People have asked me what President Obama's response should have been to the Occupy Movement. My response to their question is to imagine the directions this story can play out and then see where it matches up with the overlapping mythologies being continually constructed within and around the specific characters involved from the Oval Office to the Beltway, the nation, and around the world. Some version of this may be what happened at the White House. I imagine myself in that conversation, posing questions and noting responses.
Q: Mr. President, should we use it? The Occupy Movement is the kind of phenomenon that can result in spectacular success or equally spectacular failure of a particular candidate who decides to align with it.
R: After Republican attempts to attach President Obama to Occupy, and lukewarm attempts to express the value of dissent and his awareness of the vast inequities inhernet in our system, the President opted out.
My scrip: Dissent defines democracy. The phrase even appears on bumper stickers and decorative buttons.
Now it's your turn. Go to DrMyth.com and let me know where there is more to say and think about.
Imagining Justice by John P. Crank - 2002 - Page 11
"Indeed, the capacity for dissent defines democracy, a view all too often overlooked in the modern world."
For more on John Crank http://www.unomaha.edu/criminaljustice/faculty.php
Let me know where there is more to say and think about.
--Brandon WilliamsCraig.....Tue Jan 24 15:27:39 -0800 2012