read about repeatedly, but I did not actually look it up on the Internet until last week.

Its poster consists of three images. First is the iconic sculpture known as the Wall Street Charging Bull, which is downtown near Bowling Green, 2 blocks south of the Stock Exchange. That muscular, charging bull with its two large horns is eleven feet tall and sixteen feet long. It weighs more than 7000 pounds. It is a symbol of financial prosperity, bull markets, money being made by the investing class.

Standing upon the back of the bull in Occupy Wall Street's poster is a dancer in ballerina's pose, a pose known as (an) Attitude I believe, seemingly perfectly still on one leg on the back of the bull, with the other leg outstretched and bent behind her with one arm raised skyward, and the other gesturing to the side. The dancer is a member of the Boston Ballet.

Visually, it's a conundrum and contradiction: "the dancer, unbearably light, (and utterly still); the bull heavy... muscular" (and charging).1

A statuesque dancer... on the Wall Street Bull... and in the background, the third image of this composite is a more distant line of police officers in riot gear, wearing gas masks and in various stages of advancing. The white cloud background behind the dancer turns out I guess to be tear gas they must have unleashed.

Initially, the poster asked, What is our One Demand?

Then answered: Occupy Wall Street/September 17th/ Bring Tent.

The second image that I begin with is that of the folk-singer, activist Arlo Guthrie, singing by a lake for parents and children at what seems to be an intimate, outdoor concert. The song is titled, "A Patriot's Dream." It begins

Living now here but for fortune, Placed by fate's mysterious schemes Who'd believe that we're the ones asked To try to rekindle the patriot's dreams....

Ah but perhaps too much is being asked of too few You and your children with nothing to do Hear us now for alone we can't seem To try to rekindle the patriot's dreams.

Broadcast journalist and minister Bill Moyers invokes the song, and then asks: "Who, in these cynical times, with democracy on the ropes and America's body politic

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pounded again and again by the blows of organized money ? who would dream such a radical thing?"

To which he answers, "Look around."2

Look around, not just here but in hundreds of sites across our country and now across the globe.

A little more than two months ago when I reported on my first visit to Zuccotti Park, the home for the Wall Street Occupiers, I spoke of the energy, the peaceful witness, the vision, and the dozens, maybe hundreds, of personal posters with their passion, creativity and insistence on justice.

One of my favorite posters again: "Even math is on our side. 99% > 1%."

The movement's central claim, sometimes laughed at in the media at least initially, is, "The one thing we all have in common is that We Are the 99% that will not tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%".3

This morning I turn to an emerging narrative within and about our culture... a meaning-giving story, a life-enhancing story with social and cultural dimensions, potentially politically transforming power...which also has within it potent spiritual power.

I turn again to that matter of shifting the dominant narrative of our society, and the spiritual and religious exercise outlined by theologian Walter Brueggeman. He reminds us that we live our lives enmeshed in scripts written by social custom, culture, and prevailing power of various institutions, AND he reminds us that these dominant and domineering stories of power, prestige, profit, and piggishness are not requirements, not ultimate, not unchangeable.

I remind you again of theologian Walter Brueggeman's analysis of our American reality, the prevailing narrative: "the dominant script of both selves and communities in our society, for both liberals and conservatives, is the script of the therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism that permeates every dimension of our common life."

"... therapeutic [that is, feel-good], technological, consumerist militarism that permeates every dimension of our common life."

Something out of balance... dangerous.... So many things....

This dominant script, among many, many oppressions, includes a statecorporate capitalism that deepens inequality, which in these recent times has been challenged by a counter-cultural script: One that says, "We Are the 99%." Within that simple observation is the proclamation of power to be wielded for profound change.

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As people seeking to be faithful to giving ourselves to something larger than ourselves ? to building the Beloved Community, part of our task is defining and living a counter-cultural script, reading the signs of the times, and naming what is corrupt, abusive, demeaning of the human spirit and body, and divisive. Then living and giving ourselves to what heals, holds, comforts, unites, and transforms.

This new narrative, in bud, as so many of us had hoped, is changing the conversation in our land. The bank-caused mortgage crisis and recession have helped open our eyes ? to look around ? and to become more fully aware of the past 30 years of extreme wealth being held ever more expansively by the few, the 1%, and as Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has noted, especially by the top one tenth of one percent.

