O My America: Demands, Demands

by Lawrence Bush

It’s astounding to see the amount of media attention the “Occupy Wall Street” actions are now getting, beginning with those 700 arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge. Over and over, however, I hear or read commentators complaining that there are no clear demands being expressed, that the politics of the actions are too vague, too mish-moshy.

To which I say: When is the last time you heard so many Americans discussing issues of wealth and greed and fairness and accountability and hardship and responsibility? When is the last time you heard so many of your fellow citizens feeling roused enough to dialogue about these issues, as if the dialogue meant something?

As soon as clear demands are articulated by Occupy Wall Street, the same commentators, along with politicians and other experts, will start explaining why the demands are unrealistic, unachievable, would hurt the marketplace, destroy jobs, and so forth and so on. Americans will be pushed back into sighs and shrugs and despair as the great propaganda machine does its work.

Occupy Wall Street has created a wellspring of democratic dialogue and democratic community-building. We all know what the issues are: the grotesque concentration of wealth while the lives of the great majority are being degraded. No need to provide specific demands at this point — a theme song will do. How about this old one, by Hy Zaret and Louis Singer?

If we could consider each other/ a neighbor, a friend, or a brother/ it could be a wonderful, wonderful world/ It could be a wonderful world.

If there were no poor and the rich were content/ if strangers were welcome wherever they went/ if each of us knew what true brotherhood meant/ It could be a wonderful world.