Sunday, December 11, 2011
The Occupy protests: Correlation or cause of public outrage?
There’s a funny Bloomberg/BusinessWeek post going around about how you can use statistics to prove anything. My favorite chart from the post: “Is Facebook Driving the Greek Debt Crisis?” Well, the statistics do show a strong correlation between the two.
Anyway, I was thinking of the correlation-causation question after reading all the laudatory things being said about the Occupy Boston protests, which mercifully came to an end yesterday. The main compliment: The protesters “drew attention” to the issue of income inequality in the U.S. But it obviously wasn’t just a protest about income inequality. The movement specifically targeted Wall Street, Boston’s Financial District, and other obvious symbols of the nation’s financial system. The protesters were tapping into a deep public zeitgeist over the government’s bailout of an industry that played a key role in causing the Great Recession and today’s ongoing financial crisis.
The public was already pretty riled up about economic conditions and Wall Street by the time the Occupy protests started in September – which, it should be noted, was three long years after the financial crisis started. Movies and documentaries had already been made or produced about the financial crisis. (Personally, I can’t decide which I liked better: HBO’s “Too Big Too Fail” or “Margin Call.” They’re both great. I was impressed but not wowed by the Academy Award winning “Inside Job.”) Books about the financial crisis have been rolling out of publishing houses ever since Lehman’s collapse in 2008. Jon Stewart has been busy over the past three years creating a comedic cottage industry out of Wall Street’s never-ending string of antics. Hey, even Hub Blog has been ranting about Wall Street over the past three years. Etc., etc., etc.
So, please, spare me the accolades about how Occupy protesters “drew attention” to income inequality, Wall Street, economic injustice, and other related matters. If anything, a good question to ask, as alluded to above, is: What took them so long to protest Wall Street? Part of the answer is that they were too busy protesting for or against climate change, Obama-care, the Israeli-Palestinian faceoff, the wars, and just about everything else on the left-wing protest check-off list.
Now we’re getting to the crux of the matter: The Occupy movement was not a “broad based” protest movement. It was largely a left-wing protest movement, as much as the MSM tries to ignore or gloss over that obvious elephant-in-the-room fact. Most people realized the average Occupier was a dime-a-dozen hippie-wannabe protester, the type we’ve seen countless times before over the decades, attending protests like they were attending Catholic masses, performing all the familiar rituals and repeating the same chants, declaring their righteousness and devotion to the moral cause at hand.
Still, despite decades of enduring ham-handed left-wing street theater, people like yours truly and Michael Lewis and Mark Cuban and even libertarians initially, if grudgingly, welcomed the protests. It wasn’t so much about protesters “drawing attention” to important economic issues. It was more about them giving second-wind, and a new dimension, to protests about economic matters in this country. The Occupiers were ultimately followers, not leaders. They arrived late to the great economic debate -- and long after right-wing Tea Partiers showed up. But at least they arrived, complete with annoying bongo drums, tired “Hey ho” chants, and their Che Guevara T-shirts. They made a difference, even though it would have been nice if they had been around to counter Wall Street’s army of lobbyists while the Dodd-Frank bill was being written and watered down to mush in 2010.
Almost inevitably, though, the Occupy protests became about ‘60s nostalgia and a celebration of themselves. The Pete Seger and Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore types started showing up at the protests. The ‘die-ins’ commenced. The protests branched out to Israeli consulates. The phony bandana-wearing anarchists took center stage. (Ooooo. They were so mean looking!) The itch, even desire, to get arrested became a central component of getting their Protest Merit Badges. (I once met a person who bragged how she tried to save every plastic handcuff slapped on her wrists after being “arrested” at protests; I’m sure she’s since handed them down to her grandchildren, almost like family heirlooms and religious icons.)
The bottom line: The Occupy movement overstayed its welcome – and usefulness.
This is also true: We won’t recognize the movement’s protesters after their supporters and admirers finish touching up and re-writing their history. The Occupy protesters have now entered the left-wing pantheon of great protests. They’re going to be as big as the Port Huron signing! Though not as big as the ’68 Chicago or Woodstock events (the real ‘60s protesters will make sure of that; they’re very turf conscious when it comes to mythological pecking orders).
But I don’t want to leave on a cynical note. The Occupy protesters did some good. They helped galvanize the opposition to Wall Street’s now protected status as “too big too fail." The protesters weren't the cause or catalyst of public outrage. They merely reflected it. But at least they did something, even if it their means were tardy, annoying and misguided at times.
Next up on the protest agenda: A little more outrage over the MF Global scandal? I mean, how the hell do you misplace $1.2 billion in customers’ money? How? Only on Wall Street.
