ウォール・ストリートを占拠せよ [Occupy Wall Street]
今のアメリカの政治の現状を描いた風刺漫画
左がTea Party派、右がOccupy Wall Street派、そして真ん中に立って肩身の狭い思いをしている人は一体だれなのか
アメリカのニューヨークで始まったOccupy Wall Street 抗議行動は、アメリカ各地のみならず、世界各地に広がりを見せている。
大企業の強欲さや社会的不公平に対して抗議はしているが、具体的な要求の中身が見えてこないという批判も出てきている。
イギリスの経済誌エコノミストが具体策の見えてこない今回の抗議運動について、inkblot protest(インクのしみ抗議)というタイトルの記事を載せています。
Occupy Wall Street 抗議行動は果たして第2のティー・パーティ運動となって政治に大きな影響を与えることになるのか、その動向が注目されます。
「Occupy Wall Street 抗議内容」
Corporations “place profit over people”, “run our governments”, take bail-outs “with impunity”, poison the food supply, block green energy, “perpetuate colonialism at home and abroad”, muzzle the media and use student loans to “hold students hostage”.
「大企業は人間よりも企業利益を優先し、政府を動かしている。罰を受けずに政府からの救済を受けている。食料供給に害を与え、グリーン・エネルギーの普及を阻んでいる。国内外で植民地主義を持続させている。メディアを沈黙させ、学生向けローンを利用して学生を人質に取っている。」
こうしたことに対しての抗議はするのだが、具体的な要求や解決策が今のところはっきりとは示されていない。
こうした具体的な要求が見えていない今回の抗議活動のことを、エコノミストは今回の記事の中で、ロールシャッハ抗議(Rorschach protest)と呼んでいる。
It is easy to demand “just solutions”. But this is so far a movement without detailed policies. You might call them the Rorschach protests. Politicians and newspaper commentators stare at the inkblots and see what they want to see. If they see nothing very coherent, they offer suggestions of their own.
「公正な解決策を要求するのは簡単だが、これまでのところ今回の抗議行動には詳細な運動方針が見られない。ロールシャッハ抗議と呼んでもよいくらいだ。政治家や新聞のコメンテイター達はインクのしみ模様をじっと見て、そこから自分たちが見たいものを見る。彼らの抗議運動からそれほど首尾一貫した政策が見えてこなければ、自分たちの提案を彼らに与える。」
◆Rorschach protestはRorschach testという専門用語から来ている。
「スイスの精神科医Rorschachの考案した性格診断法で、無意味な左右対称のインクのしみが何に見えるかを答えさせ、それを分析して性格や精神内部の状態を診断する検査のこと。inkblot testともいう。」
インクのしみの形は見る人によって、様々な解釈が出来るわけで、Occupy Wall Street運動はある一定の形を成していないと見られている。
Like the Occupy Wall Street crowd, the tea-partiers did not have much by way of detailed policy when they started. That lot wanted to bash big government and restore individual liberty. This lot wants to bash big business and restore social justice. So why can’t Occupy Wall Street become a tea-party movement for the other side.
「Occupy Wall Street抗議デモの参加者同様、ティー・パーティ運動の参加者たちにも、スタートした当初はこれはといったはっきりとした政策などはほとんど見られなかった。ティー・パーティ運動の参加者たちは大きな政府を叩き、個人の自由を取り戻すことを求めていた。そして今回のデモの参加者たちは大企業を叩き、社会正義を取り戻したいと願っているのだ。それであれば、Occupy Wall Street がもう一方の勢力のためのティー・パーティ運動になれないことはないのだ。」
※ティー・パーティ運動は共和党を取り込んで、アメリカの政治全体を著しく右翼化させた。これにならってOccupy Wall Street はオバマ大統領率いる民主党を揺さぶって、左翼化の方向に持っていくのではないかと見られている。
具体的な行動パターンがなかなか見えてこないOccupy Wall Street 運動だが、エコノミストの記事は最後に次のように述べて、この記事を終えている。
These protests highlight the misery of millions during the present slump. But to bring about real change in a real democracy you also have to do real politics. It just takes work—and enough people who think like you.
