When I first heard about Occupy Wall Street, I was all, Yeah… riiight! You’re gonna occupy Wall Street? Good luck with that — and grow the fuck up!
I’m sitting in my kitchen at a bay window, looking up the street at a canopy of thinning sycamores. It’s quiet, safe and clean. I’m “working” today, juggling projects and finding myself annoyed that I might have to walk five minutes to buy a cup of coffee from a tiny independent coffee shop. There’s the occasional sight of stay-at-home moms, contractors and people distributing flyers, but the streets will stay empty until the afternoon school buses arrive. I’m a busy man. This is the self-customized existence I’ve eked out for myself in America. I was born poor, half-black, Jewish, but I went to good schools, worked hard and am now about as comfortable as imaginable. The status quo is great. Leave me alone.
I lived in Santa Cruz, California, for years so, initially, I laughed off the Occupy kids. In Santa Cruz, protests both on- and off-campus were as prevalent as ATMs or Starbucks. I know that kids learn through experiences and often convince each other to bark about shit they know absolutely nothing about. I mean, look at those regrettable Penn State “protesters” demonstrating that JoPa’s football factory is much more important than alleged serial child molestation. So when Arv first told me about Occupy Wall Street, I was all, Yeah… riiight! You’re gonna occupy Wall Street? Good luck with that — and grow the fuck up!
“The only reason your ‘rights’ exist is because the state regards it as politically advantageous not to take them from you. In the event that social dissidents provide a sufficient threat to both its institutional stability and its claim to ethical / moral legitimacy, the Constitution won’t be worth a thing unless it’s printed on Kevlar vests.” -Occupy Wall Street
But I’ve come around. Sure, these Occupy kids have no clear message. So what? These Occupy groups around the world are made up of hundreds of thousands of individuals who have many causes, messages and personal reasons to get off their asses and say something in public to anyone who will listen. Message? People are pissed about the mess we’ve made of our collective world and of our only planet. Smart people are panicked about the shit-fuck catastrophe we’re leaving for our children. As humans, we’ve grown extraordinarily selfish, short-sighted and lazy. Here’s your message: We’ve fucked up the species.
So now what? The very same people the Occupy kids are desperately trying to support and defend — the poor and the middle class worker bees, like law enforcement officers — are “just following orders” and are beating the shit out of our peaceful citizens around the country in the name of dubious “health and safety” ordinances. Can’t camp here, people — that’s the law! Never mind all the silly words written in the U.S. Constitution about “prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Drum circles annoy rich people. Rich people control resources. Welcome to Beat-Down City!
“That, to me, is what Occupy Wall Street is addressing. People don’t know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.” -Matt Taibbi
For the New York kids, Mike Bloomberg and the Executive Management Team of Brookfield Office Properties — the corporate entity that owns Zuccotti Park — are the One-Percenters. The people the Occupy kids are annoying are the coke-and-whore financial managers who need peace and quiet to concentrate on the counting of bonuses. One-percenters, like any organized crime gang, look after themselves first and foremost. The one-percenters are still running everything. And by “everything,” I basically mean every organization that sets guidelines and rule for the rest of us, like the federal government. Look at what passes for a federal legislator nowadays. Look at the slate running as the GOP presidential nominee. That alone is reason to take to the streets. So people took to the streets.
Remember a couple of years ago when your crazy aunt put on a tri-cornered hat, waved a tiny American flag and took to the streets as a Tea Bagger? She was crazy as hell, right? You couldn’t make any sense of what she was saying. It was all contradictory and illogical, right? Something about smaller government, less taxes, corporate greed. You got all hipster and rolled your eyes. That’s what the Occupy kids sound like to your crazy aunt.
One day, if great fortune strikes, the Occupy kids and the Tea Bagger kooks will somehow figure out that they’re both part of the very same populist uprising against lazy, intellectually-void, status quo, corporate bullshit. This will be America’s big bang. Forget Obama’s hackneyed “Winning the Future” propaganda — when the people unite then, and only then, we will begin to occupy our future.
