In my earlier post "Season's Greetings" I also meant to mention that on Friday when I was wandering around the Castro, a car passed me a couple of times with the driver yelling out of his open window "Occupy Mindless Consumerism." Doesn't that seem to be a sort of mixed metaphor? The entire Occupy movement appeals to me and reminds me strongly of my hippie youth, but even so, you need to be conscious of whether your slogans make any sense.
Plus, a nice Friday afternoon on Castro and 18th Street is not exactly ground zero for the One Percent's heedless consumption of unnecessary purchases, even if it is a week before Christmas. Most of the other people occupying the sidewalk with me seemed to be, just like me, out running errands at Walgreen's and the grocery and the hardware store. You want to make a statement about Mindless Consumerism? Union Square, a bastion of Tiffany's and Sak's and Prada and Burberry's, seems like a more likely target. Maybe the traffic down there was too fierce.
Which also brings up the point, cruising around in your car, protesting? Really? Isn't one of the complimentary concerns of the Occupy movement a sensitivity to environmental degradation?
Here's what I would prefer to occupy.
I attended the occupy event here to see what the thing was about. It was a bunch of disorganized gripers who actually complained about their own pitiful lot. Me, Me, Me, I, I, I, nothing about We or Us. The soapbox area was full of whackjobs advocating the resurrection of FDR and chances to be noticed with speeches that overemphasized the word greed, “It’s fine to make money but when you mess with my friends, family and neighbors, then brother, THAT’S TOO MUCH GREED.”
ReplyDeleteI don’t think there are many folks left that know how to actually make a convincing protest. I’m off to a money burning party at Warren Buffet’s place.
Why not start occupying the 1% by having them do something practical and useful with their money.... Apart from making more money of course...
ReplyDeleteBut... I guess the boy with the facial growth will keep me occupied for a little while... at least until I return to being vacant again...
Occupy The Driver's Seat.
ReplyDeleteThat way you can beat the traffic home after the protest.
Excuse me, is this face, er, space free?
ReplyDeleteyou did hear about the action
ReplyDeletefilm, "occupy my mouth," right?
Was it old W? Urging 'folks' to occupy their credit cards with more debt? Cause that's the American way, as he would have said. You know, back when he was let out to speak for a spell.
ReplyDelete"Season's Bleatings" is the best phrase I've heard all day.
ReplyDeleteHere in Atlanta, the Occupy crew was too sad and pathetic to mock, or join.
ReplyDeleteThey had several disastrous early mis-steps and tangled with what passes for liberal elites, in the end the whole thing was tawdry, and not in a good way.
I wandered into one of their General Assemblies muttering "Occupy Civics", since they clearly had no clue how the guv'mnt really is organized.
Don't they teach this in 4th grade?
In the end, it was all I could do to just "bless their hearts" and keep going.