I would like to be clear: I love protests. I think it’s one of the most efficient ways to get your opinion heard, if people agree with it, and also one of the most efficient ways to find out if anyone agrees with you, even if it’s not always accurate. But here’s the thing: as much as I love protests with a good cause and a clear message, I hate the opposite.
Which brings me to the Occupy Wall Street protests (http://occupywallst.org/).
I’m not sure exactly what their cause is. I’ve seen articles describing it as a protest against financial inequality, and I’ve seen pictures where young men hold signs saying that student loans are debt slavery, and on their website, they have a quote about an anti-globalization movement and later on call Wall Street the “greatest corrupter of democracy… the financial Gomorrah of America.”
Oh. Wait. Here we go:
“The most exciting candidate that we've heard so far is one that gets at the core of why the American political establishment is currently unworthy of being called a democracy: we demand that Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington. It's time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY, we're doomed without it.”
taken from the About page on OWS’s website
Okay, so they want corporations to have less political influence. That’s cool. I can roll with that. How would one convey that message, then?
Tahrir succeeded in large part because the people of Egypt made a straightforward ultimatum – that Mubarak must go – over and over again until they won. Following this model, what is our equally uncomplicated demand?
Also from the About page, a little higher
So we’re going to do to Wall Street and corrupt politicians what Egyptians did to Mubarak, a slaughterer and dictator?
And here’s where I think it gets sticky. I love the idea of cleaning up corruption and stamping out crime and world peace – no, really, I do – but at the same time, how is the act of 20,000 people storming time square and camping out there going to in any way cause this? I mean, yes, your opinion will be heard, and yes, you’ll get a great story out of it, but I wonder if you’re not joining in on the bandwagon because you’re broke and you want to blame someone else.
Oh wait. There’s more.
Post a comment and help each other zero in on what our one demand will be. And then let's screw up our courage, pack our tents and head to Wall Street with a vengeance September 17.
Taken from the About page
You… crowdsourced… your demands… You know, I saw this happen for a costume for an Amanda Palmer concert once and she ended up wearing almost nothing but sequins and a feather boa, and I think a rubber chicken was involved somehow.
My point is that while crowdsourcing works great for performers who are clear leaders involving their audience, it doesn’t necessarily work with a protest, and especially one of this size, where you are hoping for thousands of people screaming at Wall Street about corruption. Then again, maybe some of the protestors themselves have got a point in this…
South African Adam Ash, who lives in New York City, has slept at the scene. He told CBS News that he and the protesters know they are channeling an anger that is worldwide. "We have a rallying cry - the anger with Wall Street, the economic inequality and greed. It's simple. When people say we don't have demands -- we do have a demand. We want to point out the massive inequality -- economic, social inequality."
Alright, now here’s a lot of what I’m seeing on news websites: people protesting economic, social inequality. What it sounds like is that a bunch of people want communism – which is fine. I don’t mind people wanting communism. I have no problem with communism. I just don’t want to live in it, because communism, in theory, is great and everyone has food and wealth and comfort and happiness, but in practice is a load of crock, because someone is going to work harder and someone is going to try to work as little as possible, and they’re both getting the same amount of bread in the evening, and if more people are working as little as possible, then more people are going to get less and less bread because less and less people are making it.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Capitalism doesn’t account for social, economic equality. A first-time, untrained fast food employee doesn’t get paid as much as a surgeon with 30 years of practice and a doctorate because that’s just not how capitalism works. I wouldn’t want it to, because then we’d end up with a surplus of fast food employees and no surgeons, because who would want to work that much harder for the same result?
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know if the Occupy Wall Street group knows exactly what their demands or their causes are, and if they don’t know, then I sure don’t agree with them.
