Do You Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows?

What Comes After Occupying Wall Street?
What if "the 99%" were a measure of voter turnout next time?

It's clear that the protests popping up around the United States and elsewhere in the world, stemming from the initial gathering a Zuccotti Park in New York City, have had the impact of getting the attention of lots of citizens, the media, the commentariat and many politicians. That's a good thing. But, now what?

Rather an important question it seems. What do with all of that energy and anger? 

One problem for sure is that this hasn't yet coalesced into anything that might rightly be branded a movement. The goals are too ill-defined or undefined. The vision is too diffuse or lacking altogether. 

And, yet, it is clear that people supporting the rallies share a common anger, common anxiety, common fear. Perhaps the problems that the rallies and their supporters are agitating over are too complex, nuanced and convoluted to be susceptible to any single or simple prescriptive. Maybe everything is too tangled up to be easily unraveled. I can accept that. 

Nevertheless, it seems a total waste to allow all the energy to dissipate without accomplishing anything other than generating noise and grabbing attention. At some point, the temperatures will drop and the number of protesters at Zuccotti Park will dwindle. But what to do to keep that flame a-kindle? 

If the point was to grab attention, the question is whose attention. The question is what to do once it's been grabbed. Some people argue that the protesters lack a set of coherent, cohesive demands. They are right to think this. It's true.

Perhaps one thing that everyone protesting and supporting the protesters could agree on is that we get the government we deserve. That, when we disenfranchise ourselves by being apathetic, by not registering to vote, by not showing up in primary and general elections, we get what we deserve. When we allow the few to dictate for the many because a majority don't even show up on election day, we earn our just desserts. 

In 2010, only 37.8%* of the voting age population cast ballots. Okay, that's a so-called off-year election, one might say, and we should expect some apathy. I don't buy that excuse. But let's accept the argument for a moment. In 2008, a Presidential Election Year, then why did only 56.8% of all voting age adults cast ballots? And, why is that the highest percentage since 1968, when 60.8% of the eligible voters even bothered to show up? Is it possible that this is one of our root problems? Did the 99% cede the country to the 1% by failing to pay attention, by failing to vote? I can't say that's the whole problem, but I suspect it must be an important part of it.

So, if the Occupy Wall Street protesters and supporters would like to find one very simple issue on which to build a movement, maybe it needs to be a movement to register and get out the vote. We are in the midst of a very well-coordinated effort by Republican-controlled state legislatures in at least 38 states to revise voter register and voter ID laws. Many think, and I believe rightly so, that this is a voter suppression initiative thinly veiled under the premise of reducing voter fraud. 

While the states in question probably have majorities in their legislatures to pass such draconian bills requiring all kinds of new forms of ID, they can only succeed at this if voters allow themselves to be disenfranchised. There's obviously no telling what courts will decide about the constitutionality of these laws and whether or not they'll issue opinions in time for the 2012 Presidential Election. Nevertheless, it would seem that one to fight back is have Occupy Wall Street protests morph into a "get people registered" and "get them to polls" effort. 

Some have said that as many as 5 million Americans may find themselves "disenfranchised" by these new state voting registration bills. If the bills can't be stayed by courts and can't be rescinded by new legislative measures in time for the next election, WHAT ON EARTH IS STOPPING ANYONE FROM OVERCOMING THEIR EFFECT BY MOBILIZING? Perhaps that's one of the first places that all this energy ought to be directed.

One might question whether this would make any difference. Certainly a valid question. But consider for a moment how different your state legislature, the US House and the US Senate might look if more people had shown up at the polls in the 2010 mid-term elections. Still think it doesn't make a difference?

If, as the sign held by the lady in the photograph above claims, it's supposed to be "government of the people, by the people and for the people" then the "people" need to get up off their butts and not simply show up to protests or paint signs. They need to register to vote. They need to encourage all of their friends, relatives, co-workers, friends from the unemployment line, etc. to register. They need to help elderly, infirm or driver licenseless acquaintances to do the same (drive 'em to the DMV, help 'em get a photo ID; drive 'em to their polling place on election day....). How much different might this country look if our average presidential year voter turnout were 75 or 80% or more? What if it were 99%.

Politicians talk a lot. Some of them mean what they say and have passion in what they believe. At the end of the day, however, they're all in politics to get elected (and reelected over and over again). If we are afraid of the few having too much power and ruling the many, the moneyed telling the rest of us how things are going to be, etc., isn't the best way to overcome their monetary advantage simply to show up and out vote them? 

The moneyed interests on both sides of the political spectrum can only exercise undue influence over the whole process if the rest of us do nothing. This notion of the 99% strikes me sometimes as partly true, but other times as disingenuous or delusional. If only 56.8% of the 100% even showed up to vote, than how can the 43.2% who didn't feel that they have much right to complain? 

What would it mean for democracy if 99% showed up and actually cast a ballot? 

Wouldn't that make it awfully difficult for politicians and their financiers to ignore that great bulk of the population. Think of it this way, the folks who invest great sums of money in supporting their views by contributing to the politic parties, to super PACs and the like are buying elections at a steep discount. They only have to buy the attention of 50 plus one vote of only 58.6% of all those old enough to vote. What if they had to convince half of everyone that was old enough to vote? Do you think the table would still be tilted? If your state representatives thought you followed the issues closely, made an effort to understand them and questioned the candidates on them with some depth, could they ignore such big segment of the population? Would your US representative or senator ignore you if he thought you'd show up reliably at the polling place?

The thing scares and threatens most elected officials more than anything else is not getting elected. If you want change, exercise the most powerful tool you have: your vote.

*All voting turnout percentages from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html.