Declaration of the Occupation of New York City | NYC General Assembly

I haven’t said anything about Occupy Wall Street because really, I do not comment on US politics unless it’s something related to US in relation to other places or to people perceived by the US as Non-American. Really, Occupy Wall Street is not my business, many people are commenting on the events with smart stuff and critical analysis. The only thing I’ve said in passing before is that I am deeply suspicious of any Social Movement that presents itself as rooted in “Middle Class values” (same thing I said about the European movement known as “The Indignant Ones”) because, more often than not, those “values” are just thinly veiled entitlement.

But the quote above? It rubs me off the wrong way, to the point that I had to re-read it several times to make sure I wasn’t misinterpreting. Because, surprise! “People of the World” have been trying to assert power for oh, I don’t know, centuries! As a matter of fact, my knowledge of social protests, organizations and unrest comes from having participated in some of them first hand in South America and having seen those develop, raise and eventually crash (see my comment above about Middle Class participation? That’s where I got my critical views from, because I’ve seen it happen before). And now, to have a group of American people, uncritically decree that “People of the World” should do X is well… offensive. Because it says nothing of the role of the US in oppressed parts of the world (again, I’ll repeat this until you are tired hearing it: CIA backed dictatorships in Latin America) and because it does not interrogate how many of the same people now occupying Wall Street (mainly those who are White and US Nationals) have actively benefited from these US interventions (like forceful trade agreements with nations in the Global South that brought unhinged economic misery to those nations while fostering an unfair trade benefit for the US and, by proxy, to US citizens and the US corporations employing those citizens and creating US wealth).

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have family and friends in Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia to contact. As a matter of urgency I must inform them that we finally have permission from the Empire to “assert our power”. Because we have all been sitting on our hands waiting for this very moment.