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Man Overboard! Occupy Philly Edition: This movement doesn't need to have simple answers.
There has been much scratching of the head and grumbling over the Occupy Wall Street and its several copycat manifestations around the country, including Occupy Philly, which gathering began at City Hall this morning. "But what do they want?" cry the reporters and pundits. "But what is their message?"
Man Overboard! Occupy Philly Edition: This movement doesn't need to have simple answers.
There has been much scratching of the head and grumbling over the Occupy Wall Street and its several copycat manifestations around the country, including Occupy Philly, which gathering began at City Hall this morning.
"But what do they want?" cry the reporters and pundits. "But what is their message?" "But how is this helpful?" It's as if the media, and, to be fair, a good swath of the public, have let out a collective j'accuse to the tune of: "Justify yourselves!"
But Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philly owe no such justification — and shouldn't apologize for not having sound-bite-ready answers.
The right to assemble peacefully is, of course, just that: a right, not a privilege. The mere act of making good on a constitutional guarantee doesn't require an explanation. To pose an extreme hypothetical: One day, I paint "Things Suck" on a sign and take it to City Hall for the world to see. Useful? Maybe not, but that's my business.
So much the truer for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has successfully nabbed the attention of the national news media, politicians and pundits and brought together people with a slew of ideas and desires. That's purpose enough in itself, it seems to me.
As for the direction and goals of this movement, it's certainly true that they are many, often vague, and thus far without a single central unifying message — but that's exactly the way movements have always been and always will be.
When it comes to political and social movements, we rewrite history with an eye for tidiness, as if every period of change was some logical, coherent idea which Americans spontaneously agreed with. In reality, every movement — the sexual revolution of the '50s and '60s, the Vietnam anti-war movement, the Civil Rights movement, the rise of the Tea Party — gets messier and less unified the more closely you look at it. The idea that any social movement in American history was the product of a single, unified vision is a historical fiction.
Real people are not, thank God, media message machines.
Occupy Wall Street may turn out to have been a brief sideshow. It may become a factor in the next presidential election. It may turn out to have been symbolic of something else — a different movement, perhaps — that hasn't manifested itself yet. History will judge it. There's no need for everybody else to.
Then I hear from my lefty friends that Occupy Philly isn't radical enough, that it was a mistake to gather peacefully and with permission on the front lawn of City Hall, rather than uninvited at the door of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve or the Comcast Center.
Maybe. But the Left often makes the same mistake as the lowest-common-denominational mainstream news media in demanding that every public movement mimic a canned narrative. A few hundred New Yorkers get arrested — not, it should be pointed out, intentionally — and the movement is suddenly supposed to be of the sort that invites authorities to try and knock it down? Why? The second-most successful thing it has going for it is that it has proven to be a counterpoint to the WTO protest in Seattle, marked by such grownup demonstrations of anger as spray-painting Starbucks. Good riddance.
Lastly, I've heard not a few angry grumblings about how our taxes are paying the bill for security during the "occupation" here — a point noticeably lacking when police turn out in droves to secure private sports events, public parades and any number of city happenings.
Democracy comes with a price tag. Those who object to pitching in for the protection of the right to assembly may wish to visit humanrightswatch.org to find plenty of countries happy to accommodate.
See what's really going on inside the Occupy Philly confines. Activists N.A. Poe and Steve Miller-Miller have an impromptu interview with Philadelphia police chief Charles Ramsey. Is it funny that we pay his overtime? You decide. Checkout their whole YouTube page for even more videos from the inside! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXiiCcX8aCQ— neo3over
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