By Alan Bean

After a day of listening to people speaking earnestly about human rights, I meandered back to the site of Occupy Philly.  As I arrived this evening, an earnest forty-something black guy was informing a cluster of twenty-something young people that every good and perfect gift can be traced back to the hippies of the 1960s.  In his view, the occupy movement was a recreation of the hippy spirit. 

His big idea was shoes.  Old shoes.  If everybody hung a pair around their neck, people would get the message.  

“What is the message?” I asked dimly.

“That people is missing in action; that voices are not being heard,” the man explained.

As I moved closer to the action I could see dozens of little discussion groups spread across the courtyard in front of Philadelphia’s city hall.

The group I joined was discussing the relative merits of keeping the small tent city where it is or moving to a more suitable location.  Everyone in the group I joined was about my age, which may be why I joined it.  Everyone, it seemed, was either old enough to remember the hippies or in their mid-to-late twenties with little representation from intervening age brackets.  It was also clear that 10% (or so) of the folks engaged in the discussion groups were homeless people.  A few of these folk were taking part in the discussion; most were simply listening.

When everyone had their say the GA (General Assembly) began.  The format of the meeting appeared to have been imported from the Arab Spring movement (as opposed to the Soviet revolution, as Michael Gerson has it in a silly column in the Washington Post.)  “Mike Check” someone would say.  “Mike check,” the crowd hollered back.  Then the speaker would line out his message in short bursts of verbiage reminiscent of a sermon in a black church.

“Our group discussed . . .” a speaker would begin.

“Our group discussed . . . ” the crowd echoed.

“The advisability of checking with city officials . . .”

“The advisability of checking with city officials . . .”

“As to whether permits would be honored .  .  .”

“As to whether permits would be honored . . .”

You get the picture.

All the speakers were white, most were young, and all were clearly college educated.  (The phrase “in terms of” always denotes someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time in a classroom, and I heard a lot of it this evening.)

At least a dozen people spoke tonight.  If the crowd liked the message, fingers waved in the air; if they didn’t like what they were hearing, fingers waved downward.  This too is an Arab Spring import.

The big concerns appeared to be: a. should we change locations so the city can renovate the plaza in front of city hall?; b. what are we going to do in preparation for the first blizzard; and c. what can we do to capture the attention of the city?  The most prominent answer to the last question was the occupation of vacant city properties.   A veteran of the US infantry suggested that, like an army, the occupying group should find a way of symbolically signifying its ownership of the new property.

Several speakers advocated setting up a separate community with its own schools, living quarters and food supply.  That way, it was explained, “we don’t have to worry about what everybody else does.”

Listening to these speakers I was seized by an odd sense of deja vu.  Then it struck me.  I was recalling “The Church and American Utopianism,” a course church historian Bill Leonard taught at Southern Seminary in the late 1970s.  One of the primary texts came to mind, “Heavens on Earth:  Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880.”

This wasn’t Oneida, Amana or the Mormons–this was Philadelphia in 2011; but the basic spirit is the same.  Something new is happening here that will change everything. 

In that sense, the spirit of Woodstock is alive in the Occupy movement, but in a much more earnest, vital and focused way.  I haven’t seen young people this centered since I was young myself–and that was a long, long time ago.

Like all utopian communities, the occupy movement will enjoy a relatively brief life span.  It’s current form is glorious and inspiring, but it isn’t sustainable.  Still, it might evolve into a permanent social force far more influential than the fear-and-resentment-drivenTea Party.

As I was leaving, I passed a homeless woman who was ranting at Barack Obama.  “Pick a lane,” she told the President, “it’s time to decide whose side you’re on.”  (expletives deleted).  It mattered not whether anyone was within twenty feet of her, the diatribe continued.  She had been on the same topic twelve hours earlier when I visited the tent city after breakfast. 

A homeless man approached and promised to tell me five really funny jokes for a dollar.  Number five I had heard before (one through four were too crude to repeat in this family forum).  “What’s the greatest nation on earth?” he asked.  “A do-nation.”  Now he was asking for four dollars–five if I could spare it.  I gave him two and moved on.

Long after the Occupy people have packed up their tents the mentally ill woman and the panhandling comedian will remain at their posts.  But I’m glad the Occupy people are doing what they are doing and I hope they are still hanging on when the flowers of Spring are in bloom.

By Alan Bean

Thus far, the Occupy movement has set up camp in parks and in front of symbolic centers of power.   Alec MacGillis of the New Republic has some excellent suggestions (in today’s Washington Post) for some other sites that are highly deserving of occupation; places like Wal Mart, the Bill Clinton library (Bill oversaw a massive reduction in the capital gains tax), Harvard University, and several other deserving targets. 

