#OccupyFilmSchool—Harlan County, USA

The Harlan County miners take to Wall Street, protesting, among other things, radical income inequality. These particular cops don't pepper spray them or beat them or haul them off to jail; in fact one of the most beautiful scenes in the film is a simple emotional connection between a miner and a cop. We are all the 99%.

“With organization you have the aid of your fellow man. Without organization you are a lone individual—without influence and without recognition of any kind.”—John L. Lewis, Pres. UMW 1920-1960

John L. Lewis

Harlan County, USA is 100% Grade-A #Occupy Wall Street canon. Its storied production and 35 year legacy can serve as both inspiration and education, and its emotional power can provoke a sense of hope despite overwhelming odds.

Filmed during a lengthy miner strike that started in 1972, Harlan County tells the story of Brookside, KY—a brutally impoverished unincorporated community in Harlan County, Kentucky. Living in company housing without running water or electricity—and trapped in a non-union state—the men of the town go on strike to get Duke Power and the Eastover Mining Company to sign a UMW (United Mine Workers) contract. Filmed in a fly-on-the-wall style—and featuring a pointedly one-sided perspective—Harlan County offers numerous lessons for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Cops take orders from people who work for people who work for people. They're part of the 99%, but they've always had batons. Non-violent resistance is the only way to confront both sides of their nature.

LESSON ONE: RECORD EVERYTHING

“I think what we as a film crew probably did was keep down violence, because no one wants to commit murder in living color.”—Barbara Kopple in a Harlan County featurette

The prime piece of advice it offers is the simple fact of its existence. If not the absolute first, it’s an early example of cameras not only recording a protest but actually becoming a crucial tool in the struggle. As one miner later said, “I really don’t think we would’ve won without the film crew.” Their presence not only kept violence down on the picket lines, it created transparency for the Union. If they attempted to unfairly compromise with the Coal Operators or sell the miners short in some way, it would’ve been part of the story. This is similar to the footage coming out of #OWS which does more than just expose blatant police brutality and the manifestation of the militarized police state. It also shows peaceful crowds of multi racial cross-demographic protesters—bolstering the movement’s legitimacy and providing a counter-narrative to the dirty hippies “argument” that Rush Limbaugh, Frank Miller, and their ilk are espousing.

LESSON TWO: KEEP ON THAT PICKET LINE

“We’ll just go violate one more time; then they’ll put us right back. ‘Cause you’re a prisoner out there anyway so you might as well just be in here.”—Unidentified miner in jail for breaking an injunction illegally limiting the number of people allowed to express their constitutionally protected 1st Amendment rights.

Another lesson to be learned concerns injunctions against assembly. Injunctions are a form of binding court order (like Restraining Orders) that force a party to either take or not take an action. In this case, and numerous others, not to protest. Injunctions have been used since the turn of the century as a way for Industrialists to get around the 1st Amendment, and they were used in an attempt to stop civil rights rallies in the 60s, even though an Anti-Injunction Bill was passed back in 1932.

Injunctions go against the very spirit of the 1st Amendment. While they haven’t been specifically deployed against #OWS, the repeated arrests—out of an alleged concern for sanitary conditions in public parks—are directly in line with the nefarious intent of the illegal injunctions used against disenfranchised citizens throughout American history.

“Keep on the picket line / always on the picket line.”—sung to the tune of Keep on the Sunny Side

In a startling display of lawlessness, New York mayor—and 12th richest American—Michael Bloomberg actually had the gall to ignore an injunction against removing protesters. So we’re far past the point of even the traditional pretense to the rule-of-law, but the same lesson applies. How did our past heroes deal with injunctions? How do you deal with illegal attempts to just arrest away the movement? You get right back out on those picket lines.

“You say the laws were made for us; the laws are not made for the working people in this country. There’s a person missing here today and that’s [Duke Power president] Carl Horn. The law was made for people like Carl Horn, not us. So I knew when I came here—without offering any testimony or getting up. I knew what I was doing at Brookside, ’cause I was doing what I wanted. For once I was able to take the offensive instead of having to step backwards to try and defend what we did. What we did was right and we all know that.”—Unidentified Mining wife speaking in court.

