The duo that unleashed public fury against Wall Street

Early August this year, New York-based writer Chris, 28, had a brainwave. Then an activist caught up in the initial planning of the Occupy Wall Street movement that was to shake the nation -- even the world -- Chris came up with the idea of creating a tumblr site as a promotional strategy for the upcoming movement. For something that was born out of the simple need for publicity, ‘We Are the 99 Percent’ has become the iconic voice of a million Americans victimised by the weakening economy.

Teaming up with social media specialist and information strategist Grim, 37, Chris kicked off the tumblr that saw strangers sharing personal tales of financial gloom. Right from a child with a sign saying his mom couldn’t afford to buy birthday presents to a woman who had to buy fish antibiotics at a pet store because she didn’t have any medical coverage, the stories reek of poignancy and despair.

Using Twitter to vent her anguish and mobilise support, Grim, who says that she doesn’t hate capitalism, but just hates what has been done to it, comes across as a woman determined to make the government kowtow to their call for change. Her words find resonance in the common American’s life story when she says, “I Occupy Wall Street because medical debt should not choke the lives of my fellow Americans.”

In this e-mail interview with Renuka Rao, the two radical activists speak about their inspiration, objectives and demands from the government of the most powerful nation of the world.

What is We Are The 99 Percent all about?

Grim: The blog is focused on giving people a platform to articulate in a concrete way how abstract arguments about social programmes have manifested in their day to day lives.

Chris: We Are the 99 Percent is a way to give a real human face to the countless statistics that reflect the status of the world economy. We know that people are losing their homes. But we may not know THIS person who lost his home -- you may not know that he worked three jobs to try to keep up, you may not know that he got sick from working too much and went bankrupt from the medical bills, you may not know that he can’t get a new job because there’s none, absolutely none, in his area and he can’t move because his elderly parents, who are also struggling to survive, need him there to help them.

How and when did the idea take shape?

Chris:  I wish I could tell a better story than this, but the idea literally came to me randomly, in those idle moments of reflection that we all take throughout our day. Luckily, I had the foresight to write it down. It was around early August, when I had just gotten involved in the planning stages of Occupy Wall Street, and I thought that the blog would be a good, simple thing that could be done to promote the event during the buildup. Who could have guessed it would have become such a potent symbol for the troubles affecting so many people?

Was there any particular inspiration behind the idea?

Grim: While there wasn’t direct inspiration from other projects, others have noted its similarity to the Post Secret blog. Having been a fan of Post Secret for some time, I can say that that similarity is there.

How are Occupy Wall Street and 99 Percent related?

Grim: Not anymore than any of the other amazing media that has sprung up. Chris took a great idea and transformed it into one of the most (if not the most) powerful populist organising tools, ever.

Was it discussed with Kalle Lasn, who sparked the Occupy Wall Street Movement?

Grim: Not that I know of. Kalle placed ideas into the world of imagination, and the tumblr is one manifestation of that, the occupied wall street journal (http://occupiedmedia.org) is another one as well as the other papers, photos, art, painting, interpretive dance, and the many other pieces of art and writing to come out of the movement.

Chris: No it was not. In fact, I had not even heard of Kalle Lasn until you told me.

Why did you initially seek anonymity? And why did you choose to come out?

Grim: I am unemployed and still looking for a job. Mother Jones magazine printed my name. I really had no choice. I had to embrace it because you can’t put the genie back in the bottle once something like that is on the web. I also decided to fully embrace it and allow people to see a bit of my life so the entire movement would not be dismissed as “a bunch of kids.” As I am old, and a bit cranky, and pissed at the system in which I live, I am unashamed to say that I am working on this effort. The people who should be ashamed, the banks who hoard wealth, the politicians who ignore the welfare of the citizens, they should be ashamed. Not me and others working to try and make a difference in this unfair, unjust world that would rather have cancer patients going to a day job at a factory to pay for chemotherapy than to have social structures to assist those in need.

Can you talk about your respective roles in the movement?

Grim: Chris is the genius behind the blog, I would not be writing to you today without his talent and ingenuity.

Chris: I started the blog and maintain it to this day -- I go through entries every day and upload as many as I can at once. Still, I’m just the one who rolled the snowball down the hill. Without the attention and support from people who understand where we’re all coming from, there wouldn’t be any entries at all. With this in mind, I am grateful to all the brave people who have come out and shared their stories. By putting themselves out there, they do their part to prevent the movement from being abstracted into nothingness. By willing to be counted and known, they remind us that there are real human lives at stake. It’s not just some intellectual problem. It’s whether or not people get to eat, to educate themselves, to be warm. To exist.

What role did the internet, and social media play?

Grim: Well, the blog is on tumblr, so I sent the link to different internet marketers. I asked really nicely if they would help us promote the blog for free, I tweeted to celebrity folk to see if I could get interest. The big leap happened though when the Social Media Editor of the New York Times tweeted the link as a site of interest.

