Occupy Tent City
Okay, so the Occupy St. Louis people were cleared from Kiener Plaza, and unfortunately, it seems like anywhere that I talk about it, the whole discussion degrades into a list of why I'm a bad person. So, here I am to get the whole thing out of my system without being flamed.
As much as the dissenters seem to feel, I am not actually against the idea of peaceful protest. However, I feel that when you protest stuff... well, you should be a bit more active on that front. I can understand things starting out a bit murky, but when you take a month off to live in a tent city, maybe instead of teaching yoga classes, you can come up with a step-by-step plan of obtaining your goal. Sci-fi fans have launched more organized campaigns. Surely they can lean on some nerds to help them out.
Is corporate greed a bad thing? Yes. Do CEOs earn a bit too much? Yup. But I fail to see how hanging out in a park that already stank of urine from homeless people for a month will hurt them. They should realize that most St. Louisans never actually go by that park, anyway. Yeah, there are the homeless and downtown workers, but the workers will only see them at lunch, and only then if they were walking rather aimlessly. BTW, they've already gotten good at ignoring the beggars, so the campers are just another obstacle.
There's a certain type of liberal - let's call them a wanna-be activist. They seem to talk to other like-minded folks, and so they think that their message is already out and obvious. The people whose views diverge a bit from theirs, well, they just don't have enough heart - or they're part of the problem. They should be doing this or that. I stopped dating one guy because he whole heartedly believed that this fringe presidential candidate was definitely going to win the election (no, I'm not talking Ron Paul). Obviously, I didn't just break up with him because he supported one crazy. Rather, his view was SOOOO limited, that when you tried to explain to him why someone with < 1% of the votes didn't really have a chance, he just claimed that everyone he knew was sick of the status quo and liked the candidate enough to make a change.
There was another guy, a former co-worker who boycotted certain oil companies because they kicked some people in Africa off their land to dig for oil. Now, when I say boycott, I mean that he tried to never shop at Shell, BP, or a couple of other gas stations, because of similar human rights issues. Instead, he preferred to shop at places like Casey's, which apparently purchases surplus oil to sell to customers. I think we lost respect for each other when we had that conversation. He of course thought that I was stupid/heartless to not feel like him, and I had issues with him just going along with others' boycott without any critical thinking. First, people keep forgetting this, but most of our oil comes from Canada - not the middle east or Africa. Second, when you boycott gas stations, you're mostly hurting the owners of that gas station (not the corporations). Third, where the hell do you think the surplus gas comes from?! If you want to make a dent, advertise these issues (and not just in your social circle), and get a bike or at least a Prius. I might've been willing to shop at certain stores, but my Corolla has better fuel efficiency than his Camry did.
But even if he lost my respect then, I think he already thought I was a 'racist.' As a public school teacher, he was fully prepared to home school any kids... and had the hubris to think that he could do as well or better than any public school teacher in teaching all of the non-math subjects. I pointed out the downfalls of lack of social interactions, and he spoke of clubs the kid could join. When I talked about how sometimes Catholic School girls had a bad reputation of being a bit loose, I think that he thought that I was prejudiced against Catholics or something. He didn't call me out on that at the time, and I realized my mistake in using 'Catholic' instead of "Parochial" or "Private," later on when he said something about being Catholic. A snide remark months later showed that he had indeed taken offense at the time. I thought girls were the ones who let crap linger forever.
Anyway, back to my point about the Occupy groups. They're doing it wrong. You want to change things? Don't just hang out in parks sleeping in tents and holding up signs. You know the Congressmen and CEOs that you're trying to change? They're laughing at you. You come across as a bunch of middle class wanna-be hippies. You're so focused on staying in tent cities as a crusade that you've disengaged your collective brains and gotten off-point. If this method doesn't work (it hasn't!), instead of whining about the city taken down your tents and enforcing the park curfew (which, btw, is there because of the homeless problem in downtown), REGROUP. Camping is getting you on tv, but not showing you in a good light. You're also not hurting the corporations.
