Little-Acorn
Well-Known Member
Looks like even most leftists can't stand the puerile whining of the so-called "people's movement".
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/b...ters-almost-makes-me-ashamed-to-be-left-wing/
The teenage moralism of the Occupy Wall Street hipsters almost makes me ashamed to be Left-wing
by Brendan O'Neill
Last updated: October 3rd, 2011
Occupy Wall Street, the gathering of angry actors, graphic designers and various other hipsters in the financial districts of New York City, might just be the most degenerate Left-wing movement of recent times. Its weird demands, plastered across tongue-in-cheek placards and on super-cool, self-pressed t- shirts, capture the descent of the modern Left into the cesspool of victimology, conspiracy-mongering and disdain for mass society and its allegedly dumb inhabitants. Far from representing anything that I, a Leftie, would recognise as progressive and humane, this gaggle of rich kids spouts little more than snobbery and fear, seemingly incapable of deciding whom they loathe the most: greedy fat bankers or the dumb fat public.
Occupy Wall Street claims to be a mass workers’ movement, but it’s nothing of the sort. It is in fact a tiny, self-selected group of self-righteous, mostly middle-class activists who have failed to win over large sections of the American public to their “cause” – which isn’t surprising when you consider that on the rare occasion that these trendy banker-bashers talk about the American public, they do so with a metaphorical peg on their snouts. An article on the Occupy Wall Street website claims “the working class in this country has been brainwashed by MSM, Fox News and the Right-wing propaganda machine”. It says everyday Americans, being stupid, do not understand what socialism is, because “they have been emotionally brainwashed against it”.
And so it falls to the cool, fashionable, oh-so-enlightened activists of Occupy Wall Street to help “de-programme people against the brainwashing they’ve experienced”. That is, the oiks must be re-educated by the hipsters. The little people must have their minds cleaned out by their moral and fashion superiors. Occupy Wall Street mashes together the outlook of Kim Jong-Il with the politics of Susan Sarandon, giving rise to a weirdly hippyish yet authoritarian gathering of slackers-cum-elitists.
When they aren’t pouring bile on to the allegedly brainwashed masses, the occupiers spend their time spreading all sorts of demented conspiracy theories about modern political life. “Corporations… run our governments”, they claim, indulging in a David Icke-like fantasy that faceless men-in-suits puppeteer the political sphere. Apparently these evil men, not content with making squillions of dollars and starting billions of wars, have also “poisoned the food supply through negligence”, inflicted “cruel treatment on countless non-human animals”, and “purposefully covered up oil spills”.
It sounds like an old episode of Knight Rider, where Michael Knight and Kit would always happen upon some Hicksville village in which a fat, cigar-chomping bloke in a Stetson was evilly making money by any means necessary. That such childish moralism, such a before-the-watershed view of life and politics, now informs what is being labelled the most important radical movement in America would be funny if weren’t so surreal.
Once upon a time, being Left-wing meant exposing the structural problems with capitalism and putting forward some solutions for fixing or overhauling them. Today, if Occupy Wall Street is anything to go by, it simply means getting all super-moralistic about evil bankers and corporate bigwigs, who apparently are responsible for every ill in the world. Forget analyses of society or programmes for change – these occupiers just want to get their rocks off by pointing a collective finger at billionaires while screaming “Waaaah!”.
It’s more like a two-minute hate than a principled campaign, more a tantrum than a protest, the aim of which is to assuage the inchoate moralistic fury of the sons and daughters of the East Coast bourgeoisie who look at mass America and its inhabitants and feel nothing but pity and disgust.
These campaigners are nothing like workers’ movements of old, which brought together principled men and women in a campaign for change; instead they have merely elevated the teenage screech of “I hate you and I wish you were dead!” into a political rallying cry.
No wonder the vast majority of Americans are blocking their ears.
------------------------------------
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/b...ters-almost-makes-me-ashamed-to-be-left-wing/
The teenage moralism of the Occupy Wall Street hipsters almost makes me ashamed to be Left-wing
by Brendan O'Neill
Last updated: October 3rd, 2011
Occupy Wall Street, the gathering of angry actors, graphic designers and various other hipsters in the financial districts of New York City, might just be the most degenerate Left-wing movement of recent times. Its weird demands, plastered across tongue-in-cheek placards and on super-cool, self-pressed t- shirts, capture the descent of the modern Left into the cesspool of victimology, conspiracy-mongering and disdain for mass society and its allegedly dumb inhabitants. Far from representing anything that I, a Leftie, would recognise as progressive and humane, this gaggle of rich kids spouts little more than snobbery and fear, seemingly incapable of deciding whom they loathe the most: greedy fat bankers or the dumb fat public.
Occupy Wall Street claims to be a mass workers’ movement, but it’s nothing of the sort. It is in fact a tiny, self-selected group of self-righteous, mostly middle-class activists who have failed to win over large sections of the American public to their “cause” – which isn’t surprising when you consider that on the rare occasion that these trendy banker-bashers talk about the American public, they do so with a metaphorical peg on their snouts. An article on the Occupy Wall Street website claims “the working class in this country has been brainwashed by MSM, Fox News and the Right-wing propaganda machine”. It says everyday Americans, being stupid, do not understand what socialism is, because “they have been emotionally brainwashed against it”.
And so it falls to the cool, fashionable, oh-so-enlightened activists of Occupy Wall Street to help “de-programme people against the brainwashing they’ve experienced”. That is, the oiks must be re-educated by the hipsters. The little people must have their minds cleaned out by their moral and fashion superiors. Occupy Wall Street mashes together the outlook of Kim Jong-Il with the politics of Susan Sarandon, giving rise to a weirdly hippyish yet authoritarian gathering of slackers-cum-elitists.
When they aren’t pouring bile on to the allegedly brainwashed masses, the occupiers spend their time spreading all sorts of demented conspiracy theories about modern political life. “Corporations… run our governments”, they claim, indulging in a David Icke-like fantasy that faceless men-in-suits puppeteer the political sphere. Apparently these evil men, not content with making squillions of dollars and starting billions of wars, have also “poisoned the food supply through negligence”, inflicted “cruel treatment on countless non-human animals”, and “purposefully covered up oil spills”.
It sounds like an old episode of Knight Rider, where Michael Knight and Kit would always happen upon some Hicksville village in which a fat, cigar-chomping bloke in a Stetson was evilly making money by any means necessary. That such childish moralism, such a before-the-watershed view of life and politics, now informs what is being labelled the most important radical movement in America would be funny if weren’t so surreal.
Once upon a time, being Left-wing meant exposing the structural problems with capitalism and putting forward some solutions for fixing or overhauling them. Today, if Occupy Wall Street is anything to go by, it simply means getting all super-moralistic about evil bankers and corporate bigwigs, who apparently are responsible for every ill in the world. Forget analyses of society or programmes for change – these occupiers just want to get their rocks off by pointing a collective finger at billionaires while screaming “Waaaah!”.
It’s more like a two-minute hate than a principled campaign, more a tantrum than a protest, the aim of which is to assuage the inchoate moralistic fury of the sons and daughters of the East Coast bourgeoisie who look at mass America and its inhabitants and feel nothing but pity and disgust.
These campaigners are nothing like workers’ movements of old, which brought together principled men and women in a campaign for change; instead they have merely elevated the teenage screech of “I hate you and I wish you were dead!” into a political rallying cry.
No wonder the vast majority of Americans are blocking their ears.
