Parks and Demonstration

[mahnmut]

America cannot expect a bunch of disenfranchised park-dwellers to come up with a solution to its economic woes -- they have a political ruling class to do that.

Sooo... when the Tea Party took to the streets to "take their country back" from the evil politicians, that was an expression of their democratic right to protest, something inherently American. Right?

...But when the Occupy Wall Str rallies took to the streets to "take their country back" from the evil banks and corporations, that's suddenly the first step to some socialist fascist Nazi totalitarianism, because they're unAmerican haters of freedom. Right???

I see. Welcome to Bizarroland.

Comments

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

The other guys are, now, I'm not yet sure which particular monied interest will utilise this particular energy.

I don't know if astroturf is even really the right term for it. The Tea Party was born out of a genuine frustration, but it was all over the shop with no clear direction at the start too; then the Koch's et. al. came along and gave it direction and focus and used the energy for their own ends. The similarities between the two are manifold; I would expect there to be a similar type of co-opting going on here. I can't really see who yet, but there's no way the monied interests will let this kind of energy go untapped. Where it goes from there who knows? There's a whole lot of genuine anger out there that *something is broken*. Everybody seems to realise that the system is corrupt, but there looks like there is going to be two competing opinions on what the solution is. It seems quite appropriate to see a classic dialectic going on here. The system is fucked is solved by the thesis that government is fucked, which is countered by the antithesis that corporations are fucked, what comes next, the synthesis, is going to be the interesting part.

Here's hoping enough people realise that the problems in today's USA are that the government and the corporations are fucked. But what's the solution to that? Is America's democracy strong enough to withstand the upheaval necessary to change the system, or will blood have to be shed and buildings burned? Will people power prevail, or will the vested interests co-opt and distract the energy?