I think Unions have greatly degraded their reputation, and some have gone a bit corrupt, but the protestors can learn from the better Union days. Boycott. And don't just tell each other that you're boycotting. Buy some highway advertising. Get handfuls of picketers at the stores (across the city) of corporations that you hate. Want to go after Wal-mart? Well, good luck with that, but post picketers on the edge of the lot (public ground). With short signs explaining why they suck (don't use hyperbole - use actual facts - CEO salary?) and where you should go instead (I don't mean "Independent Retailer" - be specific. If that won't fit on a sign, print pamphlets and hand them out to people who seem interested...not people who will throw them into the trashcan). And you, yourself, of course, need to completely stop going to any of these stores. In St. Louis, you'll pay more and drive more (sorry gas boycott), but it's possible. And you'll be MUCH more visible, because you know, the suburbanites are afraid of downtown, but they love their strip malls. Well, love/hate anyway. Now, I don't know how successful this would be in small towns (where Wal-mart is the only store, McDonalds or Dairy Queen the only restaurant), but worry about that later.
What else can you do? Well, for Congress, you can start letter writing and phone campaigns (assuming you only allow people who will be completely cordial, level-headed, and fact-based to communicate... sorry coworker and ex). I don't know how effective that'll be, but it's a start. Then, once you find someone in your camps with Congressional lobbying experience.... lobby. Lobby your collective asses off. Before you change the system, you have to start by working within the system. Yeah, yeah, yeah,... I get it. You are the 99%, you have freedom of speech, blah, blah, blah. Now actually do something or go home! And again, camping is ineffective and annoying, so I don't want to hear that as an example of what you 'did.'
Oh, and get a move-on, because while you're camping, non-corporate entities or getting closer to death. The whole anti-public education thing? You know that those charter schools are going to eventually become big corporations, right? And the slow death of USPS means that all the snail mail will be sent through corporations like whoever owns Fedex & UPS. Such things start small and unrelated, and sometimes pass with little fanfare. You know what else happened with little fanfare? The repealing (or actually, I think the bill might just not have been renewed) of laws that prevented companies from owning a majority of media outlets in a market. This happened in the 90s, and it's part of the reason we have Newscorp.
Okay, I'm done complaining for the day.
As much as the dissenters seem to feel, I am not actually against the idea of peaceful protest. However, I feel that when you protest stuff... well, you should be a bit more active on that front. I can understand things starting out a bit murky, but when you take a month off to live in a tent city, maybe instead of teaching yoga classes, you can come up with a step-by-step plan of obtaining your goal. Sci-fi fans have launched more organized campaigns. Surely they can lean on some nerds to help them out.
Is corporate greed a bad thing? Yes. Do CEOs earn a bit too much? Yup. But I fail to see how hanging out in a park that already stank of urine from homeless people for a month will hurt them. They should realize that most St. Louisans never actually go by that park, anyway. Yeah, there are the homeless and downtown workers, but the workers will only see them at lunch, and only then if they were walking rather aimlessly. BTW, they've already gotten good at ignoring the beggars, so the campers are just another obstacle.
There's a certain type of liberal - let's call them a wanna-be activist. They seem to talk to other like-minded folks, and so they think that their message is already out and obvious. The people whose views diverge a bit from theirs, well, they just don't have enough heart - or they're part of the problem. They should be doing this or that. I stopped dating one guy because he whole heartedly believed that this fringe presidential candidate was definitely going to win the election (no, I'm not talking Ron Paul). Obviously, I didn't just break up with him because he supported one crazy. Rather, his view was SOOOO limited, that when you tried to explain to him why someone with < 1% of the votes didn't really have a chance, he just claimed that everyone he knew was sick of the status quo and liked the candidate enough to make a change.
