CSotD: The Heretic
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Matt Wuerker risks being burned at the stake for misbehaving at Occupy's birthday party. You're supposed to make a wish and blow out the candles, Matt, not extinguish them with a dash of cold water.
And blowing out candles is about as effective a way of making wishes come true as anything Occupy appears to have actually accomplished in its first year of existence, while, as Wuerker notes here, another, diametrically opposed astroturf organization has done rather well, particularly by comparison.
Of course, one of the reasons liberals so often fail to rally the troops is a tendency to call bullshit when they see it, even when it is on their side of the fence. Wuerker is not being a good little soldier here and either praising the movement or, failing that, pretending that he can't see it.
Granted, the Tea Party's faux populism has had much deeper pockets behind it, and some well-placed media whores to promote it. Both groups launched with small rallies and then whined over the lack of coverage they got, but, while Occupy's weeping and wailing did get them both more coverage and more adherents, they didn't have Faux News to actively pump things up.
This, however, is not the point. The failure of this fake "grassroots" organization seems to spring from the anarchistic nature of Occupy itself, a blend of Yippie! and the Weather Underground.
Yippie! never really existed as an organization and was simply a de facto coalition of whoever wanted to use the brand to play games on the political landscape, like nominating a pig for president. Abbie Hoffman was goofing on the media well before he and a few other political jokers came up with Yippie!
More to the point, they were like Max Patkin, "The Clown Prince of Baseball," who used Globetrotter-type skills to entertain crowds at baseball games. The crowds loved Max, but they had come to see the real game.
Likewise, the Yippies! were a sideshow and Hoffman's ability to draw media attention didn't always outweigh the annoyance his theatrical posturing stirred up among those who were doing the heavy lifting that actually brought about change.
As for the Weather Underground, they were more akin to the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland or the Islamists currently creating chaos in the Middle East and elsewhere — they never spoke for very many people, but the hatred they engendered in the mainstream press caused their communities to shelter them from open criticism and even from the authorities, under the doctrine of "leave our boys alone!" common to underdogs. (And it should be noted that, once the political and economic pressure in Ulster eased, the IRA became persona non grata within the community. And once the war ended, nobody gave a rat's patootie about the Weather Underground, either.)
Like the Yippies!, however, the Weather Underground was latching onto, and gaining support from, an existing movement that had been built by more pragmatic people over a period of years. By contrast, Occupy has attempted to create a coalition of fringe dissidents that doesn't appear to have truly coalesced, despite self-serving flackery declaring that it has.
What you need to remember — or, if you're not old enough for that, to find out — is that a lot of the wind came out of the anti-war movement's sails with the draft lottery, which ended the suspense and uncertainty for roughly two-thirds of young college-age men. Once it became clear that you (or your brother or your lover or your son) were no longer headed for the rice paddies, the war became much more theoretical in nature.
The Tea Party has been able to capitalize on theoretical angst, in part because it doesn't make many demands on its followers: "It would be nice if you marched with us sometime, but, anyway, thanks for signing the petition. Here's a bumpersticker for your car. Don't forget to vote."
Occupy expects you to … what? Get tear-gassed or clubbed? Sleep in the dirt? Not gonna happen. What have you got that I can do from home?
Granted, their anarchist mindset poses a bit of a dilemma. I once saw a piece of spray-painted graffiti that said "Anarchy rules!" but it just made me laugh.
However, if they want to ditch the sophomoric nihilism, I'd certainly listen to a candidate for town council or county board or state senate who wanted to talk about green politics, about transparency, about the social contract.
If you are serious about making change, well, "think globally and act locally." And sitting in the dirt twiddling your fingers at each other is not meaningful action.
Back in the day, places like Boulder and Madison and Ann Arbor regularly acted locally, not simply marching and shouting but organizing voter drives and entering local politics, taking their lead from the true grassroots people who had led the voter registration drives in the Jim Crow South.
Today, the question for Occupy is not "Can you block another intersection?" or "Can you disrupt business at another bank?" but "Can you bring forth your own version of Bernie Sanders, or, preferably, about 20 or 30 of them?"
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