By Lawson H. Snipes Jr.

I am no stranger to chronic homelessness, the root cause of which is overpopulation and resultant poverty in a world of social and economic inequality. Small wonder we are experiencing a revisit of the 1960s today.

It seems to me the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, this “leaderless” decision by consensus has gone as far as it can go and still maintain its integrity. I say this because the movement has rapidly become widespread, and instead of a definitive call to action in terms of legislative changes, it has morphed into special-interest gripes, such as homelessness, education fee hikes, “police brutality” and debates as to whether violence is an acceptable, pragmatic technique to gain attention and raise support for the 99 percent to be heard.

From the beginning, I have advocated focus in the direction of the movement. This movement began on Wall Street. It began with a banshee’s wail of frustration and, eventually, contempt for Wall Street practices. That focus, in my view, is best centered on those practices — on one practice: the marriage of the banking and securities industries. They need to be separated.

A little history: When banking was deregulated, Alan Greenspan himself went on record to say he made a mistake in presuming the banking industry knew best, the securities industry markets knew best how to regulate themselves without so much government interference. The greed factor was not considered.

Banks begin to see gambling in the market (securities) as not only profitable, but necessary to compete. It became a vehicle for almost criminal — some say even treasonous — profits for the banks, mega-corporation CEOs and stockholders who owe no loyalty to our country. Then came Silicon Valley downsizing, the housing market collapse and the global debt crisis.

Remember, in the old days before deregulation, banks earned their money the old-fashioned way: They earned it. Banks made loans; they made profit from the interest in the loans. They did not gamble so much in the market. Pension funds later were gambled with, and it is the primary reason your parents will not be retiring as planned, because the pension funds were bundled up and gambled, and were lost.

Today, investors are gambling that this are going to get worse. Yes, you can make money that way, too, kind of like playing low-ball poker, where the lowest (worst) hand wins.

And, today, there is no limit to how much a candidate can spend on television advertising. It is a fact that the more you advertise, the more people are exposed to your product and services and so the more you sell. (And this is independent of the product, or even its “real” value, to some extent.)

This is how and why today’s GOP came to control a Congress that will allow only the passage of legislation that will preserve the profitable environment of those wealthy enough to be elected through massive money spent on advertising.

A bit simplistic? Only on the surface, but I digress …

This Occupy movement in general and our local one in Davis’ Central Park — for as long as it is there — is symbolic of the frustration most of us feel today. Whether you are middle-class or pitifully below middle-class, you see your opportunity to rise above your present place in life, dwindling.

But — and this is something I would like young people to think about, hard — the occupiers, without leadership, now run the risk of confusing the symbol (the overnight activists) with the thing symbolized, which is the unfair practices of the banking industry and how those practices have and continue to make the rich richer, at the expense of the middle class.

In short, the local encampments and the others around the country are convinced that their very occupation is, in itself, the movement.

It is not. It is the symbol of the movement and needs to be seen as such by not only the mainstream, who are in support but cannot camp there — they are still “doing it the right way” and have mouths to feed — but by the occupiers themselves. This is made difficult because of significant numbers of truly otherwise unsheltered (“homeless”).

On Monday morning, something very significant happened. In Oakland, police and law enforcement from around the Bay Area removed the occupiers as homeless campers from the plaza. The same is being repeated in New York, ground zero of the protest movement, even as I write this.

It’s a good thing for the movement and a bad development for the homeless. True protesters will be allowed to gather in unlimited numbers as is their right to assembly, but they will not be allowed to erect any shelter of any kind — not a tent, not a sleeping bag not a blanket.

I predict this is precisely what will happen around the country. It is the “golden mean,” the sweet spot of diplomacy, or the closest thing a governing body can do to protect the movement, the protesters and the commerce, which is not what the movement is about. This policy says to the movement: We hear you!

A leaderless culture of dissent, a leaderless protest model, has served its purpose till now. The next step is to make legislative demands. I have seen this process in the ’60s when “end the war” was the focus, although there were myriad special-interest gripes then, too.

This what I want to drive home to young leaders of tomorrow who wonder exactly what they are protesting and demanding: Make your demands, because only after you do will you really be heard, an end to the protest can be seen by those who need to see it — your adversaries, the 1 percent.

By the way, if the Davis does prohibit tents, falling in step with Oakland’s protocol, the Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter of Davis begins its fifth year housing the homeless in their faith community structures. Our homeless havesome where besides the park to go.

The program needs student volunteers: food servers, transporters from intake to a church or synogoue that night, food preparers, sleeping bag and cot support, just talking and the “sharing of normal life,” especially during this holiday season. The most serious need is for overnighters. There are UC Davis and Davis High School internships available as well.

For more information, contact The Spare Changer at [email protected] or [email protected].

— Lawson H. Snipes Jr. is contributing editor and publisher of The Spare Changer, a monthly newsletter/journal distributed by homeless individuals and UC Davis student activists. He prepared these remarks for Poverty & Homeless Action Week, sponsored by CalPIRG.

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