#OccupyCanton

A short post—

In my recent studies on mass-consumerist culture I keep coming back to a simple fact… Americans are programmed. Be it by mass media, money, power, we have become a society in which people AWAIT instruction. This is why Occupy is so ‘radically’ different… we try our best to avoid issuing ‘instructions’ trying to promote self-advocacy and self-awareness. Be your own movement, be your own leader. Sadly so many of us are totally incapable of functioning without somebody to instruct us on how to function. I really wish I could figure out how to break this barrier. YOU DO NOT NEED A LEADER. I have had only ONE instruction to people since the inception of this movement; You need to educate yourselves and find that spark, that spark of independence and free-will that is in ALL of us to do what YOU want to do. It is not anarchy to do what you want within the confines of the rights given to us by our founders, by our laws, or by our Creator (if you believe in one). It is not my duty, nor my place— nor anybody else’s place, to tell you what to do beyond telling you “Do what thou wilt.” Nobody here will stop you, I promise.

A little over a year ago I was one of the over 200,000 attendees at Jon Stewart’s ‘Rally To Restore Sanity’. Billed as ‘the million moderate march’ by Stewart it served a similar message with OWS sentiment— that there are common sense solutions to the troubled times we find ourselves in, and that the corporate media, monied interests, and partisan politics prevent these solutions from coming to fruition.

Jon Stewart’s program, of course, is part of that corporate media. Owned by Viacom Inc (a formed CBS affiliate group) many have touted his program for its entertainment and informational values. I too am an avid viewer of his program which has a decidedly ‘New York’ flare. It is, after all, filmed in New York and many of its cast are New Yorkers themselves.

I was thus disheartened tonight to watch the segment airing on his November 16th episode where  the second act of the Daily Show was devoted to a piece filmed at Zuccotti Park on Monday, before the NYPD eviction. The piece, featuring comedian Samantha Bee, focused on the divide between OWS protestors in Zuccotti Park where there was a growing disenchantment of encamped protestors who felt that their movement was being co-opted by those within their ranks who had better access to knowledge, materials, and who had connections to spread our message across the globe. 

Among the interviewed were two men described as ‘elite Ivy League-ers’ who didn’t identify themselves with the drum-circling hippies in the ‘ghetto’ of the movement.While the segment correctly identified the internal strife and made us look like a bunch of in-fighting douche bags. As our movement has grown it has become harder and harder to adopt motions by consensus and ‘facilitators’ have sought to create a shared power structure in order to promote the growth of the message. The piece finished with Samantha Bee declaring the death of our movement saying that we “had not [yet] built a middle class to crush,” when the NYPD came in Tuesday morning.

There were no mention of the 200 confirmed arrests. No mention of the deployment of Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) sound weaponry, concussion grenades, batons, the barring of the press or even the arrest of a New York City Councilman. Of all the issues behind Tuesday’s eviction, ranging from the corruption of billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, Stewart’s show chose to run with a pre-recorded piece without any consideration paid to the larger issues.

The Daily Show and sister-program The Colbert Report are, quite frankly, are the exceptions that prove what I and the movement have stated all along— that the corporate media is incapable of covering this movement unbiasedly as it our movement is deeply critical of the corporate media itself. 

On the eve of our biggest push yet, let us all remind ourselves that it is the FREE press that is our ally and not the corporate media which operates under censorship-by-exclusion. If Jon Stewart cannot or will not run a piece about a despicable event his own locale which garnered international attention, how can we expect anybody else to do so as well? We must continue to separate ourselves from the machinations of those in power and promote self-actualization, and this includes being critical thinkers about organizations and people with whom we sympathize. 

Continue to reject monied influences. Continue to operate, not as a leaderless movement, but as a movement of leaders. We are legion. Together, divided by zero, we all equal one.

Micah D. Miller

#OccupyCanton