FROM OCCUPY STREETS TO OCCUPY ELECTIONS

FROM OCCUPY STREETS TO OCCUPY ELECTIONS

Hugo Adan

Nov 7, 2012

The purpose of this article is to elaborate the thesis that the victory of Obama is irrelevant comparing to the role played by autonomous grass root organizations that expressed itself during this election. The trap posed by the bipartisan system (you should vote for the lesser evil)  didn’t work as usual. This time was the autonomous grassroots org’s  objectives that works, Obama was nothing more than an instrument to vitalize them. The massive participation of  Latinos and young women surprised Obama zealots. Obama didn’t expect  a  victory with more than 70% of Latinos voting him and the victory of women en the senate race. 

It was also un-expected  the grass root movement  of Sandra Fluke in March 2012 and before the Latino mobilizations against Obama to repudiate his emigration policies (to mention only two of many) these facts indicates the level of autonomy that this grass root org have achieved. There are contextual factors and social synergies that explain the case. One of these factors is the failure of building a Unified third choice Front. With such option the results would have been different. That factor make people take the last minute resort to finish the burring of the neocons that threaten to came back to the White house with the complicity of Obama (incarceration of Jeel Stein, among others). The aim of re-building America from the bottom up -by grass root org- is still on in people’s mind.

The electoral trap (vote either D or R) is a way of kidnaping of the electorate in the narrow jails of the bipartisan system (jails owned by big corporations) . One block of these jails have been occupied by millions of people during this election (D side) and after elections this will become insufficient to contain them. With this occupation the bipartisan system is been converted into a boomerang that now threaten to cut the heads of the 1% who profit from the misery of millions (foreclosures, the cutting of health and social benefits to elders, the cut of civil liberties worse than the Patriot Act  during the Bush era (including the unconstitutional suppression of habeas corpus  and the killing of Americans  abroad with Obama drones); the massive deportation of new immigrants after abandoning the Dream Act; the betrayal of international demands in favor of peace by patronizing the Zionist pro-war bulling against Iran and the involvement of US mercenaries (private companies) in Libya, Syria and even inside Iraq and Afghanistan, besides the criminal blockage against Cuba and the US torture center in Guantamno) these and other issues  will be taking by grassroots organizations now on. They already manage to occupy elections and consolidate that victory of people against medieval conservatism of Romney’s  billionaires. 

That was the essence  of this election. With that in mind, let’s check now the meaning of Obama’s victory. 

1. It was the victory of the difference. Women, gays, Latinos, Afro-Americans, Asian-Americans, Muslim American, Iranians and other ethnicities didn’t fit into the narrow cells of the GOP and its open xenophobic  attitudes and medieval conservatism. And the message of “vive la difference” won’t fit either with the policies  of drones, financial terrorist sanctions and the centers of torture in Guantamo and other places.

2. The victory of standing for rights and values instead of submission to money and the control of politics by corporate media and their super-packs. The first evidence is the defeat of Romney (clear leader of tax evaders inside the wealthy 1% of millionaires & billionaires) and also the defeat of three wealthy senators in this race . Money, the usual buyer of elections, start been defeated and now on will be challenge hard and relentless.  Obama will be pushed to criminalize the buying of elections; it is in fact a serious crime against democracy to do so.

3. The victory of secularism. The time when pastors, priest and clergymen decide the fate and roads of grassroots movements passed away. The coupling of politics with religions is obsolete. From now on the issue of Sate-religion separation will be re-installed in education and other public domains. This society is advancing toward ethics and moral without dogmas and reason and tech-science will be re-installed in the domain of politics.  

4. It was also the victory of Peace and other universal values defended in America by grassroots org. Although Obama betrayed such principle, this election show that the American electorate is connected to real international audiences working for peace. The time for political autarchism & cultural detachment is over; our young people is connected to “others” in the same way that the young people in the Arab spring revolution  was. We are not voting anymore based only on domestic issues, we are part of the globe and their concern is ours too. Any derail from this path will create solid basis for our own spring and it will be also unpredicted. This election proved that Americans are far beyond  the rhetoric of peace from either party, democ and republicans. The same with other international issues such controlling gas emissions and coping with global warming with strong green policies. Americans really want the control of nuclear proliferation without double standards and we really want the banning of blackmailing from countries like Israel and others who possess nuclear weapons and used to impose illegal plundering and abused against neighboring countries like Palestine. The electorate repudiates the open support of Zionists  to Romney.

5. The victory of unity in action vs. bla-bla-unity of dissenters from either party (democrats and republicans). People was expecting a United Front from all small parties. It didn’t happen. This was the time to break of the trap (the voting for the lesser evil) but the small-narcisist ego prevail and ended up in the betrayal of people's expectation to create a real third choice in American democracy. We postponed this people’s demand we the argument that now it is important to consolidate the burial of the neocons or neo-nazis inside the GOP. This victory will be incomplete if we –members of third parties- do not continue such endeavor more seriously. So far, the lack of third choice is not yet considered a betrayal to peoples’ history but it will be if we abandon this aim and happily endorse our autonomy to Obama’s will. He didn’t rally gain this victory. It was the people who got it and it will continue their fight despite OB will, if we coincide, we will support  him, otherwise we are ready to sign the petition for impeachment if he don’t derogate the ** and re-installed constitutional civil liberties and habeas corpus.  

6. It was the victory of creative social-synergy.  The victory of Obama was not plotted by the 75% of Latinos who vote him, nor by the women that defend their rights against medieval conservatism, nor by Afro-Americans who tested once more their racial loyalty, it was the creative synergy of the masses who makes possible a sudden move from uncertainty and pro-skepticism & abstention to strong and massive participation to bury the neo-fascism in America. It will be the same creative synergy with solid basis on grassroots organizations that will again and again surprise the realm of politics in this country now on.

=============