Last May another Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote an article titled, "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%." He noted that the top 1% earn 25% of income in the country and own 40% of the wealth. He concluded saying,

The top 1 percent has the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.4

Last summer editors of a Vancouver-based counter-cultural, anti-consumerist magazine called Adbusters created the Occupy Wall Street poster and called for the rally for September 17. Other groups were also planning fall demonstrations, and over the summer local activists "began meeting in public parks to plan." They were hoping for 20,000 in the streets at the Stock Exchange. About 2000 showed up. Prevented from camping on Wall Street, they followed Plan B, and about 150 moved into Zuccotti Park.

Not initially given much press notice, the occupation generated violent police responses to largely non-violent protesters, sparked news coverage, and led to police limitations on news coverage, and thus more coverage. The movement went viral across the globe to 900 cities and four continents. "Young women pepper-sprayed without provocation, teenagers slammed to the pavement, about 700 arrested on Brooklyn Bridge... each episode brought more cameras, more sympathy, more people and more momentum."5

Why have some joined? As one woman at an occupy march in Iowa reported on her sign, "I Can't Afford to Buy a Politician So I Bought This Sign."

Russell Simmons, founder of DefJam, no doubt a member of the 1%, has been a frequent presence at Zuccotti Park and donated funds, saying it was his "moral duty" to "give what you get." He reports that when he saw that same sign about buying politicians, he embraced the struggle. He is now on a nation-wide grass roots tour

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promoting a Constitutional amendment that would "ban private donations to candidates running for federal public office."6

Film-maker Michael Moore appeared on CNN about ten days after the beginning of the movement and observed:

The main thing is, number one, is that the rich are getting away with a huge crime. Nobody has been arrested on Wall Street for the crash of 2008. They're not paying their fair share of the taxes. And now with the Citizens United case of the Supreme Court, they get to buy politicians up out in the open.

How many more millions of people do they think they're going to abuse like that before people start to stand up?7

I found a few other voices of interest. Deepak Chopra, the popular New Age selfhelp counselor, has observed: "Despite the [NY] Times's finger-wagging that the movement is often muddled and misinformed, none of that is the point. The point is justice."

Suze Orman, a popular TV financial advisor, is more expansive:

To deride the movement because it has yet to formulate a welldelineated platform says plenty more about the critics than the protestors. Revolutions tend to be messy, especially in the early going. The unholy alliance of much of Congress, K Street and Wall Street that has set the agenda from day one of the financial crisis is simply trying to protect its turf by casting aspersions on the ad hoc nature of the movement to date. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything less. After all, there's no way they could stage a substantive rebuttal based on facts.

Suze Orman! You go, girlfriend!

How about the CEO of Citigroup Vikram Pandit? What does an insider like him think? He says, it's "completely understandable", along with hedge fund manager Jim Chanos who offers, "people are angry; they feel the game is rigged."

One more, the manager of the world's largest bond fund: Bill Gross offers, "Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they're fighting back after 30 years of being shot at."8

So, what is Occupy Wall Street beyond a reaction, a statement of moral outrage? Certainly, it has become a global phenomenon, and more significantly it is truly an emerging social movement. Among other things it seems to reflect on some deep level a previously rather quiet "internal monologue" within much of the American public.9

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As a social movement, it seeks to be populist, consensus-based, radically democratic with its daily or twice daily General Assemblies, and racially inclusive. It reflects some elements of anarchist ideology ? that is, the best form of government is no government ? but by no means is it ideologically narrow, nor especially ideological at all. It seems to be doing a really good job of summoning a wide spectrum from the left and center without succumbing to the "fatal noose of infighting."10

Theologian and social ethicist Gary Dorrien, who has spoken here, emphasizes its emergence as a social movement and its focus on "radical democracy, radical hospitality and a distinct blend of nonviolence and outrage."11

That Occupy Wall Street is a social movement is somewhat confounding at times to those in progressive organizations, the traditional union/community/faith coalitions, intent on affecting legislation, elections, public policy, and narrow issues. All those things are important... very important ...very, very important, and a social movement can end up and should end up mobilizing individuals for all these.... But that is not its first purpose. Its purpose is ... well it is to change the public conversation, to hold unaccountable power accountable in public discourse, to infiltrate the culture with values and vision of an alternative script... values and vision that are already a part of our nation... which are in fact as Arlo Guthrie's song offers, "the patriot's dream."

And regarding leadership, "one of the precursor groups" is called Anonymous, which offers this vision:

If you are looking to contact one of our leaders, go to the nearest mirror and peer deeply into it. It may take some time, but eventually, one of our leaders will appear with answers to all of your questions.12

Trust your self, your spirit, your creativity, as we Unitarian Universalists affirm.

