Monday, October 10, 2011

The Age of Professional Activists: Protest as a Permanent Avocation

Billionaire George Soros who is backing the protests for reasons still not clear will probably have to rethink.

On Monday one of the demonstrators wore a T-shirt with the message, "The present is struggle. The future is ours. - Che". Another protestor had a placard with the Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara on it, and it read: "Si se puede - The workers' struggle has no borders". _allAfrica
Left-wing Obama supporters, ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters have continued a third week of demonstrations conveying “hope” that President Barack Obama will continue on with “change” and his path of socialist reforms and anti-capitalist government policies.

The movement has earned the financial support and public endorsement of [billionaire curency market manipulator] George Soros, which means Obama may soon coordinate community activism from the White House. _DallasBlog
Marketwatch

...what are OccupyLA, Occupy Wall Street and other movements like them? What do they think about? Where do they hope to get?

“Our message right now is very vague. It’s left vague, slightly intentionally,” Davis says as passing cars honk in support and news cameras lurk nearby. “What we’re trying to do is unify a voice.”

Such is life in New York, Los Angeles and other venues throughout the U.S. for those that have taken up this “vague” cause that seems to have put a bulls-eye on Wall Street’s back. Bands of mostly young adults are gathering in normally peaceful settings to generally express their outrage over the inequity between the haves and have-nots. _Marketwatch
Who is paying these people to sit around and "protest" for weeks at a time? Labour unions? Community organiser grous like ACORN? Obama's DNC? Difficult to say. But the blatant lack of an agenda -- other than to support Obama when he is down -- is rubbing some genuine activists the wrong way.
“If you are doing a protest you need to have an agenda. If you wake up in the morning and poke a guitar, take a drum downtown and someone is singing and another one is dancing and movie stars are coming and saying do this, do that… and everyone is confused, you’ll be there for a long time.”
Some pundits believe that a likely avenue for Occupy Wall Street is to develop into a left-wing version of the conservative Tea Party movement.
The Tea Party has likewise lacked unity over much other than anger at the status quo. Yet it proved a powerful weapon during the 2010 congressional elections.
According to this scenario, the youth-driven activists of Occupy Wall Street would then reignite Obama’s tattered base just in time for what will likely be a bitter reelection fight in 2012.
A budding alliance between the activists and high-profile trade unions already has the potential to generate considerable street power. _BigGovernment
To be sustained, such a pointless, waste-of-time movement requires some deep-pockets supporters, such as George Soros, organised labour, big-money green movements, and socialist / communist movements which get their money from the international shadows.
NYTimes Graphs Ascent of Activist Media Whores

With the bandwagon alliance of media whore protestors and the mainstream media growing and firming up nicely, expect to see more protests -- perhaps with a bit more gratuitous violence for extra emphasis. At least until the weather grows nasty in the northern US states. At that point, the protests may move into the sun belt.

As long as George Soros and the other big money backers of Obama wish to keep up the charade of serious protests, US media consumers are apt to be hammered by this pretend activism political street theatre. You can get a lot of activism as long as you are willing to pay for it.

The Tea Party activists, on the other hand, held limited events, and always cleaned up after themselves. They had jobs and families to attend to after all, and they took their responsibilities seriously.

The Obama style professional troupe of activists, on the other hand, just live to do what they are doing. They are protesting, you see, for the status quo. A very odd breed of activist indeed.

No comments: