I’ve been reflecting on the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
First, Bravo to them for understanding what’s happening to the world and for standing up and pointing it out so well. I hope the movement continues to ‘grow legs’ and I also hope that, like the ‘Arab Spring’, it results in real and fundamental changes.
But, my hopes and my projections of likely outcomes live in separate boxes in my head. And while I am deeply pleased at the OWS movement, I don’t think it will result in more than superficial change.
The problem, as I just wrote to a friend in a private E-Mail, is
“The people with power and money like, Dick Cheney for instance, are not going to give up their perks because the demonstrators make them feel guilty. Rather, if they begin to feel the heat, they will direct that a series of measures be taken by their political handmaidens to make it look like changes are being effected when, in fact, the changes will be mostly form and very little substance.
They will institute ‘a dazzle the bozos campaign'”.
A great strength of the new movements like the Arab Spring and OWS are their decentralized natures; they have no single head to cut off to stifle them. But, it their weakness as well as their ‘intelligence and perceptive depth’ is limited to the average of the group since they are all independent actors.
Those who control the Multinationals and who direct our politicians like sheep with their money are far far brighter than that average and they will obfuscate the issues and make great shows of doing something through the media they control while, in fact, doing very little to disadvantage themselves.
Those are my thoughts. Only time will tell and I, like so many, am deeply interested to see how it all plays out.
-dennis
Hope vs. pragmatism is an uncomfortable position, andI am glad your mind has separate (but equal?) boxes. While I share some of both, a huge “unknown” is the effect of social media; can the message be expaneded and continued without getting manipulated by those who control the purse strings? I agree that those on control are more intelligent; what frustrates me and seems to be too often the case is that they also have either (or both) less ethics or less willingness to grasp the concept that a basic tenet of civilization is to view oneself as part of a greater community; and in that greater community, moving toward equal opportunity and shared sacrafice is beneficial.
As I started, hope vs pragmatism battle in my own universe, too.