In the interviews and research I've seen, you have anarchists and communists protesting together. What on Earth do they have in common? Much like the Muslim Brotherhood took over after the Egyptian government collapsed, if they succeed in collapsing our system, the communists will simply execute everyone else. It's not like mass murder is a new thing for them. But in an open source civil war, if your enemy brings troops that help you overthrow the system, maybe they don't need killin' just yet...
Borepatch links to Sabra who points out, as many have, that many of the things they say resonate among the Tea Party and the small L libertarians like me. Philosophically, I think they're completely messed up. They're protesting in the wrong place. Instead of protesting the banks for loaning them their tuition, they should be protesting the colleges, who raise fees at about 3 to 4 times inflation. The rise in fees is in perverse response to the flood of easy government money to pay for college: supply of money goes up, fees go up to soak up all that "free gubmint money". They should be protesting the government that made the laws that made student loan debt follow you for life. They should be protesting the government for doing everything to enable and accelerate the banking crises.
Today's fun fact: Harvard has an endowment worth $32 billion. If they paid all 6700 undergraduates' tuition, fees and books, it would cost 1/1000 of that - $32 million. That endowment grew over 21% last year. Based simply on that, they could pay all undergrad fees forever, without endangering a single new building. Don't get me wrong - I think it's good for students to figure out how to solve the problem of paying for college. I went to school part time while working full time. But the major institutions can fix this tuition/loan thing all by themselves.
Glenn Beck has long pointed out that past communist takeovers have been implemented by a "bottom up, top down, inside out" strategy. It only helps his argument that noted communist and Obama insider Van Jones has said that in exactly the same words. The idea is the pace and disturbances of things like OWS (the bottom rising) get so high, and disruptions become so annoying that the people demand the government "do something". Government is only too happy to clamp down (top down) and do things to restore order. Harsh restrictions. Elimination of rights. Maybe cancellation of elections "until the crisis is over".
Anti-big government groups should mind the old advice for dogs: be careful who you lay down with. You might get fleas. Or worse.
I expect that any tacit or explicit support for this movement is very likely to blow up in your face like a booby-trapped breakfast burrito.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
Because we simply refuse to acknowledge the true nature of the Home Team advantage.
The Home Team will spin your involvement to its advantage as it always has and always will, as long as you're playing the Home Team's game. And the Occupy Wall Street protests are nothing if not the Home Team's game.
To defeat the Home Team, you'll have to learn how not to support it.