Mayor Bloomberg just made a ridiculous remark about the 10,000 or more folks who rallied with Occupy Wall Street yesterday, including me. He said in his radio address that we were just “a bunch of unions,” not the “real” Occupy Wall Street folks, so therefore the enormous size, power and hope of the march should not be credited to the Occupy movement.
That is absurd. I love unions, and Zuccotti Park protesters, and students, and old people, and nurses, and homeless people, and nannies, and feminists, and writers, and all sorts of folks who just lost their jobs and houses. And we were all there yesterday. All of us were, and are, Occupy Wall Street.
“The 99%” is the most hopeful — and brilliant — concept I have ever encountered in American politics. We don’t have to be set against each other to accomplish radical change — the opposite is what is true.