Thoughts on Cornel West and Frances Fox Piven (Left Forum)

Today I went to Left Forum with a friend of mine and heard Cornel West and Frances Fox Piven (both of the Democratic Socialists of America) speak. A few quotes I found captivating:

"We need to build the build the spirit of defiance that marks a protest movement." -Piven

Indeed we do, yet I feel that apathy plays such a huge part in the ineffectiveness (a harsh term but the most accurate at this point) of the movement. After leaving Left Forum and walking around in New York City I could barely cope with the difference in atmosphere: everyone at Left Forum was engaged, aware, and willing to change things. Yet on the streets of New York - the birthplace of the Occupy movement - people aren't talking about mobilization. People aren't protesting McDonald's and Bank of America. People are complacent and apathetic, and will not care until the problems of capitalism come nakedly knocking on their door. More awareness needs to be brought to the movement and to the global injustices of our economic system - then we will have the spirit of defiance necessary to create meaningful, lasting changes.

"The Occupy movement was able to courageously and in a visionary way step forward and gain the attention of our fellow citizens and those around the world." -West

"Poverty is not just an economic issue. It is not just a matter of economic calculus. It is not just a matter of survival of the democratic experiment, even though it is. It is a state of emergency, it is a matter of national security." -West  

"[The Occupy Movement is] making a connection between the social misery of poverty and the greed of the oligarchy, and radically calling into question what we need to do in this nation. In our society, we have social conformity in which persons feel as if it is fashionable to feel well-adjusted to injustice, in which everybody's up for sale and everything is up for sale......open to the highest bidder, that's why you end up with a culture of social conformity inseparable from the indifference to the suffering of poor working people." -West

I have and always will believe that wealth inequality is just as much a cultural issue as it is an economic issue. The culture of complacency and conformity is a huge part of the reason the inequalities of the world have been perpetuated.

"Once you 'otherize' poor people and then it gets tied into the 'otherizing' of people of color, it's gonna be very difficult to generate the kind of connection, generosity, kind of bonds, to recognize they are us and we are them." -West

In a different panel, we had heard about the manipulation of the media and though this is not necessarily an issue with the press, on which the first panel had focused, the isolation of different groups is a true issue of cultural hegemony. The oligarchs and plutocrats have used their power to prevent the minorities and those with the true power from organizing; something I find frightening, yet reversible. Such 'otherizing' of groups we as individuals are unfamiliar with is counterproductive to any sort of powerful mobilization, and we must overcome the differences imbued within us by the top of the hierarchy to come together and change things.

This was horribly raw but I hope to post something more detailed soon.