just 'cause
Oct. 8th, 2011 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guppiecat
For weeks now, the lack of a coherent message from #OccupyWallstreet has been driving me nuts. Last night, I figured it out. Here you go.
guppiecatFor weeks now, the lack of a coherent message from #OccupyWallstreet has been driving me nuts. Last night, I figured it out. Here you go.
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Date: 2011-10-08 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 01:43 pm (UTC)K.
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Date: 2011-10-08 04:02 pm (UTC)I know. We're so used to corporate-driven fake-populist astroturfed pseudo-grass-roots movements that we forget that real ones don't have coherent messages. It's kind of disheartening that we prefer the fakery to the real thing.
B
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Date: 2011-10-08 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 11:40 pm (UTC)Coherent messages are easier to understand, digest, and talk about. I think it really bodes ill for our society when we mock populist groups because they don't have a coherent message. It's not good when we prefer the product of top-down big money than the product of bottom-up group cohesion.
B
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Date: 2011-10-09 01:03 am (UTC)It seems inaccurate to state that a coherent message requires a large force with financial backing. It seems to me that that is one way to make it happen. Another way is to have strong leadership... something that has been lacking in the 99% movement thus far and, it seems, intentionally absent from the Anonymous/Lulzsec/#antisec groups that I've been watching. I admit that my news is likely biased due to it coming in through those sources.
It seems odd to me to gather a group together with no purpose other than to express anger. (This could just be an oddity on my part.) I would have expected a leadership to emerge and THEN the demonstrations would begin. The demonstrations overseas, while filtered through the news media, may be dumbed down, but wasn't the point of the demonstrations to overthrow the government? (If I'm wrong here, let me know.) The populist movement in Wisconsin was specifically against the dissolving of union rights. The movements of which I am aware seem to be for a purpose... sometimes general... and seem to be in response to a specific event.
This one, in contrast, seems to be unfocused and, if trigged on an event, is two to three years late. Again, this is filtered through some specific news sources (twitter mostly) that are likely tainting my overall feel of things, but it really does seem like people are protesting because they (1) want to punish someone and (2) don't have much else to do. I am having a hard time identifying with them.
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Date: 2011-10-09 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-09 05:37 pm (UTC)It is hard to identify with people who have crushing school debt when you don't, when they cannot buy a house and you can, when they cannot find a good job and you can. You've done a lot of things right and had some luck but that does not mean they have done something wrong. (I admit to a distinct lack of sympathy myself when thinking about people who took out multiple mortgages on their houses to "take the money out" and then went into foreclosure. I've been the working poor and been through a foreclosure and would never have done that.)
K.
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Date: 2011-10-09 01:13 am (UTC)However, I think that we may be mis-communicating slightly. I do not believe that requiring a coherent message is a Master's tools issue. I believe that it is a fundamental requirement of communication. It's like saying "The Master spoke English, so our movement will be in Swahili". If you want people to change, they have to be able to understand you.
I'm not saying that the movement should be 100% united or that the message should be polished and crystal clear. I'm saying that I want to hear a proposed solution (perhaps a few of them) and a path towards getting there. To my mind, this is different from the civil rights movements to which it is being compared in that civil rights was about removing barriers for classes of people... in effect, a set of social changes zero direct cost. A movement over economic issues is completely orthogonal, as it is about something which can be directly measured.
Personally, I've found it baffling for the last several years to see people on both sides discussing macro-economic issues in micro-economic terms AND as a zero-sum game. Sadly, the best solutions I can come up are too long-term in nature to be workable within our social system... and should have been started several decades ago.
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Date: 2011-10-09 05:39 pm (UTC)K.
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Date: 2011-10-10 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 04:26 am (UTC)