Did you expect the thought to turn into a movement like this?

Grim: Not in my wildest dreams, I’m not sleeping well right now because I don’t want to miss a thing that happens. I can’t wait for the next decade to pass and we can look back and say, “holy crap, we did that!”

Chris: I never imagined that the movement would grow as much as it has. I went into this because I felt like I knew too much about how many things were wrong in this world to sit by and let it happen. I knew that even if I never found success, it was important that I at least try. To refuse to be complicit in what I feel are grave injustices happening across this country and across this world. Now that it’s grown into a worldwide movement, I’m struck by how surreal it all seems. People all over the news are talking about something that I helped make. It’s very odd. It’s something I’d always wanted to do. But at the same time, it’s something I never expected would happen. But here it is. It’s wonderful. And a little scary. But mostly wonderful.

For the Indian reader -- for whom large scale corruption in high office is the main issue today -- can you tell us what angers the common American?

Grim: The bank bailouts and the fact that for all the money in taxes we pay, we have no social programmes to build society. The fact that a corporate lobbyist has more power in the American government than the well being of society. We deserve and demand better from our elected officials, whose main focus should be the people that they serve and not the money lining legislative proposals.

Chris: Average Americans feel that the government no longer represents us and that average Americans no longer have a say in our government. Instead, small interests have taken command, and they have written the rules to maintain the status quo and make sure nothing threatens their positions, ever. The average Americans feel like the country has gotten out of their control and want to figure out a way to get things back on track before they’re left completely behind. Some have begun to wonder whether it’s the entire system that’s the problem, and whether a more structural change is what’s needed.

Why do you think this movement has struck a chord in places outside America too?

Grim: Because we are all oppressed in one way or another by corporate influence and corporate control.
Multinational companies like Coca-Cola, Mcdonalds and others have poisoned our food, pharmaceutical companies exploit our bodies for profit, and hold the effective medicines for the top bidder, and we are seen as consumers, not citizens, concerned with our fellow humans.

Where do you think will be result of these protests? Do you see governments bowing down and changing policies -- at least in the US?

Grim: I really hope so, I’m determined to work until something happens.

Chris: I really don’t know what the results will be. What I hope for is a huge, structural, fundamental change in the way our governments operate and the way the economy is run. Whether this comes from governmental reform, or through a root and stem change in the structure of civilisation itself, I don’t know. I just know that what’s going on right now, what’s been happening for years and years, is not sustainable and has to change.

Can you put to rest speculation about George Soros's hand behind the protests?

Grim: If I am working for George Soros, the pay sucks.

Chris: George Soros is not behind these protests. You think we’d be camping in a park if he were?

Is Big Money involved in funding these protests?

Grim: If they are, the pay sucks.

Chris: If Big Money were involved in these protests, wouldn’t they be shooting themselves in the foot, as Big Money is exactly what we’re fighting against?

Has the "American Dream" now become a utopian concept?

Grim: You have to be asleep to believe it. The “American Dream” was always a utopian concept, thrust into the world of imagination to focus a culture of consumerism that serves only big business. We have a caste system in this country that imprisons generations of people in prisons and state welfare while on the other end of the spectrum, opportunity is only a dollar away.

What do you think of President Obama's economic policies? What changes do you demand?

Grim: I demand that corporations and investment transactions be taxed appropriately. After that is enacted, with the additional trillion dollars earned over a decade, a federal health insurance programme could be funded, public education could be bolstered and made into a priority, and a federal public transportation system could be created. All of these things would create needed social programmes and jobs at the same time. It’s not a crazy demand at all. I think we can all agree that these three things are important for the well being of citizens everywhere.

Chris: Barack Obama comes from a very different place than many people in the OWS movement. In terms of economic policies, I see someone who wants to do the right thing but is constrained by the fact that he is in an office that was long ago bought by the very same moneyed interests that OWS fights against. This fact will, therefore, color his perspectives, causing him to view Wall Street as an institution that needs cooperation and conciliation, not impassioned resistance, which is what OWS is trying to do. This produces rules and regulations that may sound like improvement on paper, but still maintains many of the problems that got us into this mess to begin with, all for the sake of appeasing the “job creators” whom, by the by, don’t seem to be creating a whole lot of jobs as of late. I think a fundamental problem with the president’s current fiscal policies is that he continues to see the economic crisis as a supply-side capitalisation crisis. Banks are sitting on plenty of capital right now. Corporate profits, in general, have not been this high since 1951. Companies have the money already to open up thousands of new production lines and employ tens of thousands of workers. The problem is they’re not sure they can be successful -- why hire more people to produce more things, when you can barely even sell the things you make now? The problem is demand. Of course, I’ll bet dimes to dollars that even if companies DID need more people, they’d probably hire outside the US. That seems to be the American way now.