Various commentators on the Occupy Wall Street movement have suggested that they are just a bunch of failures taking up people's time.
Herman Cain scorned such protestors and their ilk with the comment that essentially said that if you don't have a job and you aren't rich, it's your fault. This is just another iteration of the right's 'personal responsibility' meme and the implied corollary that "everybody that has gotten rich has done so based on merit". Clearly both of those memes serve to justify the way the upper crust has skyrocketed in its share of the income increases from productivity gains, while ordinary Americans' incomes stagnate. As several recent books have pointed out, however, the rich haven't contributed corresponding value.
Other, more sympathetic commentators say that they will go nowhere until they 'get organized', develop a set of goals to accomplish, and work more directly on that (many suggesting that this can only succeed if it is directed specifically at some part of the Federal government).
Below is a comment I left on an Angry Bear October 5 'open thread' about this question regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement. I invite your comments here or on the AB thread.
One of the real and lasting scars from the reaganomics revolution coupled with the friedmania for purportedly "free" markets (which of course do not in reality exist) is the reinforcement the two have given to the "rugged individualist" myth that underlies much of the current American cult of greed. Very few of us can make it entirely on our own; very few of us get where we do purely through our own efforts; very many of us are waylaid by social-cultural disadvantages (discrimination, abuse, neglect) that make it extraordinarily difficult to climb out of whatever social status life has cast us in. One despicable result of the rugged individualist myth is the have-mores use of "personal responsibility" (tied to property ownership--so that those who have are assumed to be responsible and those who have not are assumed to be irresponsible). It has driven us towards less community spirit, less cooperation and even more 'what's in it for me'-ism. The OWS movement seems to reflect, in spite of its lack of a single set of demands or even a single underlying goal, a sense that the trend towards selfishness-- most ably represented by the financial industry's socialization of losses/privatization of gains and continued wealth accrual from speculation in ways that increase economic instability for most of us-- is a genuine problem of our society.
And, if you want more visually stimulating motivation in support of such protests, perhaps this video from BraveNewFilms about the harm caused by the Koch brothers' industrial waste will inspire you.
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