OCCUPY BRUNSWICK marchers make their way down the sidewalk on Maine Street in Brunswick in this Nov. 5, 2011, file photo. They are headed for the Bank of America branch. Mid-coast area occupiers protest each Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon in front of the bank at 110 Maine St. “We are a constant, diverse, dedicated and hopeful gathering seeking a better America,” says Gary B. Anderson.
In it he draws parallels between the Occupy movement and its concerns, and that of the early Christian church and its foundation built on love, compassion and solidarity against oppression and tyranny exercising brute force to silence a rebellious gospel message, using lions instead of pepper spray. His conclusion is that, in its clarion call to embrace such inherent Christian concerns, the Occupy movement will either galvanize the Christian community, revitalizing traditional Christianity, or demonstrate its social and political irrelevance.
That is a harsh assertion, but is it not, on reflection, an accurate one? Not so long ago, in other struggles with inequity, we had forceful church participation. We had the leadership of the Rev. Dr. King, and the Berrigan brothers, among others. Today, with so much similar societal turmoil, there is a palpable public silence from religious leaders.
Driving home from a recent occupation event in Brunswick, I heard a very disturbing, interesting and timely piece on the radio. A journalist wondered how our new technology, iPhones, computers, etc., was manufactured. This took him to China and Apple’s outsourcing. Robotics, his initial guess, isn’t employed: too expensive. The work, with components thinner than a human hair, is assembled by, you guessed it, hands; tiny hands, many of them of children as young as 12, which, exposed to neuro toxins in manufacturing, shake uncontrollably by early adulthood. If that doesn’t terminate employment, repetitive motion injuries eventually catch up.
Employees work 10 hour days —16 when new products are developed — and are housed in quarters where 20 sleep in a single 12-foot-by-12- foot room, beds stacked floor to ceiling. Chinese work hours are 60 minutes — not our 46 — with no breaks, no talking. Workplace and housing have 24-7 video surveillance. Average wages in China are $2 a day.
And Steve Jobs remains lionized rather than castigated because information is power, but mostly it’s the commodity du jour. Disseminating information is today’s golden cash cow.
What does this have to do with worship?
It is this very question that is the issue, my point in writing this roundabout invitation. The Occupy movement has a great deal to do with informed faith, compassion and the gospel of being your brother’s keeper, of charity strengthened by equity, about love and spirituality over mammon, all of which are familiar religious concerns.
Occupiers propose that we insist on corporate accountability, on requiring equitable work conditions everywhere — of at least a fundamental level, leveling the manufacturing playing field, redistributing material wealth that, in a world of truth, reflecting the inherent goodness of reality, belongs to all.
Very political, yes, and very secular, certainly, yet very spiritual. Spirituality is difficult when one is preoccupied with fighting for corporeal necessities. The Occupy movement wishes to ameliorate the circumstances that necessitate that preoccupation. This is not class warfare. This is about basic justice, the application of the Golden Rule. This is an opportunity for faith to be put into action in the clearest terms.
The Bible says that if you come upon someone with no shirt, and you have one — not two — you give them the one you are wearing. The 1 percent see people without houses and still buy a third or fourth one for themselves, foreclosing on others to provide the means.
Wall Street is of course occupied by money changers; it is Caesar’s domain, and Zuccotti Park is now free of any unpleasantness, any pointing fingers. All those camping to bear witness have been chased away. The temple, however, remains in need of cleansing.
This is not about “rendering unto Caesar” (possibly the greatest escape clause of all time, applied readily by those avoiding worldly change from materialism), this is about those 1 percent that refuse to shoulder their civic tithe in an equitable manner. They evade taxes. They justify themselves by the letter of the law, their laws, and, if that doesn’t bring sufficiently satisfying mammon, they purchase new laws.
So much for Christianity’s influence in politics.
Zuccotti Occupiers simply wanted Wall Street’s actions to be given a face — a homeless, jobless, face — and to say that those that wish to devote themselves primarily to obscene material gain may continue as long as seed corn is not consumed.
Moses (father of the occupation movement?) would understand that analogy. Meanwhile, today’s Chinese pharaoh becomes richer and richer.
Mid-coast occupiers protest each Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon in front of Brunswick’s 110 Maine St. branch of Bank of America. We are a constant, diverse, dedicated and hopeful gathering seeking a better America. Come join us on Saturday and feel that much better on Sunday.
GARY B. ANDERSON lives in Bath.
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