The Occupation’s emphasis on egalitarianism

I could think of a thousand ways I’d rather spend a Saturday morning. I was standing at People’s Park, listening to a woman shout and people wiggle their fingers like they were spazzing out at show choir.

Like a camp counselor, she shouted, “We will go to Chase Bank,” and everybody repeated it back to her. So off they went, marching to take back the streets of Bloomington.

“Tax the rich, feed the poor,” they shouted. “This is what democracy looks like.” As far as chants go, it ain’t up to “Hey, hey, LBJ” yet.

But all around me, people seemed sincere and motivated. True, I did meet a homeless guy who might have just joined Occupy Bloomington when it took control of People’s Park, but most people seemed to believe what they were saying.

Not surprisingly, the cardboard signs focused on bailouts and the idea that corporations aren’t people. Both people I interviewed mentioned Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections, in their reasons for attending the march.

Of course, Citizens United doesn’t declare that corporations are people any more than Obamacare creates death panels. Due to my extensive training in the social sciences, I concluded that Citizens United is an ideological symbol for something deeper. Exactly what that was didn’t occur to me until we got to Chase Bank.

Across the street, a business major was staging what might have been the lamest counter-protest I’ve ever seen. He was fighting with a protestor about the American Dream. The counter-protestor insisted the American Dream was to go into business and make money, while the occupier rebutted that it was to have an equal shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I wouldn’t know because I’m not ancient, but didn’t we use to agree on these things? Once upon a time, I was taught America was a fusion of individualism and egalitarianism.

It’s right there in the traditional American Dream that someone coming here has an equal opportunity to work hard, make a good life and climb the corporate ladder. Somewhere along the way, we stopped believing in that. That’s where the past four years come from.

What I think almost everyone is missing is that deep down, the Occupy movement is really about radical egalitarianism in response to the Tea Party’s radical individualism. This is a similar ideal to the Citizens United decision.

This is why the movement doesn’t have leaders and governs by finger-wiggling. This is what “We are the 99 percent” means. I don’t know if the Occupy movement is going to ‘succeed,’ but the speed at which the movement grew indicates that this country is more polarizable than ever.

America today is like a train with two engines going in opposite directions. If you want to figure out which way to go, ask yourself if you’re more of an individualist or an egalitarian.

I have to admit that despite wanting to be, I wasn’t inspired to join the Occupy movement Saturday morning. But if someday I’m forced to pick a side in the war, I’m with the finger-wigglers.

Just don’t schedule me until Saturday afternoon.

­— sidfletc@indiana.edu