*Disclaimer #2: Damn, this is long. If you claim you've read it all, I'll give you a free sample of Mitt Romney's ego. It's gonna save your business and brag about it for decades!
It is only October 7th and already the Occupy Together, which saw its birthplace in Lower Manhattan and conceive originally as Occupy Wall Street, has already spread its influence (in most part injected from the political revolutions in the Middle East collectively known as The Arab Spring) throughout the most important cities in the United States.
Writing in utter honesty, I can personally say that I humbly support the points, ideas, and the core essence of the movement and the different approaches these people, united in solidarity (excuse my Latin American Socialist jargon), bring to the issues that they are combating. So far, I have also enjoyed the peaceful manner onto which they have set as the basis of that charismatic, neo-countercultural, protesting style; however, as a human being that bears a certain sense of individual opinion, I also agree that the outcome is bound to end in bureaucratic failure.
I shall proceed to establish a number of points that will hopefully relate to my argument and subsequently support it.
While the United States and its population has experienced a decade of greed and socioeconomic imbalance and the protests are well defined by the right to free speech and moral justice, the country is also noted for being frankly more developed and, at some objective extent, far more transparent than most governments in the world. The need for revolution in a nation as modernized as the United States is far from being necessary.
The movement itself is incredibly disorganized. And, although its presence over the internet is well-known and somewhat nifty, it lacks physical balance and order; demonstrations holding this magnitude, with many sub-movements and deltas, require formal representation from various leaders that are willing to share a common agenda with their entourage; to adapt a quote from George Carlin, "poetic, but impossible".
The rules of capitalism, a system on which the United States has systematically developed and grown into, abides to the very deep of howl of being humans, we are all greedy and selfish by nature. These two "emotional stigmas" adapt steadily into a person's character once they assume a great position of power. In short, no such thing as a Philosopher King is possible; every person that ascends to a position of hegemony and leadership is bound to be at least a little greedy, regardless the economic and political systems we find ourselves living in.
That being said, the influence that capitalism has evoked into the sharping of modern-day United States is quite large, for good and for bad. While most of the socially democratic points that these protesters argue for may eventually incorporate into a more liberal America in the near-future, some are too extreme and base-lacking, such as eliminating the Federal Reserve and dismantling the Military-Industrial Complex off the American political system. Again, socialist-democratic entreats have employed themselves into the economic development of "highly advanced, but not quite there" nations, as it is the case of Argentina, Chile, and even Brazil. Geez, it has worked perfectly for Scandinavia and, for a long period of time, post-Celtic Tiger Ireland; however, we may only limit our system to adopt a handful of foundations that make up these ideals, such as universal healthcare and government-induced sanctions and regulations on corporations. Just throwing that out there.
While manifestations as largely concentrated as these could result in subsequent success like (if the reference fits) the Civil Rights Movement, a protest that assumes a vast number of "radical" stances in the eye of mainstream American politics will only fade with time, with a legacy rich in motive but rather poor in actual legislative and executive influence.
Democratic change, while allegedly granted and left to the people (as it should be), is mainly up to our leaders and representatives, who, by the way, we often tend to elect out of desperation driven by empty promises, generalizing a candidate by its party. Our leaders will only bring change if they desire to do so; In the midst of an event as important as this, our constitutional vote for change is not any vaguer than the ease of creating a political limbo of stigmatizing, reforming, vetoing, overriding, passing, and then stigmatizing again. The circle goes on and on and it takes unimaginable years to understand, let alone break.
Finally, to wrap up this post that resembles the structure of a really unnecessary essay, the closest alternative to bring change into the map is to elect our representatives among the crowd of young, bright minds across this movement. Be prepared to be disappointed when human nature strikes them, though. It's going be a long, long, long process to see the minimal amount of progress. And, as far as I'm concerned, the conservative sphere that has inflicted bias into American society is huge. Only a handful are wise enough to see pass it.
Well, I'm sorry for this testament being too big. I promise next time I will blog about Bill O'Reilly's claim that anyone agreeing with these protests is a "darn hippie". God, I love that guy.
This is my opinion and my opinion only, not a statement that ought to be taken for granted. Feel free to challenge it; I'll be more than happy to embark on a friendly debate.
Thanks for keeping up.
Ruy.
P.S: Did you really read all of it? Geez, that's dedication. Here's a picture of Michele Bachman with funny captions written on it as a cheap reward:
