Occupy Somewhere Else?
So, Whither the Occupy (Wall Street, etc.) protests?
I can’t do a whole lot here other than echo what others have said. On the one hand, I have to agree with Uncle Paul in that this seems like a favor, or at least an opportunity, for the Occupy protests in some ways. They had kind of plateaued, in terms of raising awareness of inequality and winner-take-all-capitalism concerns, and appeared in danger of fading away. That may still happen, but I think that if “The Man” had wanted to silence their voices he would have been better off letting short attention spans and cold weather do the work through slow attrition.
Frankly I can’t quite figure out the thinking behind this crackdown. It really does seem to do nothing but make the protesters look more relevant than before, and make Bloomberg, et al., look like heavy-handed dictators. In return for what? Is it just an instinctive reflex, “this rabble is challenging my authority, I will destroy them” i.e.? Is the establishment actually admitting that Occupy Wall Street has rattled them, then? Why?
Honestly, it’s tough for me to see the threat; interest in the protests seemed to be waning, as noted, and in the meantime I’m unsure what they were disrupting. To be blunt, the parasitic business of Wall Street seems to have continued pretty much uninterrupted despite its “occupation.” Are the big city bosses really that sensitive? And, more to the point, that sensitive on the issue of questioning the prevailing wealth=virtue dogma? I suppose they probably are, as Uncle Paul among others has chronicled since Obama took office (“Ma, he’s looking at me funny,” etc.).
Still, whatever the reasoning it all looks like a horrible reactionary assault. I have difficulty believing that, whatever Bloomberg, et al. may tell themselves, there isn’t a big ideological element to this establishment repression of protesters. The official justifications are just so easy to poke holes in that they’re pathetic, though at the same time also scary. (more…)