So, I went to Occupy Denver today. Marched around the 16th Street Mall, and thought. I was pretty silent: not shouting slogans, not carrying a poster. It felt very off to me, at first. But eventually, it came together in my mind, and I figured out what it meant to me.
The strongest message, for me, was the people carrying posters that said “We are the 99%—and so are you.” That was, I realized, the point. I think that, more than anything else, this is a transpartisan movement, trying to unite people who have, for at least a decade and probably longer, been split over relatively false issues, while their common economic interest is undermined.
That’s the point of this. It’s not about existing political divisions. It is, really and truly, saying “these are the super rich. We are the ‘everyone else’. These are the battle lines.”