They say that the Occupy Movement has no leadership.
They are wrong.
You are the leadersThe rest of us are your followers.
What you do here – shows what we can do out there.You are the classroom – we are the students
You are the experiment – we are the results.
You are the proposition – we are the resolution.
If you can sleep under tarps
the rest of us can tell your story to our children at bedtimeIf you can resist the cops.
The rest of us can resist the market and the mallIf you can live on shared food
The rest of us can buy and grow local cropsIf you can live with no money
The rest of us can start using alternative currenciesIf you can stand firm in the streets
The rest of us can stand firm in our foreclosed homes
and stand with our neighbors in theirs.If you can occupy Zucotti Park
The rest of us can occupy reality.
Whether describing Occupy Wall Street or not, the leaders/followers notion Douglas Rushkoff employs is an incredibly accurate and genius description of a networked world. That "experiment/results/proposition/resolution" bit completely nails it.
(In fact it's almost unfortunate that this is used to describe Occupy because so many people will look at it as an OWS argument, confirmation bias will seep in, and its brilliance will be lost on them.)
Side note: this is a speech, written specifically for the human microphone dynamic at Zucotti Park where amplification devices aren't allowed. That should fire up the media theorists - It's something like the notion of writing a book intended to be distributed by text message. (I'm guessing someone smart will find the right context for that too, and the work will be just as brilliant)