Or, like me, you can continue sitting and typing on a MacBook in the kitchen, doing nothing.
thank you. that was really well written – I will be sending it around.
Not sure how you got this past the RedEye editorialists but as always kookily thought out and blisteringly applied. Bravo.
Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt Euch
Break up the Black Beatles (again)
I think the Tea Party & Occupy should get together to protest. That way those kids will get to spend some quality time with their parents.
Your message is hollow, vague and destructive. Google Lisa Fithian. You’re just another cog in somebody else’s wheel. #OWS #RebelSell
Comparing the OWS movement to the Tea Party the way you have is unintelligent. The Tea Party movement is well organized, it’s a burgeoning political party with leaders that have names and titles, some of which who hold elected office. The whole of the Tea Party has adopted a charter that it doesn’t veer from. OWS on the other hand, and even you admit this, is unorganized and unfocused. And it’s obvious in your employment of a pejorative term in describing Tea Party members that you have an agenda here, that you have decided to side with OWS regardless. That’s cool though. It’s okay to have an opinion. But attempting to present your views with a really biased, uninformed and juvenile op-ed on a tiitty-fart blog is pretty sad, and I feel sorry for you.
P.S. When was the last time a “Tea Bagger” shat in the street, raped a teen or fostered the spread of archaic diseases at one of their protests?
P.S.S. If Occupiers ever want to be taken seriously, they need to, as Alec Baldwin of all people pointed out, define and rally around legislative policy.
The pejorative axiom of the tea party propoganda infastructure isnt something that can be deliniated from the figurative demonstration of the occupy wall street testemonial, what with a black man in the white house and everything.
@Sean Manatee: Although it’s true that Julius did bring his own prejudices to the table, you aren’t doing anything different. Particularly, offering up a graceful solution like “rally around legislative policy” illustrates that you’re just as uninformed (Occupiers have previously mobilized to show support for specific pieces of legislation) and probably a bigger tool.
Look, just go the fuck home already. Aren’t you tired of eating brown beans and falafel and urinating in a water bottle?
Hypocricy USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o&feature=player_embedded
i have a big dick.
Forget the 1%, Tea Baggers are funded and directed by the .1%. The Billionaire Koch Brothers got tired of regulations and corporate taxes so they repurposed the same zero-sum game religious fanatics who rallied around the “pro-life” movement. Now they have middle-class flyover USA folks arguing for corporate tax breaks and deregulation with a fervor they once applied to abortion.
The OWS folks are a truly grass roots movement, which is why they are going to fade away. They should channel their efforts into supporting Democrats in the upcoming election. Thankfully, they have as much chance of sweeping away they current ruling structure as the American Taliban do.
@Arv Don’t own a tri-cornered hat. Just pointing out a fact: the Tea Party is far more organized than Occupy and they yield actual results.
How does offering up a solution to rally around legislative policy illustrate how uninformed and what a tool I am? Arv, honestly, name one piece of legislation or a political result that the Occupy movement as a whole has rallied around, let alone implemented. A real one. Not some blog post or a far-left talking point or something that the Warren Court already established over 40 years ago. I can name 3 massive Tea Party political results off the top of my head:
1. Shellacking the Left in the 2010 mid-term elections.
2. De-balling the Executive branch during the debt-ceiling “crisis.”
3. Having currently sitting U.S. Senators (Coburn, DeMint, Lee) literally sign a contract drafted by a Tea Party lawyer.
And you can look to Ohio’s Senate Bill 5, Issa’s Postal Reform Act, and California’s Prop 23 as specific legislative acts the Tea Party has rallied around.
The Tea party doesn’t always get their way and has suffered defeats, but compared to Occupy they are extremely organized, coherent, have yielded real world results, and they’re non-violent to boot–i.e., nobody gets raped or tuberculosis at Tea Party events.
Do you honestly believe Occupy has or will ever yield a result comparable to just even one of the aforementioned?
