Government has failed us

I talked to a friend yesterday who told me about visiting the Occupy Detroit protest. I think she took some food down to them. She did offer her support and said she wished she could stay but actually has a job. She is sympathetic to the cause because she is a public school teacher and feels the Michigan Legislature and Governor have been beating up on her lately.

I appreciate one detail she shared with me. The protesters have tents at their site (Grand Circus Park) and have offered to share tents and food with the area homeless.

Someone who calls him/herself Thumbnails went to Zuccotti Park in NYC (where the Occupy Wall Street crowd is based) and set up a portable photographic studio to take formal portraits of the protesters. He wrote in part, "What I learned is that these people are not whackos, anarchists, or indigents. They are overwhelmingly working and middle class people of all backgrounds who feel that their government has failed them and does not represent their interests." His photos are online.

Ari Ezra Waldman, who blogs about gay legal issues for the site Towleroad, has an essay about Occupy Wall Street. He feels the group is protesting the wrong target. They should not be protesting the fat cats of Wall Street, but be protesting the Supreme Court. Presidents have in a sense run against the Supremes with great success. His examples:

In Lochner v. New York (1905) the Supremes said states do not have the right to regulate contracts of companies that operates solely in the state's borders (Congress does have the right to regulate contracts for businesses that cross state boundaries). If a baker and his workers agree to 10 hour days 6 days a week, the state should not interfere. Woodrow Wilson successfully campaigned against that decision in 1912. This started a shift of legislatures and Congress towards social reform.

More famous cases were decided by the Supremes during the Great Depression in which they found various parts of Roosevelt's New Deal to be unconstitutional. He threatened to pack the Court and the publicity helped him a great deal. He appointed so many Supremes due to retirement he essentially packed the court anyway.

Back in the 1960s the Court came out with many criminal procedure rights, such as Miranda. Nixon effectively ran against that in the 1968 race as he pushed law and order.

The reason why this works is the court is anti-majority. That is a good thing because a big reason for the court is to prevent tyranny of the majority. But the authoritarianism it represents is a convenient enemy (as we've seen from all the talk of "activist judges"). We progressives can't demonize millionaires because they are millionaires. The American story like those written by Horatio Alger makes that ineffective. Instead we should focus on institutional radicals who let the millionaires run wild.

Waldman has an interesting point, but I'm not buying. We should not blame the criminals because the cops weren't on the beat? Didn't this whole business of sucking money out of the poor and middle class begin 30 years ago, time enough to put its architects in power and select justices who believe the same thing? Besides, my understanding much of the reason for the protests isn't because others are rich, it's because the rich have tilted the playing field in their favor.

Commenters weren't buying either. One pointed out the OWS protesters are indeed (amongst other things) protesting the Citizens United case that allow corporations to buy Congress. Another said the politicians and judges react to the masses rising up, but first the masses must rise up. Another said we're smart enough to know we must deal with both the corporations and the politicians.

Waldman's reference to Horatio Alger prompted me to look up his Wikipedia entry. That's where I found he was probably gay. The entry's section on sexuality points to themes in Alger's books that suggest a gay orientation.