"Occupation is more exhilarating and instantly gratifying than the hard slog of advancing political and social change" – Wendy Kaminer, at The Atlantic, November 18. This really was the first criticism of the Occupy Blah-Blah movement that really clearly summarizes my own discomfort with it.
Kaminer goes on to sugges (in different words – I'm extrapolating) the idea that the Occupiers are hypocrites, because they are setting themselves up as an "elite" of their own sort – an elite who are somehow more politically aware than the remaining 99% who remain clueless, comforming sheep. And that's the point – the remaining 99% aren't clueless – they know just as well (if not better) than the Occupiers what's going on, and how things work. But they prefer to attempt to advance social and political change using other methods – less confrontational, in-your-face methods.
The main thing I like about the Occupy Whatchamacallit movement is mostly that they provide a kind of loony, far-left counterweight to the loony, far-right idiocies of the Teapartiers. I keep hoping the two groups will somehow accidentally reach a political critical mass while passing each other on the streets, one day, and then suddenly cancel out, like so much matter/anti-matter, in an explosion of useful political change.
