I know the hot topic now is SOPA. I understand this is important. What I do
not understand is the occupy movement. The basic idea goes like this:
* perception: 1% of the people own 99% of the money
* reason: injustice! inequality!
* action: sit down and occupy their places
Something which everyone can understand and do. It is a agreeable demand for
most of us, because only a few can claim they belong to the 1%. I certainly
don't. It looks like the most primitive ideas are the most successful. The
problem is: the basic idea of the occupy movement "99% are suffering while
the 1% enrich themselves" is not new, it is around since the French
revolution and would fit perfectly to socialism or communism. Socialists
generally argue that capitalism concentrates power and wealth within a small
segment of society that derives its wealth through a system of exploitation.
And yet socialists or communists do not support it, and the members of the
movement are neither socialists nor communists.
Are the classic social political parties and ideologies like socialism and
communism too complicated for the occupy activists or is the occupy movement
too primitive for them? In the western world we live in modern states which
have a democracy with freedom of speech where everyone can join or found a
party. Looks like the occupy activists would rather found their own party
than join an existing one, although their basic political idea is not new.
They don't want to put their new wine into old wineskins, but it is the same
wine and the same wineskin, only younger, isn't it? Is it really about
political ideas or just a fight of generations and the lust for rebellion?
-J.
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