Shepard Fairey, the Los Angeles based artist responsible for the famous 2008 President Obama Hope poster, has released an updated version of the original design, marrying the original Obama image with the “V for Vendetta” Guy Fawkes mask that has been used by the Occupy movement. The poster reads: “Mr. President, we HOPE you are on our side.” At his personal site, Fairey adds:
Fairey’s “if the energy of the movement is perceived as constructive, not destructive” line is telling. While early polling of the Occupy movement showed that Americans were initially supportive to parts of the movement’s message, the latest surveys have shown that the inherent lawlessness of the group’s tactics have turned off most Americans. According to PPP, a liberal pollster, where the American people initially only narrowly rejected Occupy Wall Street by 35%-36% margin, in just one month, Occupy lost 11 points of support and is now firmly opposed 33%-45%. Independents swung the most dramatically from 39%-34% support, to 34%-42% oppose.
So what is Obama’s position on Occupy? TechPresident Mich Sifry has noted that, while many Democrats have fully embraced the movement, the Obama 2012 reelection campaign has voted ‘present’:
And yet, it struck me, the one major political organization that I hadn’t heard say a word about OWS was the Obama campaign. … I searched the Obama campaign website for any mention of Occupy Wall Street and discovered that there are none on the campaign’s official blog. … None of the emails I’ve received from the Obama campaign mention Occupy Wall Street. (Several do mention the Tea Party, by contrast.) Nor have I seen any mention of the Occupy movement in my Twitter list of local OFA accounts. It’s possible I’ve missed something, and it’s pretty hard to prove an absence of something, so correct me if I’m wrong, but it really looks like the Obama campaign is trying as hard as it can to act like Occupy doesn’t exist.
Obama will not be able to sustain this strategic ambiguity forever. Organized labor, including the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America, are planning to “congregate around the Capitol” from December 5th through the 9th. Although it is still unclear if these unions plan to camp overnight outside the Capitol, their extended presence will make it harder for the White House to not comment on the movement.
More importantly, while the U.S. Park Police has largely turned a blind eye to the Occupy D.C. encampments at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, the Freedom Plaza group’s “permit” expires December 30th and it is not at all clear where those protesters will go come the New Year. In today’s Washington Post, E.J. Dionne writes, “Focusing on holding a piece of public land simply makes the movement a hostage to the decisions of local officials, some of whom will inevitably be hostile to its purposes.”
But in the case of Occupy D.C., the “local officials” responsible are the Obama administration. The McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza encampments are on National Park Service land. He is a little bit up the food chain, but ultimately Obama is Occupy D.C.’s landlord.
Will Obama “inevitably be hostile to” Occupy’s purposes? We will find out in January.
