TEXAS FAITH: What does the Occupy movement say about American society?

Indeed, the Occupy movement reflects the civility of our society. Frustration craves for expression and we ought to feel good that we have expressed that in the most civil manner.

Here is one of the 11 responses at Dallas Morning News;
 http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/10/texas-faith-what-does-the-occu.html

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism, Dallas

The Occupy movement is a new phenomenon in American society and is a healthy way of expressing societal frustrations. It is not in our psyche to protest over system failures as we have always found ways to fix them, most of them were specific to an industry or a group like the auto or other unions. Even the protests against Vietnam and Iraq were specific. However, the Occupy movement expresses general frustrations over failures of the system, corporate greed and economic inequality.

Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence model of protest was relegated to a corner assuming it will not succeed again; however, the Arab spring refreshed the method and gave a new life to it skillfully channeling the frustrations of the masses into powerful results.

The world was glued to the television to watch the next moment of the movement, they were curios and they were rooting for the Egyptians and Libyans. The effectiveness of the protests assured them that peaceful demonstrations can topple the powerful ones and bring the change they want as Gandhi had proved it. The Indians are doing it again with the anti-corruption movement by Anna Hazare and the world is seeing amazing success of the ordinary. Indeed we are anxious to test the newly infused empowerment through the social media.

We Americans have never lost our civility in dealing with difficult issues facing our nation. Indeed, we have witnessed the looting in London and the riots in LA with disdain, while admiring the Japanese for the way they handled the Tsunami, stories of returning bundles of monies back to the agencies to find the people who had lost the money restored our faith in humanity.

The Time Magazine survey results on October 13 found that 54 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of the protests, while 23 percent have a negative impression. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that 37 percent of respondents "tend to support" the movement, while 18 percent "tend to oppose" it.

Indeed, the Occupy movement reflects the civility of our society. Frustration craves for expression and we ought to feel good that we have expressed that in the most civil manner.

Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day to the media and the public. He is a speaker thinker and a writer on the topics of pluralism, cohesive societies, Islam, interfaith, India and Peace. He is available to speak at your place of worship, work, school, college, seminars and conferences. . Mike's work is reflected in 4 website's and 27 Blogs indexed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/ and you can find this article at www.TheGhousediary.com