Negative Solidarity Movement

 This is a quick poem inspired by my interactions with the Occupy Wall St movement (an interesting conversation I had yesterday inspired me to finish it).  For the most part they seem like good, well-intentioned, mostly liberal people who, when confronted by the current situation are afraid of what it might say about the politics that they've been pursuing for so long.  Rather than admit the obvious (the corruption of government as an institution, the need for a decentralized society built on organic community, the fatal contradiction of the leftist worldview that believes one can have personal liberty while the government delivers you your prosperity on a platter), they stand paralyzed in the face of reality saying things like "no one knows what will happen next", "no one knows what to do about this problem" etc. 


I hope all my OWS brothers and sisters who read this realize (and here, I speak from my deepest of personal experiences) that the first part of accepting reality and your place in it is admitting you are wrong.  I have been through this process.  It was hard living in an ideological limbo where I paid attention to so many things I was unable to form an opinion on, but admitting that my previous conceptions (I was, you could say, a generic statist) that set my course of action were wrong started me on the woodland path that I am still walking today.  Your former self will fall to ashes but you will rise a phoenix from the fires of change.

Negative Solidarity Movement

The crowd

Of decaying walls

Whose roof that united them

In common interest,

Belief,

Prosperity,

Has collapsed into the ground

Leaving them stranded:

Searching for someone to blame

As they crumble in the rain.

Out of isolation come the walls

To stand in city streets

Chanting slogans,

Holding placards,

Walking alone

Though with each other.

Between them

All bonds lie broken:

Each one stands

In contradiction with the crowd,

But walks with it

In self-righteous anger

That divides them even as it unites.

This movement stands afraid

To question

To answer

To find

An answer to their anger

For fear of what it might unbind…