I feared this was the the case…Occupy Wall Street needs a leader. Hope someone steps up.
Occupy Wall Street Impressions
I came into visiting the protests in New York with the mindset: “Good cause, bad leadership”. However, I also expected to see things that would move me and other people into supporting the cause either further—or even at all. This snapshot of one of the thousands of nonsensical picket signs I felt best represented the vibe of the protests… they were aimless, loud, and mostly left you feeling quizzical rather than pensive.
I spent an hour or so initially, weaving in and out of the crowd, overhearing political banter (corporate fat cats, corporate greed, corporate man, etc.), and watching the louder members/interesting standouts—however, ultimately what I was walking through was basically a very large outdoor homeless shelter. There were tarp beds, makeshift crates, the food was bread, peanut butter, and hot sauce—the people were your stereotypical hippies and college-dropout activists, not even attempting to seem like people who live within society. Occasionally I would see a person in some crazy garb like a gas mask and robe with some big political message, but largely—it was a homeless shelter party. Emphasis on the party because the “activism” occurring, consisted of sweaty dance circles, bongo drums, and other forms of loud but not terribly good music. When I returned a few hours later after dark, the dance circles had evolved into glowing hula hoop circles, the music had grown louder, and now that it was raining—a sea of tarps were not assembled, but rather just laying over a field of people underneath them. For all I knew there could’ve been one massive orgy underneath there in the middle of Wall Street. I say again—the protest against corporate greed and corruption was a glowing. hula hoop. dance circle.
There were no big police standoffs, no police brutality, no moving speeches, not even a clever sign. I walked away from this feeling this: the only people who ever seem to “protest” these things are fun-loving, burning-man-going, “free spirits”. These people, who—by all appearances: seem to love protesting and seem to love demanding money… but they treat their campaigning as a party and even when I had a long conversation with activists—they really didn’t even seem to know what they were fighting against. It was endless circles of big sweeping generalizations—with no specifics as to what they were so against. Where are the educated protestors? Where are the people who demand change, but aren’t burnouts at the bottom of the barrel? All of these people claimed 99% of the world is against the 1% of “corporate fatcats” but the people I was seeing seemed just as small of a minority.
Understand that I agree with a good chunk of, at least the “manifesto” of occupy wall street—but the people “taking action” are not just failing to communicate the cause—but I think are down right hurting and embarrassing it to the point that no one will take it seriously. These are impressions of what I SAW and commentary on the approach of the conflict rather than the conflict itself. If they were fighting the other side, I would say the exact same thing. Imagine if incredible causes like the advancement of stem-cell research were being approached this way… it’s absurd to even think something so important would be treated so ridiculously.
