Thank Obama for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

• Author: Ford, Glen
• Position: Thinking Politically

There is no particular political genius to the Occupy Wall Street movement, no soaring, searing vision that sets the world afire in some new and different way. When it comes to political analysis, much of what emanates from the swirl of activity is no more than soggy old left-liberal reformism that feels more dynamic only when wrapped in a youthful, "movement" package. And yet it is the most promising mass US phenomenon in more than 40 years. Why, and why now?

The power of the movement derives from the inexorable logic of its animating slogans. It is, at root, opposed to the rule of finance capital--although even the word "capital" is repugnant to some participants who believe themselves to be engaged in a spiritual quest far beyond the parameters of political economy. Nevertheless, it is a fact that opposition to the rule of finance capital--to Wall Street--is opposition to capitalism as it actually exists in the here and now. Judging by the ballooning of the movement and the demeanor of its troops, opposition to capitalism as it actually exists turns out to be an exquisitely exhilarating and fulfilling activity, whether those so engaged consider themselves socialists or not.

The anti-Wall Street slogans and rhetoric have their own logic and dynamic that should--in struggle and over time--push aside left-liberal pabulum and weak reformist nostrums that cannot possibly even begin to contain, much less defeat, the hegemonic power of massed capital.

It did not take genius to identify the rule of finance capital as the common enemy of humankind. Millions, if not billions, have already come to that conclusion, and the inevitable trajectory of capital was predicted and plotted long ago. But the United States, a nation conceived as a white man's empire and singularly dedicated to the project of business, confronts the 21st century as a political-cultural desert, a place where May Day is largely unknown, supplanted by a Labor Day four months removed on the calendar and eons away in class content. The centrality of racial oppression has so distorted relationships of class that the very language is impoverished and popular political discussion infantilized.

Thus, we in the US are relegated to working our way through the logic of slogans that are broadly informed by a reality that is everywhere manifest, but only stiltedly articulated. But that's the political culture we've got, and the OWS slogans do point, inexorably, to confrontation with The...