Democratic Obstacles to Liberty: Lessons from Occupy Protests

Introduction

Already a distant memory to most of the nation — if they registered as more than the faintest blip on the public's attention at all — the Occupy protests that swept through most major cities in the United States and several cities around the world were demonstrative of two things at once: the spirit of liberty that is still strong among some in this nation, and the problems that occur when this liberty meets the institutions of a long-stagnant democracy. Some insist that the protests were not a failure, arguing that they reinvigorated national debate on a range of issues and produced concrete gains in areas such as how banks treat their customers and how cities treat their citizens. An honest look at the world approximately six months after the height of the protests tells a very different story, however: the parks were forcibly cleared of protesters, and the banks returned to business as usual.

There is a definite problem in the United States with achieving true liberty and a truly representative democracy, and this problem is not new. The Occupy protests highlighted debates regarding free speech and other First Amendment rights — namely the rights to assemble and to petition the government — and did create some policy debate at local, state, and federal levels. Yet these same debates have been taking place in one form or another since the nation's founding. Examining the Occupy protests and the problems they illustrated through the lenses of some of society's most prominent commentators sheds significant light on the ongoing tensions between liberty and democracy.

Voice and Democracy

One of the primary issues the Occupy protests highlighted — both in the direct cries of the protesters and in terms of how the protests were covered and presented in public discourse — is the common citizen's lack of a true voice in the workings of American democracy. By any measure, and certainly from the perspective of the Occupy protesters, the federal government and the network of those who influence it — lobbyists especially, along with other special interest representatives and systems of influence — has grown large and prohibitively encumbered (Zakaria, 2003). It is all but impossible for an individual or a small group of un-moneyed citizens to gain the attention of policymakers in any meaningful way, let alone to actually influence their decision-making. Instead, that influence is left to special interest groups with large sums of money that ostensibly work on the "people's" behalf.

While it was once posited that this kind of special interest lobbying would lead to a "rational mean" as competing interests effectively cancelled each other out, this has not proven to be the case. Instead, as lobbyists have assumed greater levels of influence within the government, there has been a move toward consolidation and piggy-backing, resulting in a cascade of tax breaks, subsidies, and other handouts (Zakaria, 2003). This dynamic has increased the degree to which moneyed interests can control the government and determine whose voice gets heard in society, while simultaneously expanding the money available to exert such control (Zakaria, 2003). The Occupy protests were a direct reaction to this trend, and served as direct demonstrations of its effects.

Media, Public Discourse, and Democratic Access

The media coverage of the Occupy protests was almost nonexistent during the first several weeks, despite their unique nature, their size, and their geographic extent. Were it not for the advent of the Internet and the "blogosphere" — enabling citizen journalists to report and disseminate information to audiences nationwide and worldwide — it is unlikely that anyone not in the immediate vicinity of the protests would have known they were happening, let alone been moved to reconsider their perspective on national issues. The manner in which the media worked to remove the Occupy protests and the issues raised by the protesters from public discourse demonstrates the same problem that exists in accessing government; in this incarnation, however, it is access to society that is being limited. While the Occupy protests may have been born out of frustrations over lack of access to government, they became equally about the lack of a voice in the nation as a whole.

The relationship between media and democracy is of vital importance, even more so in the age of instant mass communication and competing media sources. Walter Lippmann, in his book Public Opinion (1922), discusses a very similar issue arising during World War I, when Allied propaganda operated not merely by disseminating false or misleading information, but more profoundly by limiting public access to actual information and events. If no story other than the official story can exist, there can be no discussion of alternative facts or implications, and no consideration of deeper ramifications or tangential issues related to any given subject.

Conclusion

The problems with American democracy were debated during the founding years of the country, and the debate continues today. Far from being settled, these issues still cause real and immediate problems for millions of American citizens.

Lippmann, W. (1992). Public Opinion. Accessed 9 May 2012.

Zakaria, F. (2003). The Future of Freedom. New York: Norton.