Remember a couple years back when about 3,000 raucous demonstrators crowded into Westlake Park for a permitted rally in support of health-care reform? No? That’s because unless you were there, you probably never even knew it happened. One of the largest political demonstrations to hit our downtown in years garnered almost zero media coverage.
Yet a few months later when, at most, a couple hundred angry teabaggers gathered on a street corner to mark their party’s anniversary, the Seattle Times devoted a reporter, a photographer, and 20 column inches to the celebration.
Yes, the Tea Party garnered a disproportionate chunk of media coverage and mindshare, partially because much of our corporate media ownership sympathizes with its cause, if not downright instigates it. But say what you want about the teabaggers, they also told a pretty good story. Not a particularly coherent story, or a well-informed one, but a good story nonetheless, in that they never shied away from the narrative primacy of conflict. And since reporting is at its core storytelling, conflict is hard for reporters to resist.
Sound familiar?
That, of course, is the whole key to the Occupy movement’s media success: Intentionally or not, it is a movement entirely grounded in conflict. Its name is an active verb that implies conflict, and its motto a constant reminder of the economic conflict between the 1 percent and everyone else. The ongoing battles to establish and maintain its urban encampments may appear to be a distraction from Occupy’s message of Wall Street corruption and income inequality, yet these standoffs serve as a physical manifestation of the symbolic conflict that has always been at the movement’s core. And of course the occupiers’ many injuries suffered at the hands of fist-throwing, bicycle-shoving, stun-grenade-wielding police—the pepper-spraying of clergy, peaceful UC Davis students, 84-year-old Dorli Rainey, and at least one pregnant woman (who has since said that she miscarried)—all provide audiences with conflict as compelling as anything you’ll find on TV or, better yet, on YouTube.
Skip forward to November 17, when many of the groups that organized the ignored 2009 health-care rally borrowed the mantle and tactics of Occupy to shut down a goddamn bridge. Helicopters flew, TV news vans descended, and their message of jobs and infrastructure repair became front-page news. “University Bridge seized in rush-hour rally for jobs,” the Seattle Times headline declared.
Why? Because it was a damn good story.
So to all of you who claim to support the Occupy movement’s objectives, but disdain its tactics, I ask you: What exactly don’t you get about civil disobedience? Shutting down bridges and intersections are an inconvenience for ordinary citizens, you argue, while camping in public spaces is an eyesore and a public-safety hazard.
Really? So what would you rather they do? Apply for a permit and then orderly assemble in Westlake Park to politely recite their grievances (though not during the holiday shopping season, of course, because that might interfere with commerce)?
Been there, done that. It doesn’t work.
But civil disobedience does. Legislators will convene November 28 to close a $2 billion budget gap, and Occupy Olympia will be there to greet them. With many of the cuts expected to once again come at the expense of education, health care, and social programs, it’ll be good for lawmakers to hear from the 99 percent for a change, instead of just the usual corporate lobbyists.
The Occupy movement is a lot of things, some of them good and some of them bad, and there’s no question that their tactics have alienated some of their supporters. But there’s also no arguing with Occupy’s success at shifting the public debate toward issues like jobs and economic justice. 
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GO OWS-Seattle! Never been a fan of civil disobedience, but since so many seem to have so big a problem with the movement, they (we?) must be hitting nerves somewhere. Keep it up!
At the least, perhaps we’ll start taxing the 1% at a fair rate, instead of less than secretaries have to pay.
Speaking of lobbyists, have you ever thought about the disparity of influence caused by the ability of corporate interest groups to make demands on our representatives, while the citizenry have no interest-group representation? All houses of legislature are based on geography of one size or another. What if a geography-based legislative body were balanced by one that represented the citizens based on their own interests? Large but diffuse communities of interest would then have a voice to counter those of the moneyed interests.
I keep saying this over and over. I went to Olympia with my union rank and file, our paid lobbyists and union officers, all I got was the t-shirt and the hat to show for it. Actually I got the chance to say I tried the nice thing, got shown the door, and now carry my Union hat and shirt when I block the door of a bank or march in the street. I tell everyone I meet not to bother legally lobbying our government, I have done it for you, now go back to building your barricade in the street.
Yes, it’s true the Seattle media is so very biased they intentionally decided to ignore an important demonstration because it didn’t fit their notice of ‘correctness’.
I’m curious as to why you would bring it up since it makes the coverage ‘your side’ is getting all the more irrelevant.
My only complaint about Occupy Seattle is that they are taking the “easy” path camp at Seattle Central Community College. Nothing sticks it to the man like putting your cleanup and security bills onto an underfunded community college with students clearly in the 99%. But I guess it’s “easier” for the protesters than for example, camping on the Seattle University campus (with students at least in the upper 5%) or better yet in Lincoln Square or somewhere that might actually be noticed by the 1%. For that reason alone the Seattle movement seems particular weak and unfocused. Is SCCC really the best place to “occupy”, or just the easiest?
@5, I could not agree more. The movement lost it’s initial galvanizing effect by heading east up Pine to camp out on Capitol Hill. Should’ve kept going east to Medina.
Olympia isn’t convening talks specifically in response to occupy, the only discussion about economic imbalances are in coverage about occupy.
Politicians are always discussing jobs and the economy, but there is no real evidence that there has been any real policy shifts towards any of the things occupy is talking about.
Media coverage + the ability to toot your own horn does not = success.
the last I heard out of Olympia was they could not afford to pay attention and the same message has been repeated from congress since technology industries have shifted and leveled off leaving a huge gap that has been made much worse by jobs and infrastructure moving to cheaper and better places to operate.
Texas and South Carolina are molesting Boeing for work and just like Congress Boeing and Washington State Unions cant agree to disagree and move on with keeping the “American way” in Washington State.
like sands in the hour glass so are the days of our lives.
Polity piggy’s can only change the subject and or are totally clueless to industrial America but love the free money so there kids can be rich and political and we remain slaves to a industrial nation built on mostly greed and paranoid delusions and a few nasty insane wars that give that motto “Sometimes its better to be part of a team then to be right” a new meaning.
are beloved Harley Davidson has been face down in the gutter and has had to sell its body to perverts and psychos to stay alive but jumping on the kick start and feeling your dream come to life between your legs and shouting ride hard live free has nothing to do with Occupy Seattle and has everything to do with occupy Seattle.
And what about the other people’s rights, the ones in the cars when you assholes are blocking the streets, or the people just trying to walk to their crappy jobs when you’re blocking the sidewalks? or rioting on 4th avenue, like back in 1999, when i was just trying to get home from work, walking through tear gas and dodging anarchist pricks? Civil disobedience ends where my right to be left alone begins, assholes.