- by Vicki Ryder

One of the speakers at the opening rally of Occupy 2011 in DC quoted Gandhi's now-famous observation:
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

The corporate-owned media have moved from ignoring to ridicule, especially since they do not see that we have a cohesive message, as the protesters did in Tahrir Square, for example, with their unified demand that "Mubarak must go!"

While it's true that there is a confusing sea of signs in DC's Freedom Plaza, the unifying message is clear: The military-industrial-congressional complex does not exist to serve the people and is depleting the earth of its resources while denying self-fulfillment and justice to anyone who stands in the way of its power and its profits. More simply, Occupy 2011 calls for "Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed."

The visual cacophony of signs calling for health care and jobs and fair elections and an end to war (and even "justice for movie goers" and the salvation of the Tipnis) was a reflection of the frustration felt by "the 99%" who have been trying to figure out how to plug the holes in the dike and finally have come to realize that they have run out of fingers. They see now that the system can't be "fixed" because it isn't "broken." It is working exactly as it was meant to do. It's becoming increasingly clear that if we ever are to survive and live at peace in a sustainable world, then what's needed is a different system.

That's a very different demand from the single one that rang out in Tahrir Square. The steps to a new system are complex and multidimensional. Systems (remember feudalism?) don't disappear willingly or overnight. We are in the struggle for the long haul and have embraced the message of that other of Gandhi's oft-quoted observation's that "we must be the change we wish to see." 

It's for that reason that the community establishing itself in Freedom Plaza (like the one now in its second month in NYC's Wall Street) is self-governing and truly democratic. There are no "leaders" making decisions for others. Instead, daily "town hall meetings" facilitated by those who volunteer their skills determine by consensus how the needs of the group will be met and how their political demands can best be accomplished.

Seeing true democracy in action, and seeing folks building -- on their own --  a microcosm of a better society in which no one profits by exploiting others, is simply too threatening to the 1%ers. It's for this reason that they are moving from the "ignore" to the "ridicule" and (as evidenced by their pepper spray and their kettling), to the "fight" stage of response. But we all know what is true: that if we continue nonviolently to resist the machine and to "be the change we wish to see," we will, indeed, win....

[The author is a longtime organizer and peace activist living in Durham, NC.]