Yet one more of those pieces which purport to defend the Occupy Wall Street protests with a version of 'Who needs demands?' This time it's Katrina vanden Heuvel. It's quite mystifying to me. That a protest movement is an entirely apt form of politics for the sort of thing these protesters are protesting about - yes. That, like any other young movement, Occupy Wall Street needs time to progress towards a well thought out set of ideas - also fair enough. But to suggest that demands are somehow beside the point is obviously self-defeating. Katrina vanden Heuvel's version of the argument is scarcely coherent:
The protesters in the nascent movement have been criticized for being too decentralized and lacking a clear list of demands. But they are bearing witness to the corruption of our politics; if they made demands to those in power, it would suggest those in power could do something about it. This contradicts what is, perhaps, their most compelling point: that our institutions and politicians serve the top 1 percent, not the other 99.
The movement doesn't need a policy or legislative agenda to send its message. The thrust of what it seeks - fueled both by anger and deep principles - has moral clarity. It wants corporate money out of politics. It wants the widening gap of income inequality to be narrowed substantially. And it wants meaningful solutions to the jobless crisis. In short, it wants a system that works for the 99 percent. Already Occupy Wall Street has sparked a conversation about reforms far more substantial than the stunted debate in Washington. Its energy will supercharge the arduous work other organizations have been doing for years, amplifying their actions as well as their agendas.
On the one hand, then, there's no point in putting demands to those in power, because they're not the ones who'll do anything about them; on the other hand... well, there are some clear (let's call them) 'wants'. But aren't these a little bit like demands? Doesn't matter, let's move on.
If those in power are not receptive to the aforesaid wants, then the possibilities for achieving needed reforms are not unlimited: it's either getting them to be receptive, or replacing those in power by others - with or without some change of institutions to help achieve the goal. To pretend that a protest movement could be effective without formulating anything in the way of demands - or we could also say proposals - on these matters too is not mature political counsel.