These are hard times for anticapitalist protestors, as the "Occupy Wall Street" movement is discovering. A few hundred activists, students and unemployed college graduates have been sitting-in for about two weeks at a downtown Manhattan park and no one seems to care very much, save for those in the area whose travel is disrupted.
An occasional millionaire celebrity like Susan Sarandon has stopped by in class solidarity, while Cornel West, the conscience of Princeton, has also lent his moral and political acumen to the cause. "Democratic awakening is taking place. It's the U.S. Fall responding to the Arab Spring," he said on Twitter last week.
But the protestors have had a hard time getting a media quorum, and even National Public Radio and MSNBC haven't detected any larger political significance so far in a collection of ne'er-do-wells raging against Wall Street, or something.
A reporter for the Associated Press put it this way: "It all has the feel of a classic street protest with one exception: It's unclear exactly what the demonstrators want." Handmade signs include the likes of "Less is More" and "Capitalism is evil," which you can see any day of the week at your average college coffee shop.
Frustration over this public indifference may account for the protestors' decision to force a New York police response by occupying the car lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, leading to some 700 arrests. Protests also popped up on the weekend with a few dozen folks in Chicago, Denver, Boston and "Occupy Seattle."
See, that's the problem. No one seems to be able to voice an intelligent mission of this uprising. It seems to be a smallish group of malcontents with nothing better to do. Old burn-outs, young mush brains, middle aged wanna be hipsters. Bless their hearts.
The irony is watching the millionaire liberals wrestling with their own guilt over success. The likes of Michael Moore show up and express that this is the coming of some new glorious movement. The overweight, ball cap wearing, foul-tempered millionarire loves to bash capitalism. It is, however, thanks to capitalism Moore is fabulously wealthy and a Hollywierd cool kid. Hey, he even receives government money for his "work".
Clearly trying in impersonate the Tea Party with populist slogans, it is failing from utter lack of interest from anyone who doesn't have to step over or around them on their way to work. The Tea Party is the movement shunning government involvement and Wall Street greed. The Occupy Wall Street crowd isn't even very original in thought.
And, those liberals who are trying to get you to think that these misfits are the American version of the Arab Spring movement? Please. How insulting to those people risking their lives for freedom. The delusions of grandeur are mind-boggling. Shame on them.
So, on October 6, 2011, an offshoot comes to Houston. OccupyHouston They want you to know it is time to STAND UP. OK. And there is a kick-off party the night before, too. On October 5, they want you to "psych up".
If you go, please do me a favor. Please ask a protester - politely - just what in the hell he/she wants. If you get a coherent answer, please pass it along.
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