To all you folks filling the nation's cities for the "Occupy" movement, here's the best political advice from a living civil rights legend: "Sometimes, you just have to get in the way."
That's what Rep. John Lewis, (D-Ga.) told me in an interview several years ago, when few thought there would soon be a black president. Lewis, remember, is the man who put his life on the line and his head in the way of a state trooper's billy club on March 7, 1965 -- "Bloody Sunday" -- in Selma, Alabama. He was beaten many times more as a leader of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which was accused of being "unreasonable."
So to those who question the strategy or goals of the "occupy" movement -- in Wall Street, in DC, in America--remember the words of Rep. Lewis. JUST GET IN THE WAY.
Or as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King put it, refuse to cooperate with evil. And there is no question that the current economic structure on Wall Street and K Street (home of DC's most entrenched lobbyists for giant corporations) is evil. The immense suffering visited upon the 99 percent of Americans during this economic collapse, by the one percent on Wall Street and K Street, shows a total lack of empathy for the workers who built America. And lack of empathy is how criminal psychologists define evil.
In a town like DC, full of big business lobbyists and "strategery," a genuine grassroots movement instead of manufactured astroturf is a truly novel thing. So don't be surprised, DC occupiers, that the inside-the-Beltway crowd heaps scorn upon you. You'll be called naive and unrealistic, because what would happen to government insiders if voters actually showed up? Pay no attention to those men behind the curtain -- so things will stay just the same in Emerald City.
With the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, corporations now have all the advantages of the First Amendment without any of the disadvantages. They can make undisclosed expenditures on behalf of a candidate, with no accountability to the voters. And should they commit libel in the process -- a very high bar when criticizing candidates, thanks to the First Amendment -- then their financial liability is limited, under laws that protect corporations. But if corporations accuse you or me of libel (see: SLAPP, or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), they can bleed us dry on legal costs to defend against the lawsuit, and if they win take everything we have. No limited liability for us.
The time has come to remove the legal fiction that a corporation is a person entitled to more rights than voters. Under current law, that will take a constitutional amendment. But first, we have to get in the way.