「こうしたOccupy Wall Street 抗議は、今の不況下で苦しんでいる大勢の国民の窮状ぶりを浮かび上がらせている。しかし、真の民主主義国家で、真の変革をもたらすには、それらを現実化させるための政治を行うことも必要なのだ。同じ考えを持った人たちが大勢集まって、それを実行しさえすればよいのだ。」
The inkblot protests
A new generation takes to the barricades. They should pay more attention to the ballot box
Oct 8th 2011 | from the print edition
N TAHRIR SQUARE and Homs, Egyptians and Syrians have risked their lives to demand basic democratic freedoms. In Britain, that nation of shopkeepers, the young take to the streets to smash windows and steal trainers and television sets. Greeks are rioting because they can see their economic future being washed down the drain of the euro. And for the past few weeks in New York City many hundreds and sometimes thousands of young Americans have been marching, or camping out in Zuccotti Park in the financial district, to “Occupy Wall Street”, because they are demanding—well, what exactly?
To judge by the diversity of their slogans, placards and websites, you pays your money (metaphorically) and you takes your choice. But there is no mistaking the gist.
These people do not believe that the business of America should be business. A “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” summons all those who feel “wronged by the corporate forces of the world”. Corporations “place profit over people”, “run our governments”, take bail-outs “with impunity”, poison the food supply, block green energy, “perpetuate colonialism at home and abroad”, muzzle the media and use student loans to “hold students hostage”. The protests have already spread to Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago, and were this week heading towards the nation’s capital. Explicitly invoking the spirit of Tahrir Square, the organisers of a rally planned for Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, are demanding “just solutions to the crises we face”. In “creative acts of civil resistance” demonstrators will demand peace, freedom and “inherent rights”, including the inherent right “to grow edible natural food”.
It is easy to demand “just solutions”. But this is so far a movement without detailed policies. You might call them the Rorschach protests. Politicians and newspaper commentators stare at the inkblots and see what they want to see. If they see nothing very coherent, they offer suggestions of their own. For example, Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, moving from the sublimely vague to the ridiculously precise, advises the Wall Street demonstrators to demand a financial-transactions tax, the closing of the “carried interest” loophole and stricter capital requirements (he suggests the Basel 3 standards) for big banks. Good luck with those catchy slogans, Comrade Kristof.
What the broader American left would love to see in the protests is a progressive counterpart to the conservatives’ tea-party movement. And why should that be so impossible? The tea parties, remember, also started with little more than a (strikingly ungrammatical) cry of pain. “This is America,” yelled Rick Santelli, a financial reporter, from the Chicago futures exchange in 2009. “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbour’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?”
Mr Santelli’s televised rant against bail-outs has gone down in history as the birth harangue of the tea-party movement, which went on in double-quick time to capture the Republican Party and yank the whole of American politics sharply to the right. Like the Occupy Wall Street crowd, the tea-partiers did not have much by way of detailed policy when they started. That lot wanted to bash big government and restore individual liberty. This lot wants to bash big business and restore social justice. So why can’t Occupy Wall Street become a tea-party movement for the other side, one that might jolt the Democrats out of their torpor, tug them left, and switch back on some of the electricity that Barack Obama generated when he was running for president?
One reason is that nothing sucks the energy out of a protest movement faster than winning power. And although Mr Obama still has his tax-the-rich moments, he knows he will not be re-elected by lurching too far left. The man who could use a fresh wad of donations from Wall Street as 2012 approaches is not going to align himself with those who would tear it down. Nor they with him: to many of the demonstrators, all politicians, including Mr Obama, are “Republicrats”, each as rotten as the other.
You’ve had your revolution already
The other reason to doubt whether Occupy Wall Street will become a tea-party movement of the left is its fixation on protest. But Zuccotti Park is not Tahrir Square and America is not Egypt. It is not even France. In France street demos are tolerated, sometimes glorified, as a way to blow off steam and win the attention of deputies who neglect voters or forget their election promises.
America is different. It is, indeed, the sort of democracy that some people in Tahrir Square lost their lives asking for. With endless elections and permanent campaigns, it is exquisitely sensitive to voters’ wants. Its parties are bitterly polarised, so it is wrong to say that its politicians are all the same. It has its party machines, but groups that organise hard can use the primaries to prise them open. True, elections cost money; but Mr Obama proved that money soon flows to unknowns with momentum.
The tea-partiers grasped all this. They, too, took to the streets. Some strutted about in tricorn hats. But at the same time they learned their way around the machinery of elections and how to scare the bejesus out of any candidate they did not like.
The people behind Occupy Wall Street could follow suit if they wanted. Yes, they have every right to protest. Marches and sit-ins have played an honourable part in American history. The right of the people peaceably to assemble is enshrined in the first amendment. Nothing in the constitution says that you have to have a 12-point policy plan from McKinsey, or the permission of the New York police. If nothing else, these protests highlight the misery of millions during the present slump. But to bring about real change in a real democracy you also have to do real politics. It just takes work—and enough people who think like you.
(Economist 2011/10/08)
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