There’s a funny Bloomberg/BusinessWeek post going around about how you can use statistics to prove anything. My favorite chart from the post: “Is Facebook Driving the Greek Debt Crisis?” Well, the statistics do show a strong correlation between the two.
Anyway, I was thinking of the correlation-causation question after reading all the laudatory things being said about the Occupy Boston protests, which mercifully came to an end yesterday. The main compliment: The protesters “drew attention” to the issue of income inequality in the U.S. But it obviously wasn’t just a protest about income inequality. The movement specifically targeted Wall Street, Boston’s Financial District, and other obvious symbols of the nation’s financial system. The protesters were tapping into a deep public zeitgeist over the government’s bailout of an industry that played a key role in causing the Great Recession and today’s ongoing financial crisis.
The public was already pretty riled up about economic conditions and Wall Street by the time the Occupy protests started in September – which, it should be noted, was three long years after the financial crisis started. Movies and documentaries had already been made or produced about the financial crisis. (Personally, I can’t decide which I liked better: HBO’s “Too Big Too Fail” or “Margin Call.” They’re both great. I was impressed but not wowed by the Academy Award winning “Inside Job.”) Books about the financial crisis have been rolling out of publishing houses ever since Lehman’s collapse in 2008. Jon Stewart has been busy over the past three years creating a comedic cottage industry out of Wall Street’s never-ending string of antics. Hey, even Hub Blog has been ranting about Wall Street over the past three years. Etc., etc., etc.
So, please, spare me the accolades about how Occupy protesters “drew attention” to income inequality, Wall Street, economic injustice, and other related matters. If anything, a good question to ask, as alluded to above, is: What took them so long to protest Wall Street? Part of the answer is that they were too busy protesting for or against climate change, Obama-care, the Israeli-Palestinian faceoff, the wars, and just about everything else on the left-wing protest check-off list.
Now we’re getting to the crux of the matter: The Occupy movement was not a “broad based” protest movement. It was largely a left-wing protest movement, as much as the MSM tries to ignore or gloss over that obvious elephant-in-the-room fact. Most people realized the average Occupier was a dime-a-dozen hippie-wannabe protester, the type we’ve seen countless times before over the decades, attending protests like they were attending Catholic masses, performing all the familiar rituals and repeating the same chants, declaring their righteousness and devotion to the moral cause at hand.
Still, despite decades of enduring ham-handed left-wing street theater, people like yours truly and Michael Lewis and Mark Cuban and even libertarians initially, if grudgingly, welcomed the protests. It wasn’t so much about protesters “drawing attention” to important economic issues. It was more about them giving second-wind, and a new dimension, to protests about economic matters in this country. The Occupiers were ultimately followers, not leaders. They arrived late to the great economic debate -- and long after right-wing Tea Partiers showed up. But at least they arrived, complete with annoying bongo drums, tired “Hey ho” chants, and their Che Guevara T-shirts. They made a difference, even though it would have been nice if they had been around to counter Wall Street’s army of lobbyists while the Dodd-Frank bill was being written and watered down to mush in 2010.
Almost inevitably, though, the Occupy protests became about ‘60s nostalgia and a celebration of themselves. The Pete Seger and Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore types started showing up at the protests. The ‘die-ins’ commenced. The protests branched out to Israeli consulates. The phony bandana-wearing anarchists took center stage. (Ooooo. They were so mean looking!) The itch, even desire, to get arrested became a central component of getting their Protest Merit Badges. (I once met a person who bragged how she tried to save every plastic handcuff slapped on her wrists after being “arrested” at protests; I’m sure she’s since handed them down to her grandchildren, almost like family heirlooms and religious icons.)
The bottom line: The Occupy movement overstayed its welcome – and usefulness.
This is also true: We won’t recognize the movement’s protesters after their supporters and admirers finish touching up and re-writing their history. The Occupy protesters have now entered the left-wing pantheon of great protests. They’re going to be as big as the Port Huron signing! Though not as big as the ’68 Chicago or Woodstock events (the real ‘60s protesters will make sure of that; they’re very turf conscious when it comes to mythological pecking orders).
But I don’t want to leave on a cynical note. The Occupy protesters did some good. They helped galvanize the opposition to Wall Street’s now protected status as “too big too fail." The protesters weren't the cause or catalyst of public outrage. They merely reflected it. But at least they did something, even if it their means were tardy, annoying and misguided at times.
Next up on the protest agenda: A little more outrage over the MF Global scandal? I mean, how the hell do you misplace $1.2 billion in customers’ money? How? Only on Wall Street.
