So now I will babble about problem in the left and in particular the ‘Occupy Movement.’ I am, at heart, a person who likes to find solutions. One of the joys I get from crafting a story is finding the solutions to the unique puzzles that each story presents. I dislike complaining just for sake complaining. If there is a problem, sure bithcing about can help identify it, and help motivate others to help solve it, but bitching in itself never solves a damn thing, and in my unhumble opinion the Occupy movement is little more than a giant bitch session.
One of my favorite references is to the South Park Episode with the underwear Gnomes. These demented farie in the middle of the night would steal underwear in a quest for large amount of profit. There plan was,
1) Steal Underwear
2)????
3) Profit. Clearly they needed some help with step 2.
This is exactly how the occupy movement looks to me.
1) Occupy stuff
2)????
3) Economic Justice!
There is a lot wrong in our current economic/financial system. (BTW that does not make anti-capitalist. The free Market, for *most* things is the ultimate crowd sourcing, producing answers that no team of experts could have devised. That said, capitalism is like any game, it needs a good foundation of rule, and that are applied to everyone fairly, and are enforced. Current our rules are crap.)
There are many elements of the Occupy Movement’s message that I think are worth serious consideration. I am highly suspicious of treating corporations as persons, I don’t believe in animal right and it will take convincing arguments to sway me that GE has the same rights as a person. I do think our tax structure is a crime, but the answer to fixing it is not punitive rates on some people and light rate on others.
The Movement, at the start, got sympathetic attitudes from the general population because the general population in their gut feels that the game has been rigged against them, but instead of capitalizing on that good will. Instead of following the lead of the Teap Party on the right and challenging local politicians, insisting on the powers that be listen to the grievances, the Occupy movement simply kept doing the same things, day in and day out. This turns the conversation form what the movement was concerned with, to the movement itself and its methods. You cannot have lasting change that way. You become a theater of bitching, and that solves nothing.
The Occupy Movement. The latest and also unsuccessful attempt by the Left to find a counterpart to the Tea Party movment.
At least the Occupy movement had the virtue of some real grass-roots support, as opposed to the absurd astroturf organizations which the Left tried before, such as the so-called “Coffee Party.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Party_USA
Of course it was only natural that the Left would try astroturf, since they believed that that was all the Tea Party was, an illegitimate astroturf group serving as the mouthpiece of the rich. Oh, and racist too, can’t forget about that!
Then along comes the Occupy Wall Street group, and the various imitators around the nation. More than astroturf. Something really spontaneous with grass roots support. And the Left and the Press eagerly promoted them when they first arrived. At last! An answer to the Tea Party!
Turns out though the the grass roots of the Left aren’t as ready for prime time as the grass roots of the Right. The blog verumserum.com has had a field day exposing the shocking behavior of the various Occupy groups around the country.