Real political change is finally back on the agenda in the United StatesThursday will be another significant day for the new political movement emerging in the United States.
This is the day when the movement arrives on the steps of the White House. This is the day when October 2011 will descend on Washington's Freedom Plaza.
And the thousands of people who will go to Freedom Plaza will know that thousands of people are making the same stand in communities, towns and cities thoughout the United States.
And not just in the United States. Throughout the world people are making a stand. In countries like Greece, Spain, Britain and Portugal ordinary people are fighting the same capitalist forces that see us as mere fodder for 'the machine'.
The machine has to be stopped and a new world won.
I have read several columns where the issues of political demands and organisation have been discussed.
The comments have been well-intentioned and made in a spirit of solidarity but I think they are well wide of the mark.
One of the great strengths of Occupy Wall Street is that it embraces a diverse constellation of social and political forces within the United States. This is a movement that has embraced different groups and organisations without rancour but with respect.
Its present strength and growing popularity lies in its diversity and not in uniformity.
It is more than enough at this stage that the movement has ignited a conversation and debate within the United States about the legitimacy of a economic system that enriches one percent of the population at the expense of everyone else.
That debate has been off the American political agenda for decades and, at last, we are truly seeing an American awakening.
Social democratic parties throughout the West long ago meekly surrendered to neoliberalism. But out of the rubble of social democracy we can build new progressive movements.
In the United States there is a yearning for a fundamental change. Occupy Wall Street has tapped into that yearning.
It can be done elsewhere too.
It would nice to think it could be done in New Zealand too and that we can find a new politics that bypasses the neoliberalism and the cronyism of the parliamentary parties. We need a new kind of politics that rejects voting for a cabal of oppressors every three years.
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