The unofficial, de facto column about Occupy Wall Street

     What is "Occupy Wall Street?" Who are these people squatting in our public parks? What do they want? And, most importantly, should we give a shit?

     "Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions." That somewhat vague proclamation is taken from the website occupywallstreet.org, which boldly proclaims itself to be the "unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street," (The revolution may not be televised but it will be blogged, webcasted, tweeted, and posted on Facebook.)

     The website includes a document called the "Principles of Solidarity," that has a bullet point list of ideas such as "Redefining how labor is valued" and "Empowering one another against all forms of oppression." I suspect that when OWS says that they are comprised of people of "all political persuasions," they mean that they welcome both communists and Marxists.

     The website also explained that they were part of the "99%" of the population that does not have as much money as the richest 1% of the country. For some reason, this crowd uniting under a banner like that reminds me of nothing so much as outlaw bikers referring to themselves as 1%-ers. And OWS has not been without its mob-like moments. They recently staged a march to picket outside of "rich peoples’" homes. There is no political objective in doing something like that, it’s just a way to threaten and intimidate people that the anonymous, faceless, leaderless OWS movement has targeted as "the enemy."

     The OWS crowd, for all their rage against "the rich" seem to have blinders on when it comes to some multi-millionaires. The perpetually designer-suit-clad and bling-drenched rapper Kanye West stopped by to offer support and mug for the cameras. No one seemed interested in taking him to task for his jet-setting lifestyle.

     Documentary director Michael Moore, who has been known to use tax shelters for his film profits, showed up with much fanfare, as did fellow millionaire Susan Sarandon. Oddly, the OWS people didn’t challenge them about their wealth, nor did they picket outside of Moore and Sarandon’s mansions. Apparently there is such a thing as "good rich" and "bad rich."

     The Occupy Wall Street movement also likens itself to the Arab Spring. This is fatuous. The men and women in the Middle East who are defying totalitarian regimes are risking torture and death to be free of oppression. Occupy Wall Street is risking discomfort to protest that a few people have more material wealth than most.

     Probably the most damning thing one could say of Occupy Wall Street however, is that they are nothing more than the flip side of the Tea Party’s coin. OWS certainly does have some parallels to the Tea Party. They’re both an angry group of people who seemed to form a movement before they formed a goal. They both complain that the mainstream media presents them unfairly. Some wags have even suggested that the natural evolution of OWS members will be to grow-up, turn conservative and eventually join the Tea Party.

     The OWS protesters probably won’t turn to the Tea Party any time soon but neither will they maintain their movement. They have no clearly defined goal other than vague platitudes about economic equality and social justice. They certainly don’t have a plan for how to implement their goals. This demonstration is a fad and the onset of winter weather is going to be the end of it.