Occupy: Political Party or, Well, Just a Party?

May the best narrative win.

Looking around in the golden glow of the wall sconces at the Roebling Tea Room, I found Anthea and Vanessa at the bar talking about Occupy. Anthea, in for a short stay from the UK, and Vanessa, from Venezuela, were recounting a conversation with a protester from earlier in the evening.

Still damp from a fine and chilly mist blowing around in the November evening, I just wanted a little whiskey in a glass. But I was all ears.

“She was young, yes, but so very eloquent,” said Vanessa. “These people have no agenda but to say 'there is a problem.'”

“But is that enough?” asked Anthea. “When I asked her what they wanted, she couldn't answer. What kind of protest movement has no goal?”

Vanessa thought for a moment. “I don't think there is a goal in the traditional sense. They just want to be heard. They have reasonable complaints, I think. Companies have too much power.”

Anthea smiled. “I just don't think I understand exactly what they want. What would it take for the protestors to say they achieved something?"

It's a good question. What is happening down there at those Occupy protests? I contend that how you answer that question says more about where you get your Narrative than it does about what is actually happening.

Narrative: A Working Definition

We are not Fact or Data Driven. We are Narrative Driven.

Here's how it works: something happens. People talk about what happened. People who weren't at the event must rely on how other people talk about the event. Different versions of the event are passed around. One or two versions rise to the top and become the “Narrative.”

The Narrative need not be fact-based or fair. These are incidental. It merely needs to be believed. It's often shocking, scary, sexy, or funny and almost always has a spin or slant to it.  When the event is political in any way, like Occupy, there are often at least two competing Narratives battling for your support.

It's American Idol for Stories.  It doesn't matter who can sing better.  It only matters if we like the singer.

Occupy: Waterloo or Bonnaroo
As far as I can tell, the Narratives told by supporters of the Occupy protestors include:

1. The 99% of America wants the 1% to pay more. These percentages refer to the proportional amount of total US wealth that individual people have.

2. Wall Street and Washington are corrupt, filled with criminals who use power and influence to “game” the system to unfairly and unethically amass wealth.

3. American democracy is broken and until drastic changes are made in how people are allowed to participate in politics, the US will continue to decay.

4. College debt is burying young people; education should be a right, not a burden.

Those who are critical of Occupy largely seem to think that there is NO legitimate protest at Occupy-- the only story is about the protestors themselves:

1. The protestors are anarchists and communists, interested in destroying order in America.

2. Most people involved in the movement are drug users, criminals, or opportunists who want a free lunch and state-supported unemployment.

3. Many protestors are college kids out to get wasted and bang on drums.

4. A significant number of protestors are hypocrites: wealthy kids who are “slumming” with the unemployed for the sake of adventure or to collect great stories.

There Is No "Truth," Only Narrative

In this, I see a larger view of all conversation about politics in our country.  The battle lines of politics are not idealogical; they are anecdotal.  Most people form opinions about the President, Congress, candidates, political parties based on the dominant stories in the media.  Because people tend to get their media stories from one side of the political spectrum, we are in a constant state of story battle.

Subsequently, the strongest Narratives are the ones that transcend media lines:  killing Osama was great for America, Congress sucks, unemployment is too high. When the Narrative differs across different media, the story gets less strong.  Is Obama a failure?  Are taxes too high?  Is there too much regulation? Your answer is merely an extension of the Narrative that you believe. 

Which story will solidify the Occupy Narrative?  Will it be rich, hypocritical protestors staying at the W hotel?  Filthy, violent communists raping naive coeds and pooping on cars?  Evil Corporations swinging sweetheart deals with politicians?  How about the police brutalizing protestors?  Maybe it'll be well-intentioned emergency officials getting attacked by crazed protestors.  Perhaps it'll be bailed-out Wall Street execs awarding themselves huge, end-of-year bonuses while unemployment numbers creep higher.

