Occupy Wall Street - It Gets Better

2011-10-04T12:23:00.000-04:00

NPR is finally stepping up and reporting on Occupy Wall Street. FAUX News, predictably, has their own spin to offer. That's a link to a PoliticusUSA blog, not the original news source, but Hrafnkell lists the links I'd include all in one convenient place anyway and I don't have a problem with his take on it. Since the BBC and other foreign news have been reporting on it all along, I suppose they decided to stop waiting for some disgruntled Tea Baggers or WBC to show up to make it "real news" (if that's already happened and been covered and I missed it, somebody lemme know, eh?).

I'm not going to get into a thinger about what OWS should and shouldn't be doing here; I agree with most of Betsy Reed's article. What I am going to do is offer a thunk on a couple of the observations various people have made about why they think OWS is a bunch of ignorant, angry welfare hippies that should all be maced and arrested.

Comments from an article by Daniel W. Drezner:

"Just as it lacks a single message, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement has been defined by the absence of a clear leader. Participants say that is by design, and point to the committees that have sprung up to tend to the daily needs of those camped in Zuccotti Park. It isn't clear that they want a single leader, and many think the movement is better off without one."

"Without clear and coherent demands, there will be little to inspire ordinary citizens to take to the streets. Articulating clear and coherent demands, however, will destroy the very gestalt that the people currently on the streets seem to like some much."

Just for comparison, these are largely the same reasons given as to why the general public, much of mainstream media, and government and civil entities refuse to accept PHA belief systems as legitimate. We don't have a centralized leadership, a single codified doctrine or creed we all follow, or a recognizable hierarchical structure that applies to all of us.

Does that mean PHA faiths, folkways, and paths aren't valid, and shouldn't be given any credibility? Hell no. It means we're a lifeform that the modern western world isn't accustomed to seeing and finds puzzling by because we don't fit neatly into an existing cultural taxonomic niche. Other than categorizing us as "new religious movements", which isn't accurate for everyone either. I see Occupy Wall Street the same way.

Instead of insisting that all things must shape themselves to recognizable, existing models, many of which right now aren't much more than barely functional clusterfracks, I'd rather allow for evolution and reinvention.

Hedgehogs stole my beer!

Occupy Wall Street - It Gets Better