[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Tomgram: Frances Fox Piven, The War on the Home Front

Sun Nov 6 17:58:44 CST 2011

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> From: "TomDispatch" <tomdispatch at nationinstitute.org>
> Date: November 6, 2011 5:43:48 PM CST
> To: carl at newsfromneptune.com
> Subject: Tomgram: Frances Fox Piven, The War on the Home Front
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> November 6, 2011
> Tomgram: Frances Fox Piven, The War on the Home Front
>
> It was a beautiful, sunlit fall morning when the patrol, many in  
> camouflage jackets, no more than 40 of them in all, headed directly  
> into enemy territory.  Their ranks included one sailor in uniform,  
> three women, and a small child named Viva in a stroller.  Except for  
> Viva, all of them were vets, a few from the Vietnam era but most  
> from our more recent wars.
>
> As they headed for Wall Street, several carried signs that said, “I  
> am still serving my country,” and one read, “How is the war economy  
> working for you?”  Many wore Iraq Veterans Against the War t-shirts  
> under their camo jackets, and there was one other thing that made  
> this demonstration unlike any seen in these last Occupy Wall Street  
> weeks: there wasn’t a police officer, police car, or barricade in  
> sight.  As they headed out across a well-trafficked street, not a  
> cop was there to yell at them to get back on the curb.
>
> In the wake of the wounding of Scott Olsen in the police assault on  
> Occupy Oakland last week, that’s what it means to be a veteran  
> marching on Zuccotti Park. Scott Kimbell (Iraq, 2005-2006), who led  
> the patrol, later told me: “Cops are in a difficult position with  
> vets.  Some of them were in the military and are sympathetic and  
> they know that the community will not support what happened to Scott  
> Olsen.”  Just before Broad Street, a line of waiting police on  
> scooters picked up the marchers, for once feeling more like an  
> escort than a gang of armed avengers, while media types and  
> photographers swarmed in the street without police reprimand.
>
> Suddenly, the patrol swiveled right and marched directly into the  
> financial heart of the planet through a set of barricades. (“Who  
> opened up the barrier there?” shouted a policeman.)  It was aiming  
> directly at a line of mounted police blocking the way.  In front of  
> them, the march halted.  With a smart “Left face!” the platoon  
> turned to the Stock Exchange and began to call out in unison, “We  
> are veterans!  We are the 99%!  We swore to protect the Constitution  
> of the United States of America!  We are here to support the Occupy  
> Movement!”
>
> Then, the horses parted like the Red Sea, like a wave of emotion  
> sweeping ahead of us, and the vets marched on triumphantly toward  
> Zuccotti Park as a military cadence rang out (“...corporate profits  
> on the rise, but soldiers have to bleed and die!  Sound off, one,  
> two...”)
>
> The platoon came to attention in front of Trinity Church for a  
> moment of silence for “our friend Scott Olsen,” after which it  
> circled the encampment at Zuccotti Park to cheers and cries of  
> “Welcome Home!” from the protesters there.  (One of the occupiers  
> shouted to the skies: “Hey, police, the military’s here and they’re  
> on our side!”)  And if you don’t think all of it was stirring, then  
> you have the heart of a banker.
>
> Soon after, veterans began offering testimony, people’s mic-style,  
> at the top of the park. Eli Wright, 30, a former Army medic in  
> Ramadi, Iraq (2003-2004), now on military disability and Viva's dad,  
> parked her stroller when I asked him why he was here.  “I came out  
> today to march for economic justice," he responded.  "I want a  
> future for my daughter.  I want her to have an education and a job.   
> I served seven years for our country to defend our constitution only  
> to see it being dismantled before my eyes.  I think it’s time for  
> vets and others to stand up and fight back.” As for two-year-old  
> Viva, “This,” he said, “is the introduction to democracy that she  
> needs to see.”  As a matter of fact, amid the tumult, Viva was  
> soundly and peaceably asleep.
>
> Joshua Shepherd, in the Navy from 2002 to 2008, told me that, during  
> those years, he came to realize "it wasn’t about protecting anyone,  
> it was about making money.” Now a student, he was holding up a large  
> poster of his friend Scott Olsen.  He had been with Olsen when he  
> was hit, possibly by a beanbag round fired by the police, and had  
> flown in from San Francisco for this march.  “It’s important that  
> the people at Wall Street know that we support them.  For the life  
> of me I’m not sure why the police escalated the way they did [in  
> Oakland], but the powers that be are threatened.  Income disparities  
> have never been higher and they want to keep it that way.  It’s my  
> intention to raise my voice and say that’s not right.”
>
> T.J. Buonomo, 27 and unemployed, a personable former Army military  
> intelligence officer, told me that he had come up from Washington  
> specifically for the march.  “Seeing what happened to Scott Olsen  
> made me feel like we had to stand up for Americans getting their  
> democracy back.  If this country keeps going like this, we’re going  
> to look like Latin America in the 1970s.”
>
> Of course, as with so much else about Zuccotti Park, there’s no way  
> of knowing whether these vets were a recon outfit preparing the way  
> for a far larger “army,” possibly (as in the Vietnam era) including  
> active-duty service people, or whether they were just a lost  
> American patrol.  Still, if you were there, you, too, might have  
> felt that something was changing in this country, that a larger  
> movement of some kind was beginning to form.
>
> And speaking of such movements, if you’ve read the final essays in  
> the remarkable new book Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven?, an  
> essential guide to the writings of the activist and professor “Glenn  
> Beck loves to hate,” then you know that no one came closer than her  
> to predicting the rise of OWS.  Having covered the fate of the poor  
> memorably for almost half a century, Piven, whom Cornel West calls  
> “a living legend,” has a bead on the “war” these vets are now facing  
> on the American home front. (To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest  
> Tomcast audio interview in which Piven discusses Glenn Beck’s  
> bizarre fascination with her click  here, or download it to your  
> iPod  here.) Tom
>
> The War Against the Poor
> Occupy Wall Street and the Politics of Financial Morality
> By Frances Fox Piven
>
> We’ve been at war for decades now -- not just in Afghanistan or  
> Iraq, but right here at home.  Domestically, it’s been a war against  
> the poor, but if you hadn’t noticed, that’s not surprising. You  
> wouldn’t often have found the casualty figures from this particular  
> conflict in your local newspaper or on the nightly TV news.   
> Devastating as it’s been, the war against the poor has gone largely  
> unnoticed -- until now.
>
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