There's a substratum of the Occupy Movement that yields some very hot cultural oil. What appears to the hardcore sub/urbanite as their radical deculturization (a/k/a hippiedom) instantly calls all this fragile cultural superstructure into immediate question.
The -ites think: It's hard enuf for us to keep all these things going, but do those whacko hippies have to disgust & insult & impoverish us while we work at it? Do they have a death-wish or something?
Occupy actually contains a bread spectrum of people, who may look like hippies, but come from of all class-levels. They obviously have a fine/instinctive dramatic sense of getting everybody's attention fixed on where & what they want it to be concentrated on: the centers of power - state houses, city halls, big bank offices (no credit unions), corporate HQs, Wall Street - where it is & what it symbolizes. This is a profoundly educative effort; they aren't asking to be housed on their own behalves - or hasn't anybody noticed this yet? They aren't panhandling us, they're visually & verbally accusing & distressing who's actually ripping us off.
The 1% (of course) want us to be distracted by appearances, charmed by the envied & admired rich, while being disgusted by what appears to be the undeserving poor sleeping in little mountaineering gumdrop-tents on downtown sidewalks. What actually happens is that the more Occupiers are abused, the deeper our subconsious sympathy runs.
Some super-hacks (Willie Brown in his last Sunday's CHRON column) scorn the Occupiers for having cellphones & thus not really being abjectly poor. For the record: Occupy is not a Poor People's March. It's an Informed People's deeply disturbing indictment of our warped economic situation. The more it warps, the more disturbing the indictment: We ask ourselves: Why...can't we just fix it?
Ans: The -ites like it just the way it is. So do the plutocrats who once used to inspire them. That pathetic delusion's being called into question now before our decreasingly unbelieving eyes.
poems against wealth
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Where's that curative monet, dude?
OCCUPY is now the 2011 Word Of the Year, Protestors the People of the Year on the cover of TIME.
I've heard Occupy used on TV as a synonym for Change, but notwithstanding, have things changed?
Yes; the banks (esp, Bank of America) are quite frightened...running full- page ads in the largest papers here (San Jose MERCURY-NEWS, S.F. CHRONICLE) ) about all the community & small-biz.programs (they call them 'products') they offer, are engaged in, etc., while houses are simultaneously being taken over by banks, mortgages going 'underwater'.
It's as though we all admit The (Economic) System is unfair & misshapen, but we do not dare to really change it that radically...yet.
Ditto The Tea Party...which has terrorized new Republican political candidates to go far anti-tax right, but the consequences are starting to scare even those new TP-loyalists.
There used to be a saying 'fat, dumb & happy' about Americans...said by the far-right, meaning not hard enough on Russian communism. I have not heard those words used since the Soviet Union collapse, (Why don't they apply to Vietnam, Red China?) & they certainly don't describe Americans any more in any way.
The fact that The Rich are being thought about unfavorably is a big change over the last 20yrs. when many aspired to become rich by 'flipping' far-overpriced houses. (I've described being a real estate millionaire as not being a real millionaire.) My point: calling things something & doing something practical about them require 2 different levels & types of awareness/action.
The Occupation talks the economic talk & walks the symbolic walk (via its via dolorosa) . For that we need them desperatey, but with a bit less suffering on their part this Winter, please. Can we stand seeing them beaten & evicted? A dying generatiojn of Americans saw this in the Great Depression but don't want to see this happening again in this Great Recession. Do we of the War-baby or Baby-Boomer generations? Most people still believe that enough money fixes everything. The Tea-Party adamantly opposes that, but the Occuparion movement believes that money, when shifted, will. Where's that curative money, dude?
I've heard Occupy used on TV as a synonym for Change, but notwithstanding, have things changed?
Yes; the banks (esp, Bank of America) are quite frightened...running full- page ads in the largest papers here (San Jose MERCURY-NEWS, S.F. CHRONICLE) ) about all the community & small-biz.programs (they call them 'products') they offer, are engaged in, etc., while houses are simultaneously being taken over by banks, mortgages going 'underwater'.
It's as though we all admit The (Economic) System is unfair & misshapen, but we do not dare to really change it that radically...yet.
Ditto The Tea Party...which has terrorized new Republican political candidates to go far anti-tax right, but the consequences are starting to scare even those new TP-loyalists.
There used to be a saying 'fat, dumb & happy' about Americans...said by the far-right, meaning not hard enough on Russian communism. I have not heard those words used since the Soviet Union collapse, (Why don't they apply to Vietnam, Red China?) & they certainly don't describe Americans any more in any way.
The fact that The Rich are being thought about unfavorably is a big change over the last 20yrs. when many aspired to become rich by 'flipping' far-overpriced houses. (I've described being a real estate millionaire as not being a real millionaire.) My point: calling things something & doing something practical about them require 2 different levels & types of awareness/action.
The Occupation talks the economic talk & walks the symbolic walk (via its via dolorosa) . For that we need them desperatey, but with a bit less suffering on their part this Winter, please. Can we stand seeing them beaten & evicted? A dying generatiojn of Americans saw this in the Great Depression but don't want to see this happening again in this Great Recession. Do we of the War-baby or Baby-Boomer generations? Most people still believe that enough money fixes everything. The Tea-Party adamantly opposes that, but the Occuparion movement believes that money, when shifted, will. Where's that curative money, dude?
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