The Occupy Wall Street movement yesterday accomplished one thing: Nothing. Nothing is a thing. As Wall Street was not toppled and the poorest 99% of the population are not suddenly rolling in greenbacks and hand-jobs, I’ll assume they failed. It’s hard to fail, though, when you don’t have an objective. ithout any leadership, unified message, or proposal, all people did was show up, wave some cardboard signs and kick over trashcans. In some cases, however, those cans were chained to posts, or else rooted in the spots. Protestors tried in vain to kick them, only to leave the can slightly askew, but still useable for it’s original purpose. In other instances, no trash was spilt, making cleanup simple and easy for the underpaid city workers who make up the 99%. In some places, trashcans were set on fire and the homeless were unable to collect cans and bottles for recycling money. There was no dinner that night for the 99%.
If you’re honestly upset about how the financial situation is being handled, and if you’re calling for a redistribution of wealth (you fucking Commie), how is holding up traffic so people can’t get to work and hence paid a good idea?
Plus, it was called the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it went global. People flooded the streets in cities all over the world in a symbolic gesture that supports another symbolic gesture. It’s like wearing a wristband to support people who wear support ribbons. If you’re trying to get someone in Wall Street in NYC to do something, which was never defined, how does standing on the street in Vancouver do that? All you’re doing is getting in the local news, and it’s unlikely anyone in NYC gets the Vancouver Province on their doorstep. You could have had the same factual impact if you stood outside your own front door in Kitimat.
Protesting simply doesn’t work, and it doesn’t make sense.
First of all, the signs: Protests are considered successes simply based on the number of people in attendance. They can accomplish jack shit, but if there’s enough people, the organizers are thrilled. Organizers will even express extreme disappointment with their own followers if there turnout is anything less than the ridiculously large imaginary number they have in their head. There’s no way to please them. In any interview, they’ll tell the newscaster that they had been hoping for a bigger turnout, then point the finger of blame straight at you, the viewer, for not believing hard enough in their stupid shit. It like when Peter Pan and the Lost Boys all have to clap their hands to bring Tinkerbelle back to life. If it didn’t work, Peter would blame the Lost Boys for not clapping hard enough, and not on the fact that Tinkerbelle needs immediate medical attention from a doctor specializing in very tiny people. Imagine if you were dying and all you heard was applause. I don’t know how organizers determine how many people will show at their events. I assume they use facebook’s famously unreliable events planner, then quadruple that number.
Oh yeah, the signs… Right, so there’s 1,000+ people in attendance packed into a tiny area, all with signs. How likely is it that your sign makes it on the air, or in the paper? It’s like getting a “like” on one of your comments on a webpage that already has 1,000+ comments. Only one person can be the wittiest of a group, and the rest are a bunch of assholes who tried and failed. The person they take pictures of always looks like a deranged hippie, holding a piece of cardboard with some, “Free the fish,” bullshit on it. If you’re not that guy: fuck you. If' you’re that guy: fuck you. What happens when two people show up with the same sign? They share the exact same beliefs and ideals, but they instantly hate each other because they think the other person stole their idea. That’s why we’ll never have world peace. Literally: they could be at a World Peace March, and then get in a fight over their identical peace slogans.
Secondly, or now: Thirdly: It takes exactly one douche to ruin your protest. One person with a, “God hates fags!” sign will ruin your entire movement. The Tea Party movement started as an okay idea, but they were instantly labelled by the liberal media as bigoted crackpots because people showed up with signs showing Obama as an African witchdoctor. Fox News still loves them, but Fox News hates fags (according to John Stewart).
Fourth: Disorganization. Like parties, there’s no real co-ordination beyond, “We’re having a party at Steve’s house. BYOB.” After that, all’s fair game. It goes back to the douche thing where your movement can get overrun with anarchists, who’ll grab all the media attention, or the counter-movement, who’s riding in on your coattails with their own separate protest. There’s no way to organize 10,000 people unless you’re the army. If you’re the protest leader and you show up and find 10,000 people are there with you, you have no idea who they are, but you assume they’re with you. They’ll cheer and boo if prompted, but that’s the extent of your power as leader. You’re not Martin Luther King Jr.. There will never be another. If you’ve got a band lined up, they’re waiting for you to finish your speech so they can listen to some Phish. Everyone is there for their own reasons, chief among which are getting laid and scoring weed.
Fifth: There were two successful protests in all of history. There was the Civil Right Movement in the States and the Passive Resistance tact in India. Both involved people getting the shit beat out of them. The absolute SHIT. These people were masochists. Your average protester can’t take the heat, let alone the pepper spray. They’re not this guy:
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