All that icing and all that cake...

So the Occupy movement has been something that's been taking up a lot of my rhetorical time - that is, my time where I speak about things, not time that is... somehow theoretical. I've been pretty calm, all things considered, and there are many things to consider. The reaction to Occupy has been largely an exercise in watching confirmation bias drive many people to say hurtful, hateful, and irrational things all in the name of sticking it to (insert "the man" or "those jobless hipsters" as appropriate here). In the middle of all this, I've tried to commit myself to the Sisyphean effort of remaining calm and trying to speak to people who had forcefully set themselves against the movement, and cajole those who were losing sight of the actual problem back into more useful thought and action.

Today I kind of lost my shit. I didn't lose it so much as angrily begin flinging it around at anyone who dared get in my path. I could cite some excuses - and I will - but I will first say that I'm not too proud of how I handled myself. I believe that some people really needed to have someone finally get in, stop being polite, and blatantly say, "You are wrong. We do not need to be tactful or meek about this - you are wrong and you are misinformed." But I've been sick, and I was tired, and I hadn't slept well, perhaps the sun got in my eyes and I slept on my hand, who knows. I woke up in a shit mood, saw what was going on last nigh, and something in my dam of patience snapped.

It wasn't just that this was happening; honestly, it was one of the few logical conclusions to the Occupy camp in New York. The problem I was having was with the reactions I was seeing. Police officers were being used as a military to conduct unlawful actions against Americans: arresting protestors who complied, forcibly destroying recordings and denying press access, taking private property belonging to the protestors and destroying it, cutting off the airspace above to the media, and so on. Was the occupation illegal? That is actually up for debate, as the NY courts have begun fighting back and forth over that question while an order to allow protestors back in to the park languishes. But even if it was, look at what happened, and then witness Americans cheering gleefully at the treatments of their fellow citizen. Why is this ok? Simply put, it's always okay when laws and rights are conveniently ignored in order to expedite punishment of those who don't agree with us. This is the rule of the day - what Bush did and what Obama does, however similar, is either heroic or demonic depending on which end of the political spectrum you sit yourself on.

This is a fiction that far too many people have happily eaten up and clamored for seconds. The Occupy protestors are hippies and/or trust fund babies bored with their lives and trying to pretend their existences mean something. So many right-wing media outlets realized that ignoring the protest didn't mean anything, so the narrative quickly shifted - let's talk about how disorganized they are, how shiftless and worthless they are as human beings. Please for the love of God, let's just not talk about the actual issue at hand. And, again, so many were happy to take that direction and run with it as if they were scoring a touchdown for (insert political or religious idol here) itself.

The truth of the matter is this - what happened over the past decade in regards to the destructive and corrupt relationship between political power and financial regulation was a crime committed against America as a country. Executives at many levels across several powerful firms perpetrated a fraud that no intelligent businessman would have attempted, if they had the long term interests of their company in mind. They soaked up countless millions, even billions, of dollars that did not belong to them through misdirection and blatant lies, making bets they would never be able to cover. When the bet came due, when a company must finally be held accountable for the failed risks it took, the government stepped in and saved them all. Who will pay the price for the misconduct of these few? Everyone but them. To these privileged few, the idea that they could lose was an insult. They were largely born into money, and they will always have money, and the concept that this could change was laughable at best or otherwise simply a conspiracy. As far as they're concerned, they have a right to their lifestyles and wealth, not any need to earn and maintain it.

So instead of feeling the repercussions of what they had done - actually playing by the rules of the capitalist philosophy they all pretend to be such devotees of - the backlash fell to the public. Banks were bailed out. Companies were saved by the government. And in turn, these companies, in order to even out their bottom line, fired employees, stopped lending, hiked up fees, and squeezed every rock they could find for some cash - as long as that rock wasn't somewhere on their own property. And when the economy froze due to unemployment and a lack of moving cash, these same people shrugged helplessly and said, "oh, sorry, it's just how things are now" as if they had no hand in it and no power to make it otherwise.

Above: "Shiftless hippie bums".

But instead of worrying about this, we have people who snicker to each other that Occupy Wall Street has no clear direction (nevermind the fact that the living document known as the OWS Manifesto can be found easily by just Googling the completely obscure phrase "OWS Manifesto"), or that these people are just shiftless hippie bums who want to end the American way of life. Why? Why do we bother with this? Because, simply put, partisan hatred in this country has taken over every aspect of life. Every decision you make, everything you like or dislike, is now considered on part of the political spectrum. Do you drive a truck? You must be a conservative. Only liberals like Muse. And so on. In the middle of the rabble, the message is not only getting lost, it's getting actively drowned out and distorted, because so many people know that it's a message that the average citizen should not and will not ignore.

I would usually puff out my centrist, more-enlightened-than-thou chest and now admonish the other side, if this were any other issue. "They're all wrong, to some degree," is the chic political line of thought these days, and in some regards it's true for OWS. Occupy has done a great deal of damage to itself, and there are those within the movement that I, and many rational people should disagree with. End capitalism? Pass. Abolish all banks? You have no idea what you're talking about. Forgive all student debt and/or home loans? The damage that would cause is beyond what you can apparently understand. But beyond that, the basic principle - that the government has now enshrine the idea that reward is privatized to a select few and risk is now socialized to the whole country - is right. If you do not agree with this, if you want to spend your time smirking and rolling your eyes at the people, then you are wrong. Flat out.

This is a nuanced issue, to be sure, but there is very definitely a right side. If you want to waste your time counting the minor infractions of the movement, as if such a movement could ever be without people who act in such a manner, then that's your choice. And it's the wrong choice. I quoted this earlier, but it remains appropriate: Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." If all you can talk about is how these hippies were asking for it, or how you heard a story about how some guy broke a sink, you've made your choice. 


Went to bed and didn't see,
why every day turns out to be
a little bit more like Bukowski.
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read.
But God who'd wanna be?
God who'd wanna be such an asshole?