Melanie Wilmoth and I are in Philadelphia attending a human rights conference and our hotel is located just a few blocks from the city’s historic city hall.  There wasn’t a lot of life at 9:30 am, but Mike, the guy at the Information booth, told us things would be hopping if we came back at 7:00 this evening. 

I asked Mike about the demographics of the movement and he admitted that “we’re mainly white and college educated, so far.”  Mike is fifty and, like me, a trained theologian and pastor with Baptist roots.  “I’m mainly into house churches now,” he told me. 

But Occupy Philly is actively reaching out to the minority community. I asked about the digital divide and Mike smiled knowingly.  “This movement is driven by technology,” he admitted.  “That’s probably a big reason why most of us are so young.  I’m fifty, and I try hard to stay on top of the social networking innovations, but there’s something new out there every time you turn around.  We’re in constant contact with all the big Occupy operations across the country and we’ve got people working on all the big issues all the time.

If you go to the Occupy Philly website, you can see a video of Mike marrying a couple outside City Hall yesterday.  That’s something they’ll never forget! 

Now comes the big challenge; preparing for the onslaught of winter.  “We’ve got that covered,” Mike tells me. “We’ve got people working on tents that are 100% insulated.  People are already wearing four layers of clothing in Philly and it’s only November.  Occupy Philly hasn’t had a lot of press, largely because local law enforcement has been very open and flexible and political officials drop by occasionally to chat. 

We’ll try to get back to City Hall later this week and give you an update.

By Alan Bean

When New York Times editor Arthur Brisbane asked a few fellow journalists how they would cover Occupy Wall Street, the responses were mostly quizzical: Who are these people?  Why are they so angry and why did it take them so long to get that way?  Where is the money coming from?  Who are the leaders of this leaderless movement?  What are their demands?  And finally, how long can they keep it up?

As Miles Mogulescu notes in a Huffington Post article, the Occupy movement has spread with amazing rapidity because it is leaderless, radically democratic and “horizontal”.  You don’t need to register to join the party; just show up.

If the Occupy phenomenon fizzled tomorrow it would have one great accomplishment to its credit: a change in the national conversation.  Six weeks ago, politicians, pundits and pollsters were counting the days till the national debt destroyed us all.  Now we’re talking about income inequality, contemplating a tax on financial transactions and asking how we can hold the 1% responsible for wrecking the economy en route to windfall profits.

Everybody knows why the Occupy people are angry.  They’ve been angry for a long time, but only recently have they found a constructive and concerted way of channelling that anger.  That’s why many of them are flying cross-country to be part of the action.

Who is bankrolling the operation?  No one.  Hence the tents and the manifest ingenuity of the participants.  If you aren’t committed, you can’t hang with this bunch very long.

Still, the looseness of the organization comes with a price. (more…)

Register now for the CEDP’s 11th Annual Convention!

By Alan Bean

In March of 1966, John Lennon made an offhand comment to a reporter with the London Evening Standard:

“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

In England nobody noticed, but when the statement hit the American press, Beatle records were ceremonially crushed and burned all over this God-fearing nation.  Eventually, Lennon was forced to issue an apology:

“Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England. That we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn’t knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it’s true more for England than here. I’m not saying that we’re better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it’s all this.”

Were the Beatles bigger than Jesus?  Does it matter? (more…)

By Alan Bean

Bloggers quickly learn that most readers snap up posts on the hot stories of the day, so by now I should have written something on the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Thus far, the OWS people haven’t addressed the issue of mass incarceration, and I don’t expect that to change.  The big issue that has drawn thousands of people into the streets is economic inequality.  Some OWS protesters want to do away with free market capitalism; others simply resent living in a plutocracy where the politicians function as lap dogs for the wealthy and only well-financed opinions receive a public airing.

This resentment has been hanging in the air for decades, of course, but the economic meltdown of 2008 built a roaring fire under the winter of our discontent.  Everything is melting.  We see the very people responsible for the current fiasco assigned to key positions in Barack Obama’s cabinet and we are outraged.  These people signed off on the housing bubble and turned a blind eye to the massive fraud in the economic sector that kept the bubble afloat for so long.  They have been tainted by ubiquitous iniquity and they have demonstrated their incompetence, so why are they still calling the shots?  Why are they shaping public policy?  Why is the Tea Party intent on cutting their taxes and catering to their every whim? (more…)