You say you want a revolution.
As far as revolutions go, the United States led the pack for a while.
The American Revolution began with a document every sixth grader in the United States should be able to recite the beginning of, and “When, in the course of human events …” became the basis for our nation’s inception.
The Declaration of Independence shook the international community at the time. The Founding Fathers used words first, actions second, to create the nation who’s capital we reside in.
We have a great lineage of rhetoric that helps to define our nation. The Preamble of the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation are all documents wars have been fought over because of the power of their rhetoric and what that language stood for.
That awareness of the power of language is something we sometimes take for granted. We’ve deemed the First Amendment so important we have an entire museum downtown dedicated to those 45 words.
A part of the Arab Spring was a want for freedom of speech and simply being heard. Obama remarked a few months ago, “To the people of Egypt … I want to be clear. We hear your voices.”
Democracy is about hearing those voices. It’s what enables town hall meetings and caucuses, blogs and this very newspaper. If there is any form of government that loves its words, democracy has to be at the top of the list. The power of persuasion, of changing people’s opinions through language, is democracy at its finest.
The revolution we are all living through is, like most, heavily reliant on language. Occupy Wall Street is as much about what protesters are fighting for as the fighting words they use. The movement prides itself of using language, rather than violent action, to get its message across, and it is utilizing every form of communication it can put into the hands of its protesters.
The most visible rhetoric of the movement really comes down to two percentages: the 99 percent and the 1 percent. These figures, regardless of where they came from, are powerful rhetoric devices in and of themselves.
We like to think numbers are solid and concrete: two is always more than one and you can’t dispute that 99 percent is a powerful majority and 1 percent is, well, 1 percent. The connotation “99 percent” has earned from OWS is no longer almost everything; it is everything. The number has come to be identified with something almost universal in scope. It’s no longer a part, it represents the whole.
The rhetoric of the movement isn’t about blame as much as it’s about getting the powers that be to take notice of what the people want. It’s about spreading a message and getting the word out there that people are angry and they want change.
Governments can try and stamp down a revolution, but the rhetoric stays with us.
I’m sure that years from now, regardless of what the outcomes of this movement is, we’ll catch ourselves walking around Lower Manhattan and instead of referring to the headquarters of the movement as Zuccotti Park we’ll say “Liberty Square.” Occupy Wall Street isn’t something that will slip out of our collective consciousness any time soon.
The Beatles had it down, I think: people want change they can see. Change that they can concretely understand and will do anything they can do make happen, regardless of what their opponents say.
As scary as it may be, if you believe in your words, you need to stand behind them. Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright?
Morizio is a double major in CAS and Kogod.
