Dumb, impatient street theatre jerks want to be all badass and relive the 60s (till it gets cold out). Like the \u201canti-war Left\u201d these guys have the intelligence and the attention span of fruit flies. They are deeply unserious.<\/p>\n
Update: A reader makes an interesting point: \u201cIf there are no ends, can one justify the means?\u201d<\/p>\n
True, sort of. What is remarkable about the OWS ninnies is that they really don\u2019t have a clue what they want, many of them. Many of them are just there for a vague sense of \u201cinvolvement\u201d and to feel all badass and socially aware. The sort of violence they advocate is not so much ordered toward \u201cchange\u201d as toward having the thrill of having \u201cbeen there\u201d when the big scene went down. In short, the good end being sought (for we always act, whether in an ordered or disordered way toward some good end) is the pleasure of exercising power. The problem is, such an end, pursued in a disordered way, is virtually a guarantee of evil and can only achieve something good by sheer accident\u2013like a terrorist who inadvertantly kills a mugger by shooting randomly into a crowd. And even then, the terrorist is still willing to do evil, even if God brings some mitigated good (safety from the mugger) out of the evil act.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been down to the protest a few times and I\u2019m participating in the Demands working group. I thought I\u2019d offer some thoughts.<\/p>\n
First, OWS is not pursuing violence as a whole. I can\u2019t speak for Occupy Los Angeles, but at OWS, anybody can just start talking to the crowd \u2014 there is absolutely no mediation of this outside the General Assembly \u2014 and so it\u2019s very difficult to call this sort of thing typical.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that much of OWS is a mishmash if far-left causes and groups. There\u2019s a strong anarchist presence, lots of communists, socialists, and hippies \u2014 but that is not even the bulk of it. Most people are there, in my experience, because they were told they\u2019d get a good job if they went to college, and there aren\u2019t any out there anymore, or because they got laid off when their company started to fail, but the executives got their bonuses anyway. Most of the people there are smart enough to recognize that something is very wrong, and most of them don\u2019t advocate violence.<\/p>\n
My work with the Demands working group has been centered on advocating for achievable goals. We really are working on a list of concrete demands and proposals. Yes, there\u2019s a faction advocating for setting huge, ideological demands that will never be met as an excuse for an uprising, but this isn\u2019t representative. Those people are loud and visible, but let\u2019s recognize there is truth to Nixon\u2019s line about a silent majority \u2014 the bulk of the people gathered in the square, and even the bulk of the people on the Demands working group, want redress for grievances, not violence, and I think you\u2019re being a little short-sighted in assuming otherwise.<\/p>\n
Hell, one of the major decisions the General Assembly has taken is to avoid making big ideological statements beyond listing grievances so that this *won\u2019t* be an extremist movement, and I\u2019ve been urging my moderate-to-liberal friends to show up and be heard so that a cooler, less extreme tone will prevail. What we need at these protests are working class schmoes. We need intelligent, reasonable people who can see the problem and don\u2019t think violent revolution is the only answer. What we need are some bleeding Chestertons in the crowd to drown out the Trotskies.<\/p>\n
I agree that it\u2019s incoherent right now, but building consensus takes time. I want to be there to help the consensus develop away from violence. This is what involvement is. This is democratic participation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Violence will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals\u2026 Dumb, impatient street theatre jerks want to be all badass and relive the 60s (till it gets cold out). Like the \u201canti-war Left\u201d these guys have the intelligence and the attention span of fruit flies. They are deeply unserious. Update: A reader makes an interesting point: \u201cIf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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