There was another guy, a former co-worker who boycotted certain oil companies because they kicked some people in Africa off their land to dig for oil. Now, when I say boycott, I mean that he tried to never shop at Shell, BP, or a couple of other gas stations, because of similar human rights issues. Instead, he preferred to shop at places like Casey's, which apparently purchases surplus oil to sell to customers. I think we lost respect for each other when we had that conversation. He of course thought that I was stupid/heartless to not feel like him, and I had issues with him just going along with others' boycott without any critical thinking. First, people keep forgetting this, but most of our oil comes from Canada - not the middle east or Africa. Second, when you boycott gas stations, you're mostly hurting the owners of that gas station (not the corporations). Third, where the hell do you think the surplus gas comes from?! If you want to make a dent, advertise these issues (and not just in your social circle), and get a bike or at least a Prius. I might've been willing to shop at certain stores, but my Corolla has better fuel efficiency than his Camry did.
But even if he lost my respect then, I think he already thought I was a 'racist.' As a public school teacher, he was fully prepared to home school any kids... and had the hubris to think that he could do as well or better than any public school teacher in teaching all of the non-math subjects. I pointed out the downfalls of lack of social interactions, and he spoke of clubs the kid could join. When I talked about how sometimes Catholic School girls had a bad reputation of being a bit loose, I think that he thought that I was prejudiced against Catholics or something. He didn't call me out on that at the time, and I realized my mistake in using 'Catholic' instead of "Parochial" or "Private," later on when he said something about being Catholic. A snide remark months later showed that he had indeed taken offense at the time. I thought girls were the ones who let crap linger forever.
Anyway, back to my point about the Occupy groups. They're doing it wrong. You want to change things? Don't just hang out in parks sleeping in tents and holding up signs. You know the Congressmen and CEOs that you're trying to change? They're laughing at you. You come across as a bunch of middle class wanna-be hippies. You're so focused on staying in tent cities as a crusade that you've disengaged your collective brains and gotten off-point. If this method doesn't work (it hasn't!), instead of whining about the city taken down your tents and enforcing the park curfew (which, btw, is there because of the homeless problem in downtown), REGROUP. Camping is getting you on tv, but not showing you in a good light. You're also not hurting the corporations.
I think Unions have greatly degraded their reputation, and some have gone a bit corrupt, but the protestors can learn from the better Union days. Boycott. And don't just tell each other that you're boycotting. Buy some highway advertising. Get handfuls of picketers at the stores (across the city) of corporations that you hate. Want to go after Wal-mart? Well, good luck with that, but post picketers on the edge of the lot (public ground). With short signs explaining why they suck (don't use hyperbole - use actual facts - CEO salary?) and where you should go instead (I don't mean "Independent Retailer" - be specific. If that won't fit on a sign, print pamphlets and hand them out to people who seem interested...not people who will throw them into the trashcan). And you, yourself, of course, need to completely stop going to any of these stores. In St. Louis, you'll pay more and drive more (sorry gas boycott), but it's possible. And you'll be MUCH more visible, because you know, the suburbanites are afraid of downtown, but they love their strip malls. Well, love/hate anyway. Now, I don't know how successful this would be in small towns (where Wal-mart is the only store, McDonalds or Dairy Queen the only restaurant), but worry about that later.
What else can you do? Well, for Congress, you can start letter writing and phone campaigns (assuming you only allow people who will be completely cordial, level-headed, and fact-based to communicate... sorry coworker and ex). I don't know how effective that'll be, but it's a start. Then, once you find someone in your camps with Congressional lobbying experience.... lobby. Lobby your collective asses off. Before you change the system, you have to start by working within the system. Yeah, yeah, yeah,... I get it. You are the 99%, you have freedom of speech, blah, blah, blah. Now actually do something or go home! And again, camping is ineffective and annoying, so I don't want to hear that as an example of what you 'did.'
Oh, and get a move-on, because while you're camping, non-corporate entities or getting closer to death. The whole anti-public education thing? You know that those charter schools are going to eventually become big corporations, right? And the slow death of USPS means that all the snail mail will be sent through corporations like whoever owns Fedex & UPS. Such things start small and unrelated, and sometimes pass with little fanfare. You know what else happened with little fanfare? The repealing (or actually, I think the bill might just not have been renewed) of laws that prevented companies from owning a majority of media outlets in a market. This happened in the 90s, and it's part of the reason we have Newscorp.
Okay, I'm done complaining for the day.