Misplaced Rage
The “Occupy” franchise might have some demands — or they might not — they don’t really know yet. They sometimes identify the problem, but then their solutions are always more of the same.
Because of this failure (refusal?) to link cause and effect, they become Cognitive Dissonance incarnate. They are Anarchists for Big Government. They see Crony Capitalism, assume it’s the same as free market capitalism — when it is in fact closer to fascism — and determine that the solution is more government involvement in markets and business with ever increasing regulation — and all the opportunities for graft and revolving door governance that comes with it. They seem to believe “regulation” is the magic fairy dust that one should sprinkle liberally on everything and it will make everything better, yet they have never stopped to look at those magic beans before. They don’t understand that it is actually a doubling down on what is broken.
Anger is a useful and powerful emotion, but it must be focused. Anger that is diffuse and directed at intangibles becomes toxic. The protesters are angry, but don’t know what they are angry about. They rail against vague concepts that (conveniently?) have no concrete solutions. They are pretty sure they are against “corporate greed,” but they don’t bother to address their own palpable envy. They are, essentially, a group of people for whom history began less than five years ago. They have parachuted into the real world after spending most of their adult lives cocooned in a community of like-minded individuals, where buzz words like “corporate greed” and “eat the rich” will always illicit knowing head nods. They have formed their political ideology in this protected, ahistorical space where no proposal is ever judged by previous historical example, even if there are many catastrophic examples available. Their logic is circular, everyone agrees with each other, abject nonsense never has to be defended, and ideas are judged by how good they make you feel rather than their actual effects. They know what they are against without knowing what they are for. They are serious without being sincere.
There is an opportunity here — however bleak — that some people will get it. But without clear, focused objectives based on principles other than merely repeating the talking points of those already in power, the only certainty is that the protesters are being manipulated. They are not radicals, they are the status quo. Raw populist movements have a long history of only benefiting those already in power. The only tangible results of such populist solutions would be to perpetuate and intensify the broken system they claim to be fighting, thereby shooting themselves in the face.