@ blah: It does stagger me that normal middle-class people would take to the streets and argue for… tax cuts for the super-rich. Wha?!? Like, if you’re gonna protest, protest for something which is going to benefit yourself, not your reptilian overlords. The Tea Party baffles me. Could you elaborate as to why you’re all for the current ruling structure?
socialism doesn’t work ya’ll. never has. seems like that’s what most OWS people want though even if they deny it. all the things they preach or want goes back directly to socialism (sharing everything, make everything fair and even, free healthcare for everyone, etc.) problem is none of that ever works. it always gets fucked up and people cheat and steal and that’s because this is planet earth and the real world. we’re fundamentally flawed and the world is never fair so trying to be so would be against the nature of the world it self.
According to the Daily Rash, Occupy Wall Street is using prostitutes in an effort to bring down the number of rapes at the protest sites. http://www.thedailyrash.com/occupy-wall-street-hires-prostitutes-to-combat-rising-rape-allegations
“Tea Baggers are funded and directed by the .1%. The Billionaire Koch Brothers…”
Where’s your evidence? The Kochs were found to have contributed to one rally or something, and suddenly it’s entirely orchestrated by them and everyone who follows it is a mindless brainwashed puppet? Making quite a few logical leaps there, Li’l Street Soldier.
The OWS folks are a truly grass roots movement, which is…”
…following your logic, let’s follow the money: The original Occupations were organized by Adbusters, which is funded by the Tides Foundation, which is funded by billionaire George Soros. All of that is true and documented. So there is absolutely nothing grassroots about it.
See how stupid that sounds? Both movements have huge money interests—actually, competing money interests—behind them. And both movements have sincere adherents who aren’t mind-control zombies.
The OWS folks, in general, are upper-middle-class white kids acting out against their parents. If you have to work a job to put food on the table, you don’t have the time to sit in tents, hit on bongs, and play the bongos. Duh!
@Goat:
w/r/t free healthcare… have you ever been to Canada? True it’s not “free”, but if I get a broken leg I’m not fucked for life.
as much as I support toppling some of America’s nasty trends, I honestly don’t think these OWS guys will do much. they’re not hitting the ’1%’ where it hurts because they don’t even know what that means, they’re too busy taggin eachother in bongo circles
@anon
I have a problem with the TPs because they are the same anti-Choice fanatics from the 90′s repurposed.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/is-the-tea-party-a-religious-movement-anthem-invokes-god-judgment-day/
Far from a street marcher, I benefit from the Bush $250K+ Family earning tax rates. I find it humorous to see lower middle class flyover folks swearing to defend my rates to the last drop of their blood.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/internal-memo-romney-courting-kochs-tea-party
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
I admit that, like a sneaky tax dodge, elite funding of the repurposed religious fanatics (TPers) is tough to prove.
Frankly, I don’t care either way. I just want to give the President a chance to succeed. I belive the GOP is ready to tank the economy just to get at the President. This would hurt. Cheers.
@17 yes I have been to Canada. It’s actually the only other country I’ve been to. Got a big kick out of “The Beer Store.” Regarding your example… I’m currently unemployed. So I currently have no health insurance as well. So I’m not some rich dude up here telling every jobless person to stop being a hippie. I just believe Capitalism is the most realistic economic policy there is right now. I recently was being a “total bro” and punched a wall because of a sports game (that I had money on) and re-broke my hand which I never got fixed the first time I broke it (because I haven’t had health insurance.) It’s my right hand too, and I’m right handed. So I know how it can suck, but hey, that’s MY fault. I used to play the blame game too. Then I turned 25. I realized, hey… maybe I should stop crying and try and fix my own problems instead of trying to get others to do it for me (because that wasn’t working.)
