Getting Beyond the Politics of Powerlessness
Too many of us in left politics today have a deep-seated resistance to seeking, taking, and wielding power. We have to overcome that resistance.
A member of the Occupy Wall Street movement places tape over a window of a forclosed home during a march in the neighborhood of East New York to draw attention to foreclosed homes in the community on December 6, 2011, in Brooklyn, New York. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
It’s October 2013, and here in Minnesota it’s already chilly, the leaves changing in dramatic colors that belong on a postcard. Ileia and I are at a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis with Cat and Nick from Occupy Homes, one of the many organizations that has emerged from the magic and the rubble of Occupy Wall Street.
Occupy Homes has been organizing poor and working-class people to use direct action to resist the evictions and foreclosures sweeping the nation and devastating their neighborhoods.
When the sheriff comes to carry out an eviction order, people from all over the community come and help the family stay in their house, defy the eviction, protect their home. It’s heroic and incredible, and also hard and full of loss.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.