Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I read in the New York Times that my
old newspaper editor from Hunter College had started the Occupied Wall Street Journal. I went
down to visit him, and he had not slept in days, which was typical of everyone
in the movement at that point. He was going off on something, and I saw that he
was in the middle of this passionate experience, which everyone was, and I was
like, “This is a moment in time. This is what I’ve been waiting for.” In 2004,
I took a break from waiting tables and went on unemployment for six months. I
had been waiting tables for years. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my
life. It was before I went to journalism school. It was around the time of the
2004 presidential election, and I started getting so angry, and nobody was
getting angry with me. When Occupy began, I felt like finally people were getting angry with me.
So when I went down to visit my old editor at the Occupied Wall Street Journal offices, he was in the middle of this swarm of activity. I said, “Please let me write for you. I just want to write for you. I’ll do anything,” so they gave me a piece about the library. You could spin a masterpiece out of that story. There are just so many angles. The first time I visited Zuccotti was on assignment. When I went down for the first time, it was like a street fair. It was like a block party, but it was so impressive in the systems that it organically sprung up totally organized in that park, and that’s when I realized this was something special and that this was what I was waiting for after all those years being angry.
So when I went down to visit my old editor at the Occupied Wall Street Journal offices, he was in the middle of this swarm of activity. I said, “Please let me write for you. I just want to write for you. I’ll do anything,” so they gave me a piece about the library. You could spin a masterpiece out of that story. There are just so many angles. The first time I visited Zuccotti was on assignment. When I went down for the first time, it was like a street fair. It was like a block party, but it was so impressive in the systems that it organically sprung up totally organized in that park, and that’s when I realized this was something special and that this was what I was waiting for after all those years being angry.
I feel like it was the first time that really important
issues were coming to the front. I work in mainstream media in a minimal role. For years, all of
the wrong things were leading the news casts. Finally, the right thing was
leading the news cast – income inequality. It had been so bad. It was only something
MSNBC really talked about with Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. I realized it
was so important when I heard everyone talking about it. I never forget, there
was a day where I found an article from the New York Times from 1999, when Glass-Steagall was struck down. I sent it to an organizer to send
to the organizing working groups. An hour later, I went down to the park, and
someone had all of the facts of that article bullet pointed on a sign. International
news cameras were taking pictures of this sign. I said, “I can’t believe that I
sent a random article to an organizer, and moments later, it ends up a talking
point.” Its like, “Wow, we are finally like the mainstream establishments who
have held our news space hostage.” We are finally having an impact, and
even though we don’t have the microphone anymore, I still think that we do have
that impact. With the election, it’s all about Mitt Romney with his houses.
Could he even begin to relate to people? The fact that we are talking about
that. It was mentioned with John McCain, but not like this. His record at Bain
Capital is being looked at in a different way. I know that these individual
people don’t matter, but the fact that these issues are actually being
introduced in the mainstream media, which is totally corporate-run, is a
miracle.
I hope all of this will bring about a world where people can’t just
write checks to get people into office. When somebody like Scott Walker outspends
his opponent seven to one, and it is all money from billionaires who live out
of state, that’s a problem. That means anyone with a checkbook can influence
the political system. The world I want to live in is a world of direct
democracy, not representative democracy. I want to live in a world where,
I know it sounds crazy, but a world with just a little more compassion for the people who
have very little. I was just watching The Wire. The
show really puts forth the point that black people doing drugs in Baltimore don’t
count. If they are killed, it doesn’t matter. I know it’s a show, but there’s a
whole segment of society where shit happens to them, and no one cares. The
world I want to live in, that stuff will always be on the front page. It will be on the
front page how many children die of starvation. It will be on the front page
that something like a quarter of American children are living in poverty. It’s
ridiculous. This stuff should stay on the front page until it changes. That’s
the world I want to live in.
Jennifer Sacks is an editor at the Occupied Wall Street Journal.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Jennifer Sacks is an editor at the Occupied Wall Street Journal.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/