The fallout from May Day can be felt in every sector of Occupy Wall Street. Some people say it was one of the greatest days since the movement began and are excited for what comes next. Others left with a sour taste in their mouths, whether by the lack of aggressive actions, or by the police state erected in Lower Manhattan, or by simply being worn down from overwork. In some cases, relationships with one another have strained and frayed. Having helped see the project through from conception to reality, my own feelings are mixed.
As Egyptians prepare to elect their country’s first president since the uprising that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak, the military junta that has ruled for the last 15 months has shown little sign it is prepared to accept civilian oversight.
"Dismantling the military’s hold on the state is a process that will take years," says Robert Springborg, professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in the United States. "The military has set red lines beyond which civilian control will not be asserted."
The betrayals come in many forms. Here are a few of the more outrageous, and destructive, examples:
Evasion: Corporations suddenly stopped meeting their tax responsibilities
While corporate profits have doubled to $1.9 trillion in less than ten years, the corporate income tax rate, which for thirty years hovered around the 20-25% level, suddenly dropped to 10% after the recession. It has remained there for three years.
Next month in Baltimore they're going to celebrate the War of 1812. That's what we do with wars. We say they're the last resort. We say they're hell. We say they're for the purpose of eliminating themselves: we fight wars for peace. Although we never keep peace for wars. We claim to wage only wars we have been forced into despite all possible effort to find a better way. And then we celebrate the wars. We keep the wars going for their own sake after all the excuses we used to get them started have expired. The WMDs have not been found. Osama bin Laden's been killed.
The May 1 demonstration in Chicago represented the hope and future of our struggles and movements. But it also raised challenges and questions we need to grapple with for our struggle to move forward. The actions of a small group of protesters could have undermined the success of the demonstration--and put fellow protesters, including many undocumented immigrants, at risk of arrest or worse.
The old trope of the bomb-throwing anarchist is back in the news, with a round-up in Ohio on May 1 and the three would-be NATO protesters arrested on Wednesday who are now charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism. While the impression that appears in the media is one of remnants of the Occupy movement verging toward violence, the driving forces behind these plots are the very agencies claiming to have foiled them.
The United States isn't unique when it comes to political and social crises related to immigration. Migrants in other parts of the world face similar, sometimes much harsher struggles. Even those who are "legal" are often extremely vulnerable to economic exploitation, racial discrimination, and physical and sexual abuse.
