One more year of irrelevance
The OWS movement is joyously celebrating it's one-year anniversary with what amounts to a public party trying very hard to look like a protest. In short, one year later, nothing new. They still have no message except "Those guys have more money than we do," all under the dubious moniker of "We are the 99%," which does little more than prove most of the protesters skipped the Statistics chapter in math class.
The sad part of all this is that they would have a point, if they had the mental fortitude to get organized beyond using social media to gather. OWS is really little more than an extended "flash mob" who shows up and then decides why they're there. In their confusion, they've decided to define themselves by what they hate: people with money. Like I said earlier, they'd have a point if they could actually formulate it in an intelligent way: The people at the top of the economic pyramid are becoming fewer while those at the bottom are becoming an even greater majority. The middle is slowly vanishing, which is rather alarming and is what they really should be concentrating on. Not on hating everybody with a Mercedes or BMW. Hell, most of those are just leased by middle-class folks.
I'm sure there are pockets of rationality in the OWS movement. There are certainly people with a coherent agenda or message within those chaotic, angrily unemployed, over-educated ranks. But they appear to be a rarity.
On this year anniversary, one can't help but draw parallels between OWS and the Tea Party and compare how each fared after a year. I will readily speak out against many of the kooky Tea Party protestations, but I will say what they did right: They tried to change the system while working within the system. OWS has no system; it eschews the system. It eschews any system and that is why it fails miserably.
Let's follow their logic: Revolt against Wall Street, break up the big banks, the big corporations, and the really rich folks. Make them one of us. Make them poor and struggling. I'm sure some OWS people would take issue with my simplistic breakdown of their unfocused message, but I'm outlining what most folks get out of their demonstrations. So, we're to overthrow the financial and corporate world in America and then what? OWS has no end-game. They don't appear to acknowledge that a great deal of our daily comforts and conveniences are because of big-money corporations; when we take those away or severely cripple them, we suffer.
In a world with corporations competing against each other to maintain an economic balance, how would America fare if we went back to all mom-and-pop shops? We would become irrelevant in short order because the Chinese version of Walmart would start cropping up all over the country -- and if that were made illegal, we'd be crossing the borders to Canada or Mexico to get the bargains offered by the corporate retailers.
We can't live at our current status and comfort levels without corporations. Somebody has to be at the top, making all that money. The money is the carrot at the end of the stick. There will always be rich people and, in turn, there will always be poor people. Money must be rare to be valuable.
OWS does not adequately address the real world and it continues to be a muddled, mindless message one year later. The ability to protest does not automatically give you a message and having a cause does not translate to having a plan. OWS is one-year-old, but it's not a grown-up yet.
The sad part of all this is that they would have a point, if they had the mental fortitude to get organized beyond using social media to gather. OWS is really little more than an extended "flash mob" who shows up and then decides why they're there. In their confusion, they've decided to define themselves by what they hate: people with money. Like I said earlier, they'd have a point if they could actually formulate it in an intelligent way: The people at the top of the economic pyramid are becoming fewer while those at the bottom are becoming an even greater majority. The middle is slowly vanishing, which is rather alarming and is what they really should be concentrating on. Not on hating everybody with a Mercedes or BMW. Hell, most of those are just leased by middle-class folks.
I'm sure there are pockets of rationality in the OWS movement. There are certainly people with a coherent agenda or message within those chaotic, angrily unemployed, over-educated ranks. But they appear to be a rarity.
On this year anniversary, one can't help but draw parallels between OWS and the Tea Party and compare how each fared after a year. I will readily speak out against many of the kooky Tea Party protestations, but I will say what they did right: They tried to change the system while working within the system. OWS has no system; it eschews the system. It eschews any system and that is why it fails miserably.
Let's follow their logic: Revolt against Wall Street, break up the big banks, the big corporations, and the really rich folks. Make them one of us. Make them poor and struggling. I'm sure some OWS people would take issue with my simplistic breakdown of their unfocused message, but I'm outlining what most folks get out of their demonstrations. So, we're to overthrow the financial and corporate world in America and then what? OWS has no end-game. They don't appear to acknowledge that a great deal of our daily comforts and conveniences are because of big-money corporations; when we take those away or severely cripple them, we suffer.
In a world with corporations competing against each other to maintain an economic balance, how would America fare if we went back to all mom-and-pop shops? We would become irrelevant in short order because the Chinese version of Walmart would start cropping up all over the country -- and if that were made illegal, we'd be crossing the borders to Canada or Mexico to get the bargains offered by the corporate retailers.
We can't live at our current status and comfort levels without corporations. Somebody has to be at the top, making all that money. The money is the carrot at the end of the stick. There will always be rich people and, in turn, there will always be poor people. Money must be rare to be valuable.
OWS does not adequately address the real world and it continues to be a muddled, mindless message one year later. The ability to protest does not automatically give you a message and having a cause does not translate to having a plan. OWS is one-year-old, but it's not a grown-up yet.
Comments
Post a Comment