28 Days Later
I’ve got to hand it to the Little Movement That Could. As of last week I was among those who thought that this was another of those perennial noise parades that young leftists are great at starting but are usually only recollected when you find a DVD documentary of it on the New Release wall.
But from its humble beginnings on September 17th, the Occupy Wall Street movement has grown from a few naked folks demanding air time to hordes of smelly hippies sending the Short Hairs running to the store for underwear bleach.
And while history suggests that the modern liberal base does not have the organizational skills or the support in Washington to make a serious go of this, we are living in the age of surprises. If the cantankerous coots of the right wing could get off their pruney asses and briefly make Michelle Bachmann a contender for the Oval Office, how much more can we expect from these kids with all their supple cartilage?
Again, I do not want to get my hopes up. I was part of the frolic in NYC during the protests at the 2004 Republican Convention, and endured the same orange netting, aggressive cops and 36 hours in the clink, so I completely empathize with the OWS crowd. But from my distant pulpit I also behold the same things that caused the events of ’04 to add up to nought: a thousand complaints, no agenda, and a party atmosphere masquerading as unity.
I am encouraged, however, by some of the pluck these guys are showing. The Greek chorus they use in lieu of bullhorns is innovative and, from a superficial point of view, demonstrates that on some level these guys have their act together. I am also not falling for the media spin that the 99% don’t know what they stand for. They may not know how to articulate their common complaints for the camera yet, but in their hearts they know what brung ’em. Enough time together out in the cold will bring that glue to the surface or drive them back to their dorm rooms.
It is also interesting to note just how prickly the conservatives are over this. The moment the Occupy movement started spawning imitators in other cities the right wing swung into reaction mode. Even the normally sedate Canadians are crapping kittens. Scroll ahead to 2:50 to hear Kevin O’Leary on the CBC’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange give guest Chris Hedges the Fox News treatment:
Obviously anyone offering a voice to the people Occupying their various cities, especially those who can offer a narrative that the public can digest, is going to be red meat for the sharks of corporate media. These unfolding events must have Anne Coulter dewey enough between the legs to grow mushrooms, and one can already predict the books she and her ilk will pen if this thing lasts even one week longer, with titles like “The One-Percent Solution” and “Curb Their Enthusiasm: A Conservative’s Guide to Curb-Stomping Street Protesters”.
But the real enemy, as always, is going to be the indifference of liberal politicians to this stirring within the nation’s slumber. Liberal pols flee from the likes of street protesters like vampires from the noon sun. They do not wish to treat with any sort of base that has concerns ranging beyond butt sex, lest they intimidate the wealthy  folks they too spend their weekends with.
In the long term, if the Occupiers want to do battle with the Tea Baggers and win, they will have to make common cause with them in realizing that the real problem is Democrats who won’t choose sides.
Agreed!
The Anne Coulter comment made me throw up in my mouth a little. THIS IS A GOOD SIGN.
I think the fact that the OWS crowd doesn’t have simple, Tweetable message may be a good thing. It means the media and the politicians might be forced to treat the situation with a little bit more thought than usual.
The simple, tweetable message is: “corporations have too great an influence in government”: like the Teapartiers were arguing that government overreach is bad, the Occupiers are arguing that corporate overreach is bad.
Deciding on relevant demands to combat that issue is where the debate comes. Some suggestions I’ve heard include regulations to publicise, limit or control corporate donations to political parties, and doing something to return the federal reserve to government control.
Personally, I feel the tenets here (too much power in one place is really bad for competition and capitalism) are really strong *Right*-wing things. But although they do what they can to distance themselves from being tied to the Left or the Right (they are the 99%, not the 49%) there just isn’t enough outreach to the Right, so all you get at least between the hours 9-5, are the leftwingers with no jobs.
I like it. Really. For the first time in their lives, these econoterrorists (wow, sounds like a new Wal Mart store don’t it?), are themselves feeling real fear. This needs to continue. 99% of the 1% haven’t done one lick of actual work to get where they are.
They either inherited or kissed ass to get to the top, and they keep churning out the same tired message that everyone who isn’t as rich as them, deserve it because we don’t work hard enough. Except it’s those guys who sign the layoffs. It’s those guys who sign the wages. It’s those guys who pay politicians to do away with safety regs, unions, and roll back minimum wage so that nobody will get by without reverting to Victorian labor standards, so stop feeding little Timmy, we’ll need his scrawny ass to work the coal mines.
Or stop coddling these fuckers, and give them the fucking spanking that’s been denied them since they were born with a silver spoon up their asses.