LESSON THREE: NO RETREAT—NO SURRENDER

“Once a concession is won and once a strike is won, the workers have to move right on to the next struggle, and if they don’t—the concession that was won—you’re gonna lose it.”—Unidentified Harlan County Miner

Another crucial message in Harlan County is that of vigilance. Going back to the New Deal and beyond, social justice advocates have been plagued by one-step-forward-two-steps-back “progress.” Whether it’s the Civil Rights movement’s descent into the urban blight of the 70s/80s or the Clinton administration’s damning repeal of the Glass-Steagall restrictions barring commercial banks from speculation, every concession that the elite deigns to bestow upon the masses is quickly retaken in a war of attrition that they’re structurally guaranteed to win.

This was the decade wages started to stagnate.

The way to fight this is to flip the disturbing trend on its head. When—not if—Occupy Wall Street starts directly influencing practical policy changes, we must immediately move on to greater and more ideal demands. The purpose of this movement is to advance—not merely represent—the greatest interests of the greatest number, and the only way for it to do that is to set its bar extremely high. Universal Health Care, inheritance caps, and a maximum-wage are three unofficial but cogent demands, and despite the fact that these type of seemingly Utopian principles remain unpalatable to most of the American public, these are the exact types of demands that should be made.

Change in productivity/wages since 1979.

For too long in this country the only voice that rang out with ideological certainty was the far-Right. Every victory they won was followed by more and more extreme demands until we have a president like Barack Obama—a perceived liberal who claims to be a centrist but whose “middle” is actually more conservative than a classic Eisenhower Republican. By following the miner’s advice and moving on to greater and greater demands when concessions are won, we can correct the descent into ineffectual “liberalism” that people like Obama represent.

LESSON FOUR: NON-VIOLENCE ABSOLUTELY KEY

If the company kills a man, the company gets let off. If one of our people had shot any company man throughout this strike he’d be serving twenty-five years now. Bill Bruner [gun thug/alleged murderer] is scot-free.—Unidentified Harlan County Miner

Violence has and will continue to be a contentious issue among Occupiers. Oakland has really been the only #Occupation to employ destruction—here in the form of property damage against banks and Whole Foods—but the spectre of violent revolution hangs over the entire movement, in particular because of the way the media portrays it. That’s what makes this fourth lesson the most important.

The problem isn’t that violence is unjustified. From a moral perspective I absolutely feel like property damage is acceptable, but the problem is its effectiveness. Do any of us think a revolution is possible without the full support of the 99%? While there were loyalists during the American Revolution, they were a small minority, and if we want to eat away at the roughly 25% of Americans that don’t see the GOP as rabid slobbering dogs we must remain non-violent. The very fact of non-violence bolsters an idea’s legitimacy, and the way the police repeatedly resort to force further reinforces this feedback loop. However, if the protesters do anything at all to provoke the cops—most of all if they use violence—the trend moves the other direction. We must remain completely non-violent until the mainstream media can no longer ignore the fact that the riot police—or at least their handlers—are explicitly on the side of the 1%.

A contract is what we’re fighting for. That’s what Lawrence Jones died for…it took a young man’s life to bring this thing: the government, the Union, and the [Coal] Operators together…I think if we ever did hold our peace, let’s try to hold it tonight. The price has been paid for it.—Unidentified Harlan County Miner

Which side are you on?

Harlan County, USA is the unique leftist documentary with at least a marginally happy ending. The miners do get their contract, but the fight continues. It took them over a year of struggle just to get little things—like soap in their bathrooms and holidays off.

Remember that this revolution is a marathon, and we’ve got to stick it out. Everyday the camps need people. If you couldn’t go yesterday, maybe you can go today. If you can’t go today maybe you can go tomorrow.

When your food is poison.

When you turn on the TV and it’s one long lie.

When you walk down the street and get patted down.

When they call the poor lazy.

When they threaten our children and their chance at a decent life.

I wanna know. Which side are you on? There are no neutrals here.

Watch the full documentary for free here on YouTube