The media’s portrayals of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Parties
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An Indian living in the West writes
If the Occupy Wall Streeters managed to carry out even a fifth of their programme, the media won’t find them so “passionate” any more. And the ones that do still go along would soon find themselves in a gulag or a death camp to be rapidly disabused of any notions of “idealism.” But the truth is that the Occupy movement is so utterly powerless that it makes perfect sense for the media liberals to applaud everything they do. If they actually gained power, the very bourgeois journalists would discover that all kinds of bourgeois pleasures they enjoy would soon disappear. And life would get harsh. Do they really want that? Of course not. It is like New Labour’s position on Global Warming. They spent twelve years lecturing the world on it, but when they finally lost power in 2009, Britain’s carbon emissions were significantly higher than they were when they came to power in 1997.
Soros says he is in agreement with the Occupy Wall Street movement. But is he really? He wouldn’t find them so agreeable if they managed to get hold of the levers of power. Soros may find himself stripped of his billions in no time, and find that his family don’t get a penny after he dies in a gulag. But he knows that they won’t do anything. Because, they are pretty bourgeois and they won’t do anything that would risk them going to prison, for example (let alone something that could get them killed). What’s a lousy “occupation” going to achieve? Nothing. Soros can keep gambling in a zero sum game and keep piling up his billions. And when he dies, his children will inherit everything through “charities” that are tax exempt.
These “activists” are a lot like the American Nazis that support them. They are bourgeois extremists who, for the most part, are too timid to do anything. The ones that do anything extreme or violent are very rare exceptions like Timothy McVeigh. The rest are keyboard commandos that never do anything and are, therefore, powerless—thankfully. It is for this reason that Islamic extremists are to be feared much more. Because they do not fear death. Osama bin Laden was famously quoted as saying quite often, “They (meaning the West) love life, we love death.” That is undoubtedly true.
This is not to say that there isn’t something very rotten at the heart of the Western financial system. It has been rotten since Long-Term Capital Management. And these problems need to be fixed. But no one in the entire political spectrum has come up with effective ways to fix those things. It will take a crisis far worse to achieve that.
October 17
Dan R. writes:
Did you notice the cartoonist drew the protester with two left feet?
Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 16, 2011 04:14 PM | Send