Basically I got realistic. I was a total liberal growing up. I even had that retarded conspiracy theory phase. I hated republicans with a passion like most my peers did as well. I thought they were money hungry greedy pigs. Then I turned 25. And had more of life to draw more conclusions. That whole way of thinking is what I think of as a victim syndrome. It got me nowhere. I was always pointing the finger and never bettering myself. Now, I’ve got some realistic goals, and I’m taking responsibility. Suddenly I’m not so “woe is me.” After being homeless and traveling the country and starving and losing 40 pounds I realized what the real world is like. I’ve always been from a poor family, but had rich friends so I always thought like them (herd mentality.) I know what’s real now, and what’s fairy tale and make believe (trying to make everything perfect is impossible. idealism is like ‘chasing the dragon’)
“Learn the difference between capitalism and crony corporatism”
––Ron Paul
In London (all I can speak for) they are a tad more than some unorganized kids:
http://theoccupiedtimes.co.uk/OT%20ISSUE%204_pink.pdf
http://theoccupiedtimes.co.uk/
Wow, they really have their objectives planned out. That’s quite the newsletter. Why can’t American kids (and protesters in general) take the initiative to write out the issues and distribute them to everyone? It might make things a tad more solidified
@Sean Manatee: This is one that they rallied behind, though lost: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/nyregion/cuomo-says-he-will-not-renew-millionaires-tax.html
Done yet?
The way I see it, the Tea Party pretty much created the perfect Occupy storm. First we have the Tea Party, I know these people, and they are all CPAs, attorneys & doctors. They all have vintage airplanes at my airport. They all take exotic golf vacations. They are the 10%. Largely, they are older and have grown children. They are Empty Nesters.
Their children grew up privileged and pampered. Gold stars for everyone! Their every need was provided & they received a car on their 16th birthday. Their fondest wish was to escape the torrential boredom of Toledo, Omaha, Dallas, Tulsa & the best way of doing this was to find a distant University to attend. Woe is for the child destined for the State University!
College is the perfect time for the kids because they are away from the parental units, living on their own, yet all of their needs are still met. Hunger never bothers their bellies; booze is plentiful; and their bongs are never in need of weed. They have four or five years of years of responsibility-free bliss in exchange for going to a couple of classes & making passing grades.
Of course it is a lot easier to get passing grades when the kids are working towards a degree that doesn’t require math. Sure, they started out in Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, but hated staying in & studying while all their friends were out partying. Why were their friends able to get away with never studying while they had hours and hours of equations to do? Simple, the kids get a soft degree like Art History, Political Science, & Women’s Studies. They watch a few slide shows & take a test every once in a while. Easy peasy.
After a successful College career, and sometimes a Graduate program, the pampered child moves somewhere big & exciting! NYC! LA! San Francisco! Boston! Chicago! They have a bit of trouble finding a job with their liberal arts degree, but somehow manage to scare something up; besides, the parental units are still sending a thousand here & a thousand there for emergency expenses.
The “Trust Fund” kids are a myth. There are no formal trust funds set up, & if there are, the kids don’t get access until their parents kick it. Very few of the newly transplanted Big City kids have a set amount provided regularly; their parents are just helping them out cash-wise. The parents remember how it was when they were that age & just want to make their special little snowflake’s life a little easier.
Life is not easy in the big city! Their pitiful retail job doesn’t even come close to paying for their rent, much less their entertainment bill. They didn’t move to NYC to sit in their shoebox apartment, they moved here for all of the shows & fashion. Suddenly, for the first time ever, they are thrust out into the cold cruel world with nary a safety net. Their parents think that a couple of thousand a month should sustain them pretty well, and it would if their kids were living in flyover land, but in NYC a couple thousand is merely a drop in the Big City suck bucket. That will hardly even buy a decent pair of shoes.
Here comes an extended depression/recession. Oopsie! It happens to also arrive with the end of all publishing, so millions of creative Big City jobs are POOF! Gone. Magazine, newspaper, & book opportunities are all gone. Pretty much the kids’ only hope is to start a witty website that can then be published as a book that no one will purchase because, why? There it is on that website.
Meanwhile, back at home, their parents are out protesting! What the hell! And what are they protesting? Against Government stimulus & the welfare state it supports? Wait a minute, their kid has been living on that stimulus for the past year after being laid off from that fleeting job they had managed to obtain immediately before the economy went to shit. Well, that and the couple of thou their parents send.
