Whadda you got? Henry Blodget provides a pretty fair interlinear commentary to the Declaration of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Here’s a snippet:
We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people [unfair blanket smear], self-interest over justice [also an unfair smear], and oppression over equality [oh, please—Procter & Gamble makes toothpaste—it’s not their job to worry about “equality”], run our governments [“run” is a bit strong, but “influence” is certainly fair].
The entire thing is a mixed bag with some legitimate complaints and a lot of boilerplate. If you want to know what the hoopla is about or at least what some people say it’s about, read the whole thing.
It will be interesting to see (interesting is, perhaps, not the right word) whether protests of this sort gain any traction. I can’t help but feel that I’ve seen this movie before.
They’re incoherent but they aren’t wrong. If I lived in NYC I’d be down there with them.
I think they’re right to be dissatisfied. I think they dilute and trivialize their message by lurching into platitudes and enunciating too many objectives.
No question. But I always have this issue with demonstrations going back to the Vietnam era when I’d be furious that some jackass was waving a North Vietnamese flag. I’m afraid it’s in the nature of protests to have poor message discipline.
At your age I’m surprised that the Vietnam era demonstrations were of much interest to you. I guess as an Army brat they took on more importance than they might have for many of your age cohort.
They were front and center for my contemporaries and me. I haven’t written much about my thoughts from that era in this blog but they were probably what you might expect. I thought our involvement in Vietnam was imprudent as were the treaties that sent us there.
However, I thought the basic message of the student protests wasn’t “Out of Vietnam” but “Hell, no, we won’t go”. They weren’t anti-war protests so much as anti-draft protests. I probably spent hundreds of hours wrangling with protest leaders (my alma mater was much in the news in those days) who couldn’t articulate a coherent argument against the war per se.
All that having been said, the protests of those days had a significantly more forceful message than the collection of anarchist and re-warmed Marxist slogans the OccupyWallStreet protesters are using. IMO the 60s protests gained legitimacy because of the police response to them rather than growing popularity (check the polls from those days) and that will likely be the case with any protest movement today. If the NYPD starts gassing and shooting protesters, the Powers-That-Be will be in trouble but not before.
At your age I’m surprised that the Vietnam era demonstrations were of much interest to you. I guess as an Army brat they took on more importance than they might have for many of your age cohort.
Yeah, during my first such demonstration my dad was on his second tour in Vietnam. That did kind of focus my mind. Plus I was political very early on — not into sports.
I have to smile at the image of young Dave Schuler insisting on clarity, coherence and intellectual rigor from protest leaders of the 60’s. Plus ça change.
Born in 1968 and given up for adoption by a young unwed woman, I like to imagine I was conceived at some kind of protest-themed love-in.
Maybe you older guys can explain to me why boomers have done a 180 from protesting to tolerating and even advocating for interventionist policy.
That’s an easy question to answer, Andy. I gave a hint in my comment above: it was always about self-interest and it still is. No 180 involved.
I think I gave my first political speech at age 10. My paternal family was extremely political. My great-grandfather was a bigwig in the St. Louis Republican political machine (when there was a St. Louis Republican political machine). My great-uncle was elected Sheriff of St. Louis. My dad turned down being Harry Truman’s campaign manager. If he’d’ve accepted my life might have been very different than it was. I might well have grown up in DC for one thing.
I think they’re right to be dissatisfied.
Apparently many of them have expressed as one of their goals that Obama should be re-elected. Anti-Wall Street but pro-Obama. @@ Just more useful idiots.
This…very much this. These people are morons. They have such a huge glaring inconsistency that will destroy their very ideas, but some how they manage to keep from seeing it. They think that increasing the power of government only works for their “side/guys/etc.” when the power of government is available to all who can influence. Sure, voting and protests might work, but money works really well…especially when times are decent and most people are complacent.
Bwahahahaha…oh and I’m consider the infantile one for being libertarian. Oh my…that is just too funny.