Kevin Marshall's America
“The undeniable injustice of the response to the late 2000s recession that gave Wall Street (the responsible party) massive handouts at the expense of the taxpayers (the victims) led many left wing activists, frustrated by their powerlessness, to feel that they MUST at least do SOMETHING. The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstration is the most grand, coordinated left wing activist response to this point. To the best of my knowledge, it was initiated by Adbusters (the online and print magazine and whatever else it aspires to be). While I (and pretty much everyone else in the working class) share the frustration that inspired this protest, I think the only thing it’s doing is something for the sake of doing something. At best, it’ll come to nothing. At worst, it practically invites the political law of unintended consequences (haven’t these clever hipsters any sense of historical irony?).”
– S. Connick at Indie Albany on why he’s not enamored with “Occupy Wall Street”
Agreed and while I caught some flack on Twitter for calling it bullshit two weeks ago, I stand by it.
Of course that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t police brutality and an abuse of power that only served to strengthen the resolve and give people more to rally around. Yet from the beginning this stunk of empty, angry rhetoric. It’s a Tea Party for the left – Billed Enough Already (BEA Party!).
It’s great to see the left mobilized, but if it’s just anger at the vague idea of an institution, then I’m sorry, but it’s not worth a good goddamn. It takes more than us screaming “the banks are bad!” to make a dent in what passes for political discourse in this country.
And I’d be careful about comparing this to the Arab Spring. Do you know what those people go through? You’re not being oppressed and disappeared for your beliefs. This isn’t me saying you don’t have a right to complain, it’s me saying you should tread carefully in comparing our financial situation to their life and death struggle.
I’ll stop there and just urge you to go read Mr. Connick’s appraisal, because it hits on every point that’s bugged me about this whole thing from the beginning.
Also, yes, I too like to pretend that this is really Harry Connick, Jr. writing under a pseudonym. I can confirm that it isn’t. But we can dream.
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3 Responses to Okay, we Occupy Wall Street…then what?
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The problem, though, was the police bruality. When the TEA Party does their thing, the police stand around quietly. When the (perceived) threat to the status quo protest, people are thrown to the ground and handcuffed? Seems as though it must have hit a nerve.
I think it’s partially that but especially discrimination based on the age and overall composite of the crowd.
Me, I’d be much more worried about the Tea Party crowds given a lot of the attitudes, statements, and signs I saw coming out of those demonstrations and the darker tone.
[…] I want to talk about pepper spray. December 22, 2011By kevinmarshallI have my issues with the sentiment and tone behind the Occupy movement, the vagueness of some of its goals, and the propensity for melodrama and grandstanding. […]