Perspectives on the Protesters of Occupy Wall Street
Compare these two perspective pieces in their views of the commune-style protest that is Occupy Wall Street. The first from the conservative National Review, the second from the liberal Utne Reader.
In truth, those camped out in Zuccotti Park are running a commune more than a protest. They have established a small communitarian village, which is punctuated by a small cabal of the angry, the insane, and the ignorant. Nothing I have seen is representative of a serious movement, and even less is indicative of any substantive thought.
And if you arrive before noon, you’re greeted not by vast crowds, but by air mattresses, a sea of blue and green tarps, a couple of information tables, some enthusiastic drummers, enough signs with slogans for anything you care to support (“Too big to fail is too big to allow,” “The American Dream: You have to be asleep to believe it,” “There’s no state like no state,” etc.), and small groups of polite, eager, well-organized young people, wandering, cleaning, doling out contributed food, dealing with the press, or sitting in circles on the concrete, backpacks strewn about, discussing. If it were the 1960s, it might easily be a hippie encampment.
Only vast policy changes stemming from Occupy Wall Street will tell whether the protestors were indeed well-organized, if they were just there for the drum circles and organic arugula.
