Two weeks of protests on Wall Street have spawned sympathetic demonstrations across the U.S., but it’s too early to say whether a full-fledged political movement with charismatic leadership will emerge. While demonstrators have noticeably lacked the passion and focus of 1960s campus radicals, we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that today’s somewhat angry crowds will tomorrow make up for their docility with tenacious sticking power. For the time being, though, the objects of their ire are so nebulous that the demonstrators might as well be targeting food additives or the juicing of baseballs to get attention. “The one thing we have in common is that We Are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%,” reads the wishy-washy manifesto of, for one, Seattle activists. Let’s hope, however, that if mere intolerance of greed and corruption eventually turns into anger, as it well may, that the torch mobs will be able to distinguish the scoundrels who run the banking system from all of us small-businessmen
and entrepreneurs whom Mr. Obama would designate as “rich” simply because we have lounge privileges at the nation’s airports. Perhaps the protestors would be surprised to learn that many of the traders and market-watchers who weigh in regularly at the Rick’s Picks forum explicitly agree that greed and corruption have claimed America’s very soul. Far be it from us, however, to discourage activists with the cynical observation, oft voiced in the forum, that things have decayed beyond reform or redemption. To borrow a famous line from the Vietnam era, though, it may be necessary to destroy the village to save it.
When Crowds Disperse…
Whatever strategy evolves on the streets, the protestors have shown admirable restraint so far, having done no worse than tie up Brooklyn Bridge traffic for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. It took 700 arrests to clear the bridge, but we have a strong feeling that many more thousands of arrests will be made before the protestors trudge home. The majority of them reportedly are of college age, and it therefore seems likely that they will go all-out to recapture the yearned-for activist spirit of the 1960s that they have only read about or seen lovingly recreated in the movies. If so, the good news is that the so-far shapeless protests have the potential to harness constructive energy that might otherwise be squandered on such bogeymen as “racism” and “homophobia.” The bad news is that, when the crowds finally disperse, in all too many cases it will be to their parents’ homes, there to contemplate employment prospects bleaker than at any time since the Great Depression. This is undoubtedly a significant contributor to their malaise, although the true state of the economy may be even grimmer than they might imagine, assuming they get their economic news from the likes of John Stewart and Rolling Stone magazine.
Our prediction is that the protests, far from fizzling out in a few days, weeks or even months, will attract bigger and bigger crowds from an inexhaustble army of online recruits, replacements and budding young revolutionaries. A new Woodstock beckons, but we adults shouldn’t be surprised if peace, love and music do not emerge thematically to temper their behavior. To the contrary, because of the very serious problems that an intractable recession has imposed on their young lives, there is every likelihood that the protests will turn ugly.
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The only thing which concerns me about the “Wall Street ” protest is the “Party-Like” atmosphere. I dont see REAL anger ,frustration and pain.
Personally I believe they dont truly see the DEPTH, SERIOUSNESS and POTENTIAL Destruciton coming and mainly because we are “spoiled” and deep inside MOST don’t believe the CORRUPTION and POWER structure is REAL.
They WILL eventually, but right now they dont!