I have been reading about and watching/listen to report of the "Occupy"
movements (I don't think it's one, monolithic 'thing,' yet) with careful albeit not rapt attention. A few observations:
1. Inequality, growing inequality, is both real and problematical;
2. The "children" (my, personal view of them - from being 35-50 years older than most of them) express "frustration" and "disillusionment" with a system which they cannot fathom;
3. What the children see is that there are a very few, very, very rich people - some of whom appear to gain great wealth for little effort - and there are many, many people who do not have enough. "Enough" is not just sufficient to keep body and soul together, a roof over one's head, adequate clothes and some recreation; "enough" means more than that, it appears, to me again, that it means a higher level of comfort and pleasure that with which the traditional "working class" might be content;
(Parenthetically, I do not
detect any real concern for the "poor." The "Occupiers" appear, to me, most concerned with the
relative decline of the middle class - the class to which they belong. Really poor people do not, because they cannot, afford the time or the money march and stream live video at the same time.)
Niko Salassidis chants as he streams a live video of the Occupy Toronto protest in Toronto, Ont. October 16, 2011. Protesters have set up camp at Saint James Park near Toronto's financial district.
(Michelle Siu for Globe and Mail)
4. So, what do these "frustrated" and "disillusioned" and, I repeat, inchoate bands of children do? They 'mobilize,' something they can do well because they are skilled social media users and they have the absolute luxury of free time, and then they 'demonstrate;'
5. We get some ideas of what they are against. Thus far I have no idea, not from "Occupy Wall Street," or "Occupy Bay Street" or "Occupy __
[insert street name here]__," what they are demonstrating
for;
6. I am tempted to look back, before I was born, to the early days of the Great Depression. People 'demonstrated' then, too - about the essential unfairness of the disasters which had befallen them. But
we society knew what they wanted: charity;
Hunger march, Edmonton, 1932
7. But in the "dirty thirties" most people (as many as 63% of non farm workers, 75% of all workers) took whatever jobs they could find - two jobs when necessary;
(Parenthetically, again, I can cite known family history - my parents both graduated from university about the time the Great Depression was getting started. They had debts - there were no student loans but family members (both families) had chipped in ($10.00 here, $20.00 there) to finance the last year or so of study and that all had to be repaid. At the same time the good, high paying, professional jobs to which they had looked forward were gone. They had to take more than one lower paying job and live more frugally while they survived, gained experience, paid debts and so on. Maybe attitudes have changed.)
8. So what is the problem? Is it the 1%/99% myth? (Look it up for yourselves, please, you are not bloody helpless - if you were you would be out "occupying" some public park.) Or is it that the Great Recession is so much harder on people than the Great Depression? Or, perhaps, is it that the "children" are too lazy to work and too nervous to steal?
9. Two things about which we can be certain: the children are very media savvy and the media is,
comme d'habitude, easily fed/led.
