The failure of the Occupy movement was epic in its crash-and-burn in the wake of “occupiers” pooping on cop cars, establishing rape safety tents, displaying food privilege, and being infested with rats and disease. As amusing as the “up and down twinkles” and mindless, robotic repetition of speakers were, the failure of the Occupy movement is worth revisiting in light of its offshoot the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
One of the reasons the left was so incensed by the TEA Party, and worried enough to come after us by any means necessary, is that we are a genuine grassroots, populist movement. While they publicly railed against our successes and worked to ridicule and bully us into submission, they were always working away at trying to duplicate (i.e. manufacture) our efforts.
Occupy is still touted as “populist,” an astonishing claim that is easily refuted in that it was a clearly top-down movement funded and organized by the usual suspects. Likewise, we know that Ferguson was another crisis the left couldn’t let go to waste, so the usual suspects hired and bused in race agitators, union members, communists, anarchists, et al. These are all the same big players in the background, pulling the strings, and they have one goal in mind, a goal that Andrew Breitbart saw for what it was:
As described by Michael Levitin at the Atlantic, “nearly four years after the precipitous rise of Occupy Wall Street, the movement so many thought had disappeared has instead splintered and regrown into a variety of focused causes. Income inequality is the crisis du jour—a problem that all 2016 presidential candidates must grapple with because they can no longer afford not to.”
While Levitin’s listing of Occupy “successes” may be a bit over-stated, his point about the splintering and shifting to numerous causes outside the umbrella of a movement that Americans came to find genuinely disgusting, lawless, and objectionable is valid.
Occupy became so justifiably distasteful to middle America that I can’t help but marvel as the same people make the same mistakes. Granted, some of the initial problems have been addressed by the splintering: the Occupiers-turned-#BlackLivesMatter group, for example, has a cause that is clear to its followers and a leadership that is visible and vocal.
The trailer for the film produced by Citizens United and directed by Stephen K. Bannon. “Occupy Unmasked” goes deep into the “Occupy” movement and exposes its origins as well as the radical ideas behind “income inequality” that was the centerpiece of the Obama re-election effort:
The problem for the Occupy / #BlackLivesMatter movement, however, is that their seeming inclination to violence, bullying, and other unsavory tactics are still present.
As I’ve noted previously, the violence and rioting doesn’t help their cause at all, and in fact, has the opposite affect, making Americans more conservative than before.
Writing at Hot Air, Jazz Shaw ponders how the #BlackLivesMatter movement may end up sinking the Democrats. He relates that in an interview, a former Black Panther member said that “At some point, these young people, the Black Lives Matter movement, will have to something more than lay down in the street. Spectacle, believe me, is only a start.”
Taken in isolation, one might raise an eyebrow at this statement and wonder what this former Black Panter member could possibly mean by moving beyond “spectacle”; however, we don’t experience the world in a vacuum. Instead, we remember various Black Panther incidents in recent years such as the voter intimidation case, the call to kill white babies, and one of many separate calls to kill all white people. When the leader of the New Black Panthers has famously stated that America can choose change in the 2012 election by the ballot or the bullet, we don’t have much doubt about their intentions.
Watch:
If Occupy went down for being filthy and lawless, what do Democrats imagine will become of a movement that seems to be actively calling for bloodshed? As Shaw points out, it’s not the conservatives that Democrats need to worry about moving away—we already distance ourselves from anything less than #AllLivesMatter—it’s the independents, Democrats, and progressives who are not only not plugged into the political scene but who are, at heart, not inclined to see the streets of their country run with the blood of anyone, including that of people who look just like them.
Speaking to Democrats, Shaw explains:
When the speaker says that White Lives Matter and All Lives Matter and the crowd screams in protest about how horrible that is, the conservative crowd is going to turn ugly. They’re fine with equality, but they don’t want it turning into some sort of reverse entitlement society. But that’s okay… you’re not hunting for their votes. Instead you need to look at the progressive crowd. They’ve stopped chanting. Wait. What? Our lives don’t matter? Aren’t we all in this together? We’re supposed to be on the same team here.You can try to start in on the long explanation . . . but as the old saying goes, if you’re spending all your time explaining you’ve already lost the argument. And then, when they see the subject shift to the former Black Panther who is talking about “spectacle” being only the beginning and young black people having “to do more than just lay down in the streets” you’ve got a serious problem on your hands. They’re not only no longer chanting… they’re slowly edging away from you and wondering if the folks in the eye rolling crowd [i.e. conservatives] have any room on their bus.
At the end of the day, American voters simply don’t like mean people, so no matter how much effort is put into restructuring and redeploying their social justice warriors, progressives bent on sowing violence and discord are likely to fail. Again.
[Some changes were made shortly after publication related to embedded videos.]
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