nedhepburn asked: come at me bro

lol well I wrote this in response to you reblogging my reblog with “So your comeback is ‘You are wrong’?” and a Jack Nicholson picture which I guess you deleted immediately (and maybe posted one or two other things which you also deleted, sorry if this is one of those can dish/can’t take deals):

Well first of all I’m not really “coming back” here, since you were not personally addressing me with this, and I’m saying “It doesn’t seem like you really know what you’re talking about” more than “You are wrong,” but now that you mention it I do disagree with pretty much everything you have to say:

  • I don’t think that they lack a coherent message at all. It’s all about inequality, and I don’t think anyone could look at the protests and honestly say things like “they don’t even know what they’re protesting” and all that nonsense people were saying in the media and elsewhere a year ago. You’re right that inequality has always existed, but in the United States at least, it had been getting better, and now it is getting worse. Social mobility is going extinct. I think that is a very worthy cause to take to the streets over. Why wouldn’t it be?
  • You’re right that they throw in every issue under the sun, but you’re wrong that that’s a bad thing. It’s all important, and it all blends together anyway. It makes no sense to say “stop talking about the war on drugs” when in reality people should be talking more about the war on drugs, not less. Actually it does make sense, but only if you’re looking at Occupy from like a “marketing” perspective, which is the same kind of perspective that brings us like pageview journalism and Jonas Brothers reality shows and everything vapid under the sun. And in reality, Occupy has done a lot for these side causes — for example people are talking about fracking and “Stop and Frisk” much more because of Occupy in my opinion. I think that that’s actually a really great thing about Occupy, that they recognize that people actually have attention spans and don’t need everything broken down into bumper sticker slogans (though they do have some catchy chants).
  • And just in general, you present your advice as if they’re some fuckup movement that’s achieved nothing. They’ve achieved a lot! They really disrupted the news cycle for a few months there, and issues like class are still being discussed now, even with all the election nonsense going on. They don’t need a leader or spokespeople or whatever, because they’re not actually trying to take shit over. There could be better organization at times, but they still do get their shit together, like today, and like the massive May Day rally, concert and march that I guess you forgot about.

So once again, you write these posts from a perspective of being some kind of authority on organizing protest movements, and I just don’t buy it, given the fact that what you’re actually presenting is, I won’t say Fox News, but like, extra-bad CNN (Erin Burnett) talking points. And you’re just so smug and derogatory about it to boot! There’s really lots to criticize with Occupy (organization certainly, which I think is a problem lately due to low enthusiasm), but for the most part you’re actually picking on the good things about it, and you’re also being really obnoxious about it.