Chicago 1968, Seattle l999, and now Occupy 2011
… once in a lifetime/ the longed for tidal wave/ of justice can rise up…
So hope for a great sea-change…
Believe in miracles…– Irish Nobel Prize laureate Seamus Heaney, from the poem “The Cure”
The miraculous and magical rise of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) tidal wave has suspended us in a threshold between a no-longer and a not-yet. The call for justice initiated by American youth echoes around the globe. Ours is a time of transition; exploring similar transitional moments in history could be instructive.
I recently watched the acclaimed fictionalized film Battle of Seattle with a 22-year-old who has been at Occupy Santa Rosa numerous times, here in Sonoma County, Northern California. The film evoked memories from the l968 Chicago National Democratic Convention, where I was in the streets and then briefly in jail. I was not in Seattle for the 1999 actions against the international gathering of the World Trade Organization, though I followed