Forum Post: Analysis of Common Criticisms of the Movement

From: http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2011/09/miss-reading.html

In between posts praising Liz Warren for making the case that taxes prevent marauding bands from ransacking factories all across America, someone calling himself Winston Smith (more on this irony anon) finds time to be vuhry perturbed that "over-privileged, under-educated, self-absorbed nitwits [are] acting out in public with the goal of getting a bit of attention." When the old adjective under-educated peaks out of its snail shell, you can be certain that you are in the presence of the most irredeemable sort of democrat, and it goes without saying that behind the Winston Smith moniker is a man who displays his diplomas on his office wall between the philodendron and the Hang In There poster. Why can't this rabble just wait for Senator Warren to hold the very important hearings that she is surely one day going to hold? Why can't they "put on grown-up clothes, ditch the props, and read a goddamn book on the subject you're protesting."

This is the same sort of thinking that gets one a-wonderin' why the inner city won't pull up its pants, dress like MLK, and stop acting like a bunch of filthy n------s. It demands that protest ape all the sensibilities of that which it is protesting, that it affect the aesthetics of its opposition and acquiesce to all of its opponents' notions of respectability and seriousness in order that it merit serious attention. It of course does not occur to our Winston that he too is the object of protest; that his compliant, educated outer-party ass is, no less than Wall Street itself (if, indeed, there is any difference), what these self-absorbed nitwits, ahem, are so pissed of about.

The quotable Charles Davis says:

"Hippies engaging in "direct action" and the long-term project of societal reform are just too lazy to vote once every two to four years."

They're too busy making puppets to circulate an online MoveOn petition! If they want to make a difference, they ought to volunteer for a House campaign!

It's worth recalling that Winston Smith was not a revolutionary but a functionary, a party member, a bureaucrat; his rebellion was minor and personal; and in the end, they fucking shot him. Orwell illustrated the mechanisms of his totalitarian future via one of the totalitarians, albeit one very, very far from the real centers of power. Smith's extremely limited iconoclasm is only a literary device; his fish-out-of-water alienation and small erotic pursuits are our entrée into that world; they make his character just human enough to allow readers to identify with him, and his modest little revolt at the rules and mores of his society is just the plot necessary to build a frame onto which Orwell hangs his description and observation.

I mention these literary details not simply to poke fun at our, ahem, under-educated "philosoraptor" for picking a handle whose reference he doesn't really understand, but to point out that, perhaps unintentionally, he has chosen a pseudonymous identity that is wholly apropos; he too is a functionary, and insofar as he's got any rebel in him, it is to rebel against the Democratic Party PR machine because "it's just amazing how inept the Dems are at articulating the--largely excellent-reasons in favor of their general positions." Well one day he may stop drinking Victory Gin, realize that we've not always been at war with East Asia, and take one to the noggin, as the saying goes. Goodnight and goodluck.

Brighter minds wonder that there is no longer a right to peaceful assembly despite supposed Constitutional guarantees, but our Winston doesn't like stilts, so whatever. That these kids (and they aren't all kids) want not simply to register their dismay on the comment cards located out front, want more than to fill out the online survey of your RiteAid shopping experience, well, it's intolerable. There's a User Feedback Form right up front! You kids!

What the kids have done with their masks and costumes and stilts and puppets is to make their protest, at very least, un-appropriatable, by the Democratic Party, dark servant of Wall Street. For this, at least, they deserve some praise.