Why I Support the 99%

Initially when the Occupy Wall Street protests launched on September 17, 2011 I must admit that was not paying attention to the media. I recall hearing about the initial announcement for the protests, posted on July, 26 1022 by Adbusters.org, entitled "Is America Ripe for A Tahrir Moment" as I had been following the events of the Arab Spring. At the time of the initial protests I more or less followed the dominant story of mass media regarding Occupy Wall Street. The ecochaber of political commentary repeated the mantra of the protestor's general incoherence and confusion over their 'demands'. However, contrary to mass media line, the editors at Adbusters clearly proposed a reason and even a singular demand of the action:

It was our one simple demand that Barack Obama must ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence that corporate money has over our representatives in Washington. Our one simple demand is: STOP THE MONIED CORRUPTION AT THE HEART OF OUR DEMOCRACY!

Achieving this Presidential Reform Commission will be the crucial first step towards opening a political space for a flurry of further people's demands like, total transparency in all government affairs, a Tobin Tax on financial transactions, a grand strategy for reducing America's carbon footprint …

I read two 'demands' in the repetition of the 'one simple demand'. The first demand being, "that Barack Obama.. ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence that corporate money has over our representatives in Washington". This demand has been largely lost amonst the Occupiers themselves as well as those who have attacked the protestors, and with good reason. For if a Presidential Commission was all that it would take to satisfy the protestor the situation could be easily rectified with Presidential action and the Occupiers could go home. In short, this demand is far less demanding than the Egyptian Protestors who began with a call to end the emergency rule and quickly moved to remove President Hosni Mubarak. That Barack Obama, nor Congress have shown any interest in establishing such a commission, is not surprising; the Egyptian President too ignored his people's call to end the emergency laws. The dismissal of this demand has opened the way to make the central demand, the central political demand of the Occupiers apparent. That is, that the 'influence' and 'corruption' of Democracy is what is the concern. The imperative to fight corruption  anti-corruption is what ties nearly all of the the uprisings of 2011, from Tunisia to Tulsa. Furthermore, the protestors themselves seem to have lost interest in an appeal to the notion of a Presidential Reform Commission as it appears no where in the widely circulated and more recent, Declaration of the Occupation of New York City.

The "one simple demand" appears again however, in a second sense which lays at the heart of why I support the 99%:

STOP THE MONIED CORRUPTION AT THE HEART OF OUR DEMOCRACY.

This statement is clear, it is succinct, it is simple and direct. I take this as the singular imperative of the Occupy Movement. It should be the initial answer to the question, 'what do the Occupiers want?' They want a STOP to THE MONEID CORRUPTION AT THE HEART OF OUR DEMOCRACY.

Now, as Slavoj Zizek pointed out on the 9th of October at the Wall Street Occupation; "We know what we do not want, but what do we want?" What my former teacher is pointing out here is that the central demand of the Occupieres is 'negative'. That is, that "the situation cannot continue as it is now", and that the Occupation should continue until the corruption of the political process ceases. The situation that cannot continue is Simply, THE MONEID CORRUPTION AT THE HEART OF OUR DEMOCRACY.

To answer Zizek, I think the immediate positive claim of the 99% is something like:

WE WANT AN UNCORRUPTED DEMOCRACY.

This is, in short, why I support the Occupy Together movement. It is why I support the 99% and why I think that the Occupy Together protests are worth continuing, supporting, and participating in. Because:

I WANT AN UNCORRUPTED DEMOCRACY.