Occupy This

The following is a response to Pat's post on SOPA:

I don't think it's a matter of poor priorities. I think people are smart enough to realize that all of those big problems, the real issues are out of our control. They're completely hopeless. The Occupy movement will never amount to anything, because nobody is willing to go too far. SOPA was a rare cause within our reach.

Occupy is too nice. It's too civil, too quaint. "Oh, look at that, they're protesting. Aren't they cute?"

The only time a frustrated mob of poor-to-middle class people ever accomplished anything is when they dragged royalty out into the streets to be hanged. That's a lot harder to ignore than some teenagers shitting in a state park.

But if anyone does cross that line, then they'll become the bad guys! There's no middle ground, no peaceful negotiations. If a cop pepper-sprays a peaceful protest, he's the bad guy. But if a rioter throws a molotov cocktail, then the entire movement and everything it stands for becomes uglier.

▼



There's no way to win. It's like the only options are to take abuse from predators or become one. Victim or Victimizer. George Carlin said we're barely out of the jungle; I think we just brought the jungle with us.

And no one wants to be a martyr either, and every CEO and executive realizes that. Jerks at the top aren't burdened by morality, and we have nothing they want, so they'll keep taking advantage of that. And so we're left to live in a world where everyone is vicious, and where hard work doesn't pay off, the nice guys finish last and the concept of fairness is as commonplace as the Unicorn.

In the United States, unless you already have it, you'll never get it. You'll never get what you want, never get that dream-job, never get the self-image you want, never get the healthcare you need, never get the girl of your dreams or the car or the life you imagined for yourself. The life you were told you had a right to.

Can you really blame people if the only thing keeping us holding on are cat videos with copyrighted music? It may not be much, but that's the only inch anyone has left that we could fight for without becoming monsters.

END OF LINE

~A.H.