My reaction to the Occupy Foo Movement (Crosspost)

[truthspeaker]

The impression I am getting from a lot of people is that the government is corrupt and does not want to improve things. I get the impression from a lot of people that Congress could pass laws to get things going in the right direction, if only they were motivated enough -- that we need to protest to tell people that this is important and convince

Comments

[elusiveat]

I think that you misunderstand why the protests are seen as important. They are important because it is the first time in ~30 years that politics on the left have really driven *any* high profile political conversation in this country. Someone on the left will see the protests as a good thing, because they draw attention to left-wing values, and increase the likelihood that progressive values will be incorporated into policies. Someone on the right will see the protests as a bad thing, for the same reasons. For both sides, the protests are important. Those on the right might act like they don't see them as important because they don't want the left to take control of the conversation, but in reality they will see them as increasingly important the more visible they are: they'll need to be prepared to respond.

No, not everybody agrees that uneven distribution of wealth is the problem, or that we'd be better off if corporations had less political power, but at least some of the people on the other side of these issues believe what they believe because the right has been controlling the dialogue for so long. The fact that the protests are happening, and that they are getting press is going to cause some "centrists" to change to a left-wing perspective, just as long-term propoganda by the Competitive Enterprises Institute and other right-wing think tanks has caused some centrists to move to the right. So, what is happening now is important because of the way that it is shifting the balance of the conversation.

[truthspeaker]

I would agree with you except for one thing -- the movement does not want to be considered the left and opposes being labelled as leftist. A large portion of it is conservative and libertarian -- in fact, many of the people are the exact same people from the tea party protests.

To some degree, it's the media that is drawing attention to left-wing values by ascribing them to the movement. The movement itself is all over the map, as the intent is to build an all-inclusive base and create horizontal democracy.

So, while I consider that a very interesting strategy, I'm not sure it's as effective as having an actual movement by the left. It could cause people to rethink the way they divide politics into left and right, or it could just be misunderstood as the "leftist equivalent of the tea party," which it is not.

[elusiveat]

It is extensive right-wing propoganda that has given left-wing politics the aura of "evil" or "stupidity" that makes it so undesirable to have a populist movement labeled as "leftist." The truth is that we all have some conservative values and some liberal values. The movement is trying to be universal in that it is appealing to liberal values in a manner that will sound reasonable to people who are otherwise quite conservative.

Conservatives play the same game, e.g. talking about "tax relief" because, really, who would *want* to be taxed more. They've been much more aggressive in playing this game than the liberals have been. Things are changing somewhat now.