Spreading the Seeds of Democracy

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know they're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
            ~Tracy Chapman, Talkin ‘Bout a Revolution

Across America people are scribbling signs on cardboard, succinctly telling the stories that must be told. One that catches my attention states that, “94% of winning candidates had more money than their opponents. Is this democracy?” Beginning with a call to Occupy Wall Street, the masses refuse to shape their stance into a single, monolithic set of demands. Instead, there is the refrain: “We are the 99%”

It’s interesting to note that the call to Occupy Wall Street began only nine days after President Obama’s unveiling of his new jobs bill (September 8^th and 17^th respectively). We know how the Tea Party and those on the right moved quickly to shut down any real conversation about the jobs bill – it has been labeled “class warfare” and discarded. Day after day, we witness a democratic system – one built upon a bold Constitution – that has neither capacity nor interest in intelligent and open-minded conversation.

~~~

I am 43 years old. I was born exactly one day before Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed. I am grateful that we shared one day, that he was still around for the day of my birth. But I wonder what exactly was passed on to me upon his death?

Though I grew up through the tail end of the ‘60s, the heat of the Vietnam War and the disgrace of Watergate, I was too young to know those events were taking place. By the time I got to high school, Reagan was president and the content in my U.S. History class stopped cleanly around the time of the assassination of JFK. No need to delve into the messy topics of recent decades that might be open to real debate.

At 18 I left L.A. to attend U.C. Berkeley. Of course, there was no shortage of open debate across the campus and on the steps of Sproul Hall. In many ways, my years in Berkeley were a great introduction to participatory democracy…but increasingly I found something lacking there as well. I found that if anyone chose to take a progressive stance on a single issue, it was assumed that they accepted a full slate of pre-ordained progressive stances. While liberal voices were strong, they were also incredibly dogmatic. Ultimately, I often felt unsafe exploring political issues, as the outspoken on the left also had more interest in being right than in being open.

In the two decades since my Berkeley days, I have watched us elect Clinton, then Bush, and now Obama. As many of us experienced, the months leading up to and immediately following Obama’s election were filled with hope. For me, that hope was about the possibility of real conversation – democratic dialogue – potentially taking place across our nation. I was ready for a new politics of inclusion. But instead, as we now all know, we have witnessed the opposite. In my 25 or so years as an adult, I cannot remember a time of deeper entrenchment, stronger resistance to listening, and all out dismissal of the truth than right now.

~~~

I have not yet been to the occupied portion of San Francisco, but I do hope to go soon. People on the streets of America are not engaging in class warfare, they are fighting for the very principles for which we are asking soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to put their lives on the line. They are fighting for liberty, equality, freedom.

I subscribe to the belief that the need to be right is a form of violence. And I recognize that I often perpetuate this form of violence – most often on my family, but in all sorts of arenas. But when I turn this around, when I ask myself, “What does it look like when we are willing to do without righteousness?” the answer that arises is ‘courage.’

As I drop any semblance of certainty, I can’t claim to know what the future holds. I have no idea what will emerge from the current Occupation movement. After all, at the core of each individual camped out on Wall Street, they are just as human as the bankers, stock traders, corporate board members and politicians who are being vilified. It will be very difficult for this movement to remain open, to avoid rigid and narrow positions, or to not fracture and factionalize. But I applaud the courage being demonstrated by commitment to open conversation. I am inspired by individuals willing to risk the vulnerability of sharing their stories without any promise of what benefit they will receive in return.

And I believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. would be proud. I believe that not only did he get worn down by pressures of being the one man to whom millions of individuals were looking, he knew it was an unsustainable model. He knew that the masses must find their individual voices, and they must each speak their own stories as a means of discovering a larger truth.

When I think of Martin Luther King, Jr. today, following the news of the current movement, I imagine one word leaving his lips. “Finally.”