A Better World
Andrew Breitbart takes a stroll through the crowds at Occupy LA.
Note that Breitbart is accused of “spreading violence” by a woman who then indignantly denies saying any such thing – despite having said it on camera – all while Breitbart is stalked by a union heavy, whose purpose, presumably, is to intimidate. Like some socialist antibody. The exchange at the end of the clip needs no further comment from me.
Meanwhile, Katherine Ernst probes the minds of protestors in New York:
I chatted with some of the throng. All wanted me to know they were speaking only for themselves, not the group. So what’s the endgame here? “Uh… that’s hard to explain,” said Moses, a nice young man. His answer was a nonsensical roundabout, but he used the phrase “socio-economic” a lot. He implied he was unemployed, so I inquired about a dream job. “To be a decent human being… to not live in reaction to a market.” Gotcha. Becca, a sweet “organic gardener” from Brooklyn, was there to “end a capitalist system that treats people like cattle” and live in an America where everyone has “equal wealth.” She wanted a country with a “high tax,” a la “Sweden and Finland,” to ensure “personal well-being.” (Those Scandinavian examples both have a much lower corporate tax rate – 26 percent and 26.3 percent, respectively – than the U.S.’s 35 percent rate, but let’s not get hung up on details.) Then the irony gods flexed their muscles as a friend interrupted Becca; she handed him her Visa card to order something over the phone.
Behold: the architects of tomorrow.
Update:
Via John D and SDA, a scene from Occupy Atlanta.
Let your puny individual mind absorb this mighty feat of collective decision-making:
What? It’s obviously the model for how our society should be run.
Update 2:
Henry points us to a similar robo-gathering filmed in Washington DC.
Note that the robo-collective frets at length about whether all of its members consent to being filmed – i.e., filmed lawfully, in a public place. Apparently being filmed would somehow be injurious to some of those speaking (or rather, mindlessly repeating). Yet they don’t seem at all concerned with whether their intended law-breaking and disruption – declared as a matter of imminent fact – will inconvenience anyone else. Nor does the collective hesitate to impose its preferences on the non-collective person quietly filming them. It’s curious how so many of these gatherings are defined by an atmosphere of passive-aggression. Evidently, their ostentatious concern for sensitivity and “consensus” applies only to The Tribe.
Update 3, via the comments:
Crowd dynamics throw up all kinds of odd behaviour, but what we’re seeing above is much more pronounced among groups of people whose politics and psychology are collectivist and supposedly egalitarian. The inevitable contradictions and dishonesty make the passive-aggressive aspect much more pronounced. Pretentious protestors will tend to be pricklier and more obnoxious precisely because there’s a mismatch between how they wish to seem and who they actually are. And you won’t be thanked for noticing.
In the clip above, the rather smug and obnoxious young woman attempts to explain why the protestors shouldn’t be filmed, at least not by certain people – despite choosing a public space where filming is quite likely and despite their belief that “the world is watching.” Hypothetical scenarios are invoked and supposedly some of the protestors have had “bad experiences.” Inevitably, filming is construed as an act of oppression. But it’s more likely that the actual objection is much simpler, albeit unflattering and therefore unmentionable. The collective has just stated its plans to “break the law.” Any protestors subsequently caught doing precisely that would find it unhelpful to be faced with footage of themselves publicly declaring their criminal intent.
And then there’s the equally smug and obnoxious guy – the one who repeatedly blocks the cameraman’s view. Despite his pretensions of gallantry, he immediately resorts to rudeness and condescension and accuses the cameraman of, among other things, being an “asshole” for quietly filming a public display. His brief, erratic smiles don’t seem to match his sentiment. And note how the guy reacts when he discovers the cameraman is from out of town and possibly not a lefty. He says, “This isn’t Texas. This isn’t the South. This isn’t where you get to do shit just ‘cause you feel like it.” Which is an odd sentiment from someone whose friends and associates are planning to break the law and disrupt other people’s business. Why, it’s almost as if he were projecting his own feelings onto others.
And when people are so laughably disingenuous – and in danger of being rumbled – they can get rather pissy.
Update 4:
Okay, one more. Via Darleen, from Occupy Wall Street.
Because socialism is never, ever about being selfish. Or exploitative, or greedy.
Update 5:
Oh dear God, there’s more.
This is what cronyism looks like.
I know, let’s make the state even bigger!
“I don’t think any movement that attempts to point out corporate America has become too powerful is prima facie ridiculous.”
It is ridiculous on two counts. The first, already detailed elsewhere, is that the ‘occupiers’ are faithful supporters of corporations. A ‘progressive’ choosing Apple over Dell, or Coca Cola over Pepsi is just a corporate user with a different taste. The protestors have not eschewed corporatism in any way, despite their alleged poverty.
Second, government is in effect the biggest corporation of all. Everything levelled at Corporatism can be levelled against a government. Democracy — the right to vote once ever four or five years — is watered down by gerrymandering, political appointments (there’s a fair chance your candidate has been parachuted into your ward) and even at times the creative accountancy of counting votes. After that the government of whichever colour came out on top can do what it wants without further reference to “the people.” We have already discovered that manifestos are worth nothing (and certainly are not promises to be kept) and the corporation of government will fiddle both books and expenses and play a sort of tune while Rome burns around them. Worse than corporations themselves, they do it with the full weight of armed force behind them.
If then we are opposed to corporations then we should be opposed to government. The occupation might then have more credibility if it begin with Washington and Westminster.
Hahaha! I was intrigued by that response, ‘if only they knew’, when the guy filming got challenged with ‘are you a Republican’. So I googled ‘Adam Kokesh’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Kokesh
He’s an Iraq war veteran who’s now come out against the war, and has been busted several times heckling Republican candidates. Your comments regarding ‘mob mentality’ and how the actions of the Washington occupiers reflect this seem very prescient with regards to that Kokesh youtube, David: they don’t recognise Kokesh. He is not with them, so he is against them!
As far as I know, the repetition thing is something they’ve cooked up called “human microphone”. The idea is that you aren’t permitted, by statue, to use bullhorns or amplifiers in public spaces without getting a permit. So they do the “call and repeat” thing.
It’s ostensibly an act of rebellion–“you can’t use bullshit laws and regulations to stop our message!” But imagine if that happened at a Tea Party rally. We’d hear the calls of “fascist indoctrination ceremony” before the first sentence was finished.
More on this Occupy Wall Street rubbish, which I am going to have to stop thinking about as it is getting on my wick. Nothing new – I just thought I’d add to the ammunition/evidence.
Herewith another video from OWS where Judith Butler speaks for the robo-collective. “Judith who?” you may ask, as I did. Apparently she is “a major scholar in philosophy, gender studies, and queer theory”. (as a matter of fact I’ve known one or two philosophers of note and find this quite amusing, but enough of that)
I put a comment up about the Marxists feeding on people’s unhappiness with bankers etc, and found myself blocked (after the uploader had written a brilliant riposte urging me to give them an informed critique!)
It’s the usual dishonest pleas for open discussion, then…
Henry,
That would be this Judith Butler (see last two paragraphs and subsequent comments). For whom, Hamas and Hizballah are “social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left” and which therefore deserve the support of her students. The same Judith Butler who, when challenged, lied about her statements, claiming the video of her speaking (and being applauded by her credulous admirers) had been edited in “an effort to distort [her] views.”
Despite her speech being filmed and uploaded in one continuous take.