Which brings us back to the charming Vanessa and Anthea, two foreign nationals with the perfect amount of objectivity. Their conversation, on a stormy night in late autumn, affords a telling glimpse of American culture.  They don't know what Occupy is because there is no dominant Narrative. The competition over the successful Narrative is still in full swing.

Which Narrative will win your vote?

Mosque-a-rade

James Madison said it would be better if we fought with ourselves.

In order to replace the centralized power of a king, emperor, or simple majority, Madison supported a system of warring factions. The irritating arguments on the TV and internet grow directly out of this idea. Because the writers of the Constitution built a system in which shifting partisanship replaced autocracy, we often find ourselves in rather Jerry Springer-like exchanges.

“These supporters of the Mosque are unAmerican! It's like the Nazis putting an ice cream parlor at Auschwitz!”
“Those who would deny the right of believers to build worship houses are unAmerican! How can anyone be so disgusting as to use this as a political weapon?”
“I don't know who my baby daddy is! And I don't care! I'm in love with my grandmother!”

The recent media kerfuffle over the so-called “Mosque at Ground Zero” affords the perfect cross section view of how the rich and lively politicization of our culture can unfortunately distort even our most simple values.

Madison's colleagues, the Constitutional Framers, made absolutely no bones about the importance of the separation between Church and State. These complicated men saw Tyranny (with a capital T) as the bane of civil stability, freedom, and growth. These people knew the Bible intimately; they also knew the writings of Locke and Rousseau. Almost all were churchgoers.

But they knew of the political obstacles of religion. The colonies represented an escape from religious intolerance and State-imposed beliefs. When Ben Franklin, that old charmer and partier, proposed that the Constitutional Convention should begin daily meetings with a prayer, the Framers voted it down. This isn't a legend. I saw and read Franklin's proposal, in his own handwriting, at the Library of Congress this past weekend.

(You have to go to the Library of Congress. It is so cool-- seriously, you will freak out. They have the most amazing stuff. Goosebumps, man. Not the book series-- I mean actual goosebumps on your arms. And neck.)

Wary of the monarchs and aristocracies of Old Europe, the Framers wrote and ratified a document that ensured that certain personal freedoms would be held as our most valuable. The First Amendment of that document identified the principal and preeminent of freedoms: liberty to think, believe, imagine, communicate, and protest.

The Framers sought no byzantine legal system of overseeing religion. They intended the government to simply stay out of personal spiritual business of the citizenry.

This separation between Church and State has provided no shortage of political division in our country-- and yet the most hardened partisans agree on the core idea. The government is to offer no special treatment or bigotry towards any religion. If one follows the civil laws of our country, then one can believe anything one wants.

Our government, therefore, may have no legal position on methods, or places, of worship other than on those that violate the law. It's astonishingly simple.

Those who call for the government to act on the “Mosque at Ground Zero” are, in effect, asking for the government to act in a “extra-Constitutional” manner. Keep this in mind the next time such a call comes from a voice from that also claims to support “smaller government.”

It's hard for me to imagine a better way for the “terrorists to win” than for us to depart from our most cherished values in the name of security or “sensitivity.” The reason “American values” infuriate the Islamic extremists is that, as the Framers knew, personal freedom dismantles the tools of tyranny. Freedom is contagious.

Bin-Laden has publicly decried the “godlessness” of America. His argument against the West is fundamentally religious in nature. He rallies extremists against the malevolent insensitivity of the Americans building military bases in Saudi Arabia. Al-Queda's stated goal is to expel American influences (bases, markets, churches, etc) from the sacred land of Islam.

How ironic that some in our culture would use the same argument to expel an Islamic prayer room from the sacred site of Ground Zero.

Conversely, how powerful for our country to remain steadfast to its Constitution, and the Church-State separation, even at our most sensitive and vulnerable underbelly.

To paraphrase Madison, "Father of the Constitution" and orchestrator of partisan bickering: may the better argument win.

Sigh. Indeed.