well, at first blush it all seems a bit preposterous.
what are these people protesting, these occupiers of city streets, these counter culture types who mock the wall street brokers, other than the fact that they are not being provided for, as promised. most of them look as if they've never worked a day in their lives, and they certainly do not appear to developed either callouses or muscles doing any kind of physical labor: most of them, white and pampered appearing, would probably feel a little abused were it suggested to them that they perform menial labor if incapable of any other contribution to the labor pool.
but, is this protest as silly as it seems?
i think not.
they are simply demanding that which has been promised them, and that is something for very little if any contribution on their part at all. they have, after all, been promised that society will provide, e.g., that the government will keep them in three hots and a cot.
and, that some fall guy would pay for it, without complaint.
conservatives feel vaguely affronted and perhaps threatened by this.
but, it may be a bit trickier to figure out who gets the sharp edge of the blade in all this.
consider, if you will, who has made the promise of eternal support and public largess in exchange for the dependable liberal/leftist/democratic party vote? and, that is the promise of the democratic party, e.g., wealth transfer on an unprecedented scale. the promise has been, to these occupiers, that if they voted for the democratic party, for liberals, that they would be provided for, and that others would pay, in exchange for their predictable exercise of the franchise.
the occupiers, no doubt, probably feel that they have upheld their end of the bargain.
and, i can only understand their protest as an expression of the/their perception that the democrats have failed them. welfare, and public support and food stamps, are not as much fun as it seemed when they were young or in school.
and, they want more.
they want to live large and wide like the big people, like those pulling down all the green.
why should they expect anything different? it is what they have been promised all their lives, this youngest edition of the best and the brightest. who said a fucking thing about hard work, sacrifice, risk and failure, and the grit to pick oneself off the ground and go after it again? when has anyone ever told the, the reality of "root hog or die?"
my guess is their disaffection runs against the left, as much as anyone.
oh, they talk the leftist cant about the rich and corporations. but, even this chimps, chumps and would be champs have to realize, that it is the rich guys and corporations who provide the money for salaries, and the taxes by which they expect to be paid all the rest of their lives for their cleverness and potential. they are big on potential.
they expect better.
because they were promised better.
and, they don't expect to work and take risks to obtain it, because, of course, that has never been part of their education, experience and, ... , not to kill the word, ... , nor their expectation.
the government has failed them.
they are, of course, hung up on an intellectual and ideological petard. they rant that their enemies, corporations, business and money have grossly mistreated them, and that their lives are exhibits of cosmic unfairness. after all, they went to school, and now they want the payoff.
and, what is it they want, this payoff... , why, influence, big salaries and material things, the very things they "despise." or, failing that, they want the permanent dole, just like european "students," no doubt.
sooner or later, they will comprehend.
now, as mentioned earlier, the republican/conservative/tea party types are vaguely nervous about this.
it is the liberals who should be quaking in their boots, their knees knocking and shaking.
they pretend to lead.
in reality, never having worked and being mostly from the academic hot house in which they have led temperature controlled lives, they don't know how to lead. they wouldn't know how to make widgets, or organize a company or corporation to make widgets, or how to compete for a share of the widget market is the "directions" to do so fell in their laps off the ceiling. well, as a matter of fact, the directions to do so did fall off the ceiling into their laps in micro economics graduate school classes, but, they were more interested in controlling such things and telling others how to do things as regulators, managers and bureaucrats, ... , we can call that macro economics, ... , so they never paid much attention on how you actually do anything.
to put it crudely, ... , everybody knows about sex, but few are proficient enough & attractive enough to be in demand to do it.
all our "leaders," liberals, leftists, communists, and other "ism"-ites, whether they be republicans or democrats, know how to do is tax, e.g., to extract wealth from the doers and give it to the non-doers, in exchange for office sustaining votes. they have asserted their right to rule, and the rightness of their exerting a right to rule by running roughshod over democratic principles, by reason of their proficiency to manage the labor and effort of others, and by way of their fitness to run the societal and governmental institutions which run the system.
in this claim, they have been shown counterfeit, and wildly pretentious. how so? by the running of the economy into the ground, by the failure to understand the vaguest relation between international hegemony in economics and international prestige derivative from global reach and exercise of power? no, though in this they are guilty. but, who cares? who gives a rat's ass?
no, the truth of the matter is, they have shown their lack of fitness, their pretense, their status of pretenders, simply by being unable to provide for the moochers as they little mommies and daddies did before they cast them into the cold streets of real life.
my father, my father, why hast thou forsaken me?
we are run by idiots, for the benefit of idiots, and in the meantime, those who work and provide and sustain these idiots and moochers grow more tired of the situation day by day. and, the fact is, the idiots cannot extract enough money from the largest economy in the world to pay the quid pro quo to the other moocher idiots who put them into office.
the fact is, as always, the left/progressives/communists are welshers. for 70 years they have welshed on their promises to blacks, to labor, to socialists and to others, and now they welsh on the moochers.
these protest amount to a recognition that this is so, and they amount to no more than that. the moochers want more internet, more pop and popcorn for the all night "the big bang" sleepovers.
this is not the "arab spring."
you tire of this bullshit? you wanna bring the whole thing down? hint.-- there is no need for revolution or gun fire, in reality.
just don't go to work.
and, then listen to the screaming and caterwauling and lamentation from leftist and moocher classes alike, when the goose that lays the golden eggs refuses to lay, or even sit on the straw.
this, my friends, is what labour party mp and democratic congressional people, and brown, isn't it, and obama pee ice water over.
it is when the mooching classes understand that the democrats, liberals, leftists, and communists have failed them. and, that it is not the government that provides. but, the individual contributions of those who work and who sustain the system.
as for myself, i would like to see the 99% thing continue, maybe into a little anarchy and chaos, and a riot or two.
let 'em figure it out.
actually, let both "sides" figure it out. the leftist and the moocher, on the one side.
and, the real life "worker" who sustains all of them.
john jay @ 10.10.2011
p.s. read "the second coming" by william butler yeats, and "the love song of j. alfred prufrock," by thomas stearns eliot.
p.s.s. no, they don't want to destroy the system. they simply want a more preferred position for a more preferred tit by which to suckle. simple as that. and, the democrats and labor cannot provide it, because they cannot pay for it.
yes, you may thank sarah palin and the tea party for this. the line at the people's cafeteria is shortening, and the moochers don't like it, not one god damned bit.