A populist, vaguely anarcho-socialist movement to protest inequality, endorsed by the hacker group Anonymous (Hacktivist group). It seems to be inspired by the Arab Spring and the UK riots. AdBusters, an anti-consumerism magazine/site is the organizing force behind it. Here's their agenda, from their website:


As for the occupation protest itself, this picture says it all:


The mask is a reference to the V for Vendetta movie/graphic novel I guess, which speaks to the movement's socialist-anarchist-subversive self-image, even though the group's site and statements all seem to claim a stance of peaceful protest.

Today (Saturday 9/24/2011) about 80 people were arrested, for things like obstructing traffic or wearing a mask backwards (apparently there is some ancient 150 year old law banning that). Mayor Bloomberg appears to be taking no chances, and the cops are out in strength.

The little flyer is interesting:

• The corrupt fear us
• The honest support us
• The heroic join us

There is almost something laughably naive about the flyer. It reminds me of early trade unionism/socialism.

For 2011, I'd add:

• the apathetic ignore us
• the realistic dismiss us

Venal and terrible though our modern day Wall Street criminals are, this is hardly a situation of 19th century Robber Baron style exploitation. Three things are different about today, as opposed to say, the trade unionist/anti-trust movements of the 1880s-1910s and the Arab Spring type movement.

1. The world financial system is now so irreversibly complicated that neither the good guys, nor the bad guys, who had roles in building it, have any idea how to stop, change or reverse it. Everybody's hanging on to the tiger's tail for dear life.
2. Unlike the genuinely (and violently) oppressed working class of the late 19th century, today's mess is equally the fault of average Joe types. The "People", so often the holier-than-thou, ennobled-by-poverty occupiers of the moral high ground in previous revolutions, are completely complicit in the present state of affairs.
3. Unlike the Arab Spring type protests that seem to have inspired this group, there is no obvious Big Villain to blame, hunt down and kill. There is no Qaddafi here. Instead, we have an emergent Hydra that seems to grow two Too Big to Fail heads for every one chopped off by a bailout.

Drawing inspiration from movements that are/were about much more primitive change agendas is extremely dangerous (both classical trade unionism and today's Arab Spring are about 150 years behind the current American capitalism crisis in development terms). For all their crony-capitalist flaws, I'd rather live in a modern liberal democracy than an autocracy.

Which means I am not in favor of this movement, especially because it seems capable of going unstable (as the involvement of Anonymous (Hacktivist group) suggests... that gang does not just scare the corrupt; it scares everybody a little). There is enough anger for that to happen.

Yes there are criminals getting rich. Yes there are unfair levels of inequality. This sort of reaction will not solve anything. There's a good chance it could make things far worse.

At best, it might encourage people with real ideas to increase the urgency with which they are grappling with this problem. At worst, you'll get anarchist nihilism that will destroy institutions rather than reform them, which will create even worse pain than we have today.

In a way this might be the beginning of an equivalent of the Tea Party for the Left. Or to use Eric Cartman's immortal words: goddamn hippies.

Crap, I might be turning Libertarian in my old age. But I hate them too. I have nowhere to turn.