People I know are being quoted now as spokesmen for the Occupy Wall Street protests. That means anything once genuine about these demonstrations is now gone. The protests have become professionalized, better yet, institutionalized. (Is there anything more stinging to an aspiring radical?)
The idealistic young people who started Occupy Wall Street probably don’t realize what is happening yet, but they will in time. The left wing of the Democratic Party has hijacked their “movement” and it is only just beginning.
Witness the targets of today’s so-called March on Millionaires, in New York City. The targeted homes are owned by mostly Republican funders or backers of conservative causes — the same types of people, not coincidentally, who were targeted for bus visits by the union-led Working Families Party two years ago. Billionaire George Soros is conspicuously absent from the list. Watch also how the messaging is morphing from the high-minded slogans like “End Greed” to perennial public employee union demands like “Millionaire’s Tax Now!”, aka: “Give Us More Money!” And see how House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are wading into the fray with operatives and logistical support. No doubt about it, these kids have become pawns in a much larger game.
The Democratic Party clearly has decided to approach the demonstrations as a gift horse. Next year’s elections look like a washout to them — if they were held today, the Democrats would probably drop the Senate and the White House — so they figure they have nothing to lose. What better way to wake up one’s base then to launch “spontaneous” national demonstrations against the greedy one percent? But a word of caution for the Democrats: If you break it, you own it.
Three things can happen with these protests. They can flame brightly in the news media and burn out as quickly as they began; they can continue throughout 2012 and become orchestrated background noise for the 2012 campaigns, or they can grow angry, violent, and uncontained. That last possibility is omnipresent wherever tinderbox environments and young people are mashed together.
If these protests grow violent — if another Kent State occurs — God help those responsible.
Hate to say this Bill, but you need to look in your rearview mirror before you accuse the Democrats of looking through the windshield. I can think of many “issues” that were kidnapped by the Republican Party for their own good. One that comes to mind…”Joe the Plumber”, who was so concerned about being taxed on his business that didn’t exist and the income that he didn’t have with the license…he never got. Another, the WTC Mosque. Oh, and I know that Fox news didn’t broadcast the opening of it, so all the Republican’s didn’t know what to do, but the Mosque opened…without a chirp. They can now go back to making such a big deal about it, regardless of whether they see it on Fox or not. Just keeping it real here…