There needs to be more Stimulus, the kids say. How will they live if the Government doesn’t give them unemployment & food stamps for another year? There needs to be more Stimulus so that maybe the government can create more jobs. Creative jobs though, the kids don’t want to be shoveling shit or working at a soul-killing 8 to 5 job like their parents. Ugh, they are special & unique just like all the others!
Imagine the poor kid’s plight; their unemployment just ran out (thanks Mom & Dad!), they are scared & hungry, and they have only had that one three-month-long job ever in their lives & it is now gone forever, never to return. They have no skills, nothing but a bright mind & a lot of energy. The prospect of moving back to flyover land & in with their parents is looming. Meanwhile, back at home, the parental units are not doing as well as they used to. One of them lost their job, their 401K is half what is was in 2008 & now the money from home seems to be drying up. The future is not bright.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, this tremendous opportunity for them to Make A Difference appears! There is free food! There is a big, extended, free street party & they never have to leave! They can just pass out at the party when they get tired! This is awesome! This is even better than college because there aren’t even any pesky classes to attend! Take that Mom & Dad, you had your Tea Party & took away all of our benefits, & now I have my Occupy & will get those benefits back plus a portion of a billionaire’s fortune!
The parents are fighting against the exact same things that their children are demanding. The parents and their children are on different sides of the same exact coin. This is nothing more than a child’s rebellion against their parents. The parent is more conservative because they have responsibilities whereas the child is liberal because not only have they never had responsibilities, but it is really easy to be extremely liberal when someone else is footing the bill.
The kids want more pay and benefits for teachers, yet are unable to equate those expenses with the exploding cost of their own education. They want bigger & better unions yet wonder why all manufacturing has been moved overseas, out of the Unions’ way. They get all of their music, magazines, newspapers, books, movies, and television on the internet for free but don’t reconcile that with the fact that if they aren’t paying for stuff, then when they make it, nobody will be paying them for it. In order for anyone to make a living at something, someone somewhere will have to pay them to do that thing they do.
I know, I know, you know of one person that doesn’t fit this mold exactly, so the whole concept must be flawed. I get it.
Goat My Sampson Says:
Then I turned 25. And had more of life to draw more conclusions.
Then I turned 25.
25.
Let me know when you turn 30. Then, I might give a shit about your existence.
oui, c’est vrai, pour la plupart. each kid is different, but it is definitely harder for poor ones
Well done.
so, you’re a stewardess?
@dork that pretty much kicked everybody’s ass.
@Arv Occupiers rallied around a millionaire tax and one of the most liberal governors in one of the most liberal states put the kibosh on it. Brilliant. Entirely comparable. You shut me down. Yes, I’m done.
Dork said everything I wanted to say but 10 billion times better, in more depth, and makes my post inconsequential.
@Dork
Well you summed up my entire shitty existence of a generation…
I went to school for two years. One year in Manhattan for Political Science and another in New England shitty business school for some bs degrees I thought about it realized how stupid and trivial everything was and the shear laziness everyone in my classes had. So I went home and started my own Sanford & Sons style salvage business. Making a couple of grand everyday hauling shit to a junkyard covered in battery acid while everyone else is whinging about some sort of mysterious government handout. Eventually Im moving on but for now Im satisfied. Do I regret not working harder and switching majors to something that could help me reach a degree that employers would be impressed by? Of course. Do I get pissed watching these kids make a scene over nothing they understand? Absolutely. And I 100% agree with what you’re saying my generation are so fucking up in the clouds that they can see up Gods ass.
You suggested they were ineffectual because they hadn’t tried that tactic; I showed you that they had tried it and that you were simply talking out of your ass. That was my point — not that they succeeded, but that they had tried where you said they hadn’t.
That’s called shifting the goalposts bud.
A columnist for the NYT rallied around something for them. 99.999% of the 99% have no clue about said legislation. Hardly a rallying. Now I’m done. *Commits suicide*