"Be a light unto yourself; hold true to yourself," as the Buddha counseled.

The occupiers, here and across the nation, are now being driven out, and/or prevented from continuing their occupations in the same way. They are being evicted, yet it is profoundly true that you cannot evict an idea.

To be sure there are also plenty of public policy and legislative steps that can be taken to prevent further watering down of the Dodd-Frank bill, to strengthen the Volcker rule, and to insure that we no longer have any banks that "are too big to fail."

Again, as the Adbusters writers argue, what is at hand, what is needed are "mental resuscitations."13 And of course, I would add spiritual resuscitations ? values of fairness, interdependence, compassion, truthfulness, justice, equity... all of which we seek to incarnate here and share with those beyond our doors.

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Many of us have visited Zuccotti Park in support, have marched, witnessed, or donated... We are working with one of its teams to see if offering showers here is helpful. As a congregation, we affirmed the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's statement of support.

By way of religious response, an ancient one, I lift up the Babylonian and Hebrew affirmation of the Jubilee year. These were "'clean slate' edicts when excessive debt accumulation threatened social crisis." For the Hebrews a wiping away of debt could occur every seven years; sometimes every fifty years, as these ancient societies sought to balance moral and economic needs. Some have proposed something like this, akin to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "bank holiday" in 1933 that led to massive bank re-ordering, adjustment of loans, recapitalization by the government, and ultimate return of banks to the private sector.14

Bill Moyers in a powerful article speaks about the tremendous success that has been possible during progressive populist periods of our history ? things such as "legally ordained minimum wages, child labor laws, workers' safety and compensation laws, pure foods and safe drugs, Social Security, (Voting Rights,) Medicare and rules that promote competitive markets over monopolies and cartels."15 He offers that history as hope that we can insist upon and create change again.

And the working out of creative polices and legislation still depends upon popular outrage and affirmation of core values ? worthy things to occupy our hearts, souls, and the work of our hands.

At Zuccotti Park, one of the early signs declared, "The Beginning is Near."

Perhaps, it is now true as has been suggested, "The Beginning is Here."16

Last month, an editorial in the Christian Century magazine spoke about this "Powerful Occupation" and concluded what people of faith know:

Whatever its explicit message, Occupy Wall Street has made a powerful statement with its very mode of existence. Newcomers don't face an ideological litmus test; their protest signs aren't edited. People of diverse backgrounds share food; nurses share their skills; everyone has an equal voice. In other words, the group is making a democratic witness by its behavior, even if its message isn't always unified. This approach might be foreign to political operatives and political reporters, but ... [religious communities and people of faith] should find it quite familiar.17

We have before us in these troubling, challenging, exciting times... contradictions and collisions, a difficult balancing act.... An image of the ballerina perfectly balanced and peacefully on top of the raging bull of Wall Street... police in riot gear in the background.... Arresting... provocative!

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Akin to Taoism's Yin Yang symbol, dynamic tensions... flow and creativity... possibilities....a new narrative ? a new counter-cultural script emerging....

A new beginning is here.... We Are the 99%.... We are here to bless each other and to bless the world....What will you do to help make this the dominant script of our society?

Ah but perhaps too much is being asked of too few You and your children with nothing to do Hear us now for ... [together We can] rekindle the patriot's dreams.

1 Washington Spectator, 11/1/11 2 "How Wall Street Occupied America", Bill Moyers, The Nation, 11/21/2011 3 "The Case Against Wall Street", Gary Dorrien, Christian Century, 11/15/11, p. 22 4 Vanity Fair, May 2011 5 "From Occupy Wall Street...", Nathan Schneider, The Nation, 10/31/11 6 Huffington Post, 11/23/11 7 Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN, 9/26/11 8 "We are All Occupiers Now", Kate Pollitt, The Nation, 11/7/11 9 Jim Wallis, Sojourners, 12/2011 10 "The Audacity of Occupy Wall Street", Richard Kim, The Nation, 11/21/11 11 "The Case Against Wall Street", Gary Dorrien, Christian Century, 11/15/11 12 "The Beginning is Here", Jonathan Schell, The Nation, 11/7/2011 13 "In Zuccotti Park", Michael Greenberg, NY Review of Books, 11/10/11 14 "Debt Jubilee, American Style," William Greider, The Nation, 11/14/11 15 "How Wall Street Occupied America", Bill Moyers, The Nation, 11/21/201 16 Jonathan Schell, The Nation, 11/7/2011 17 "Powerful Occupation", Christian Century, 11/1/11

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