The Occupy protests are fighting for freedom, truth, justice, equality, and the right to wear tents as casual attire.
In the course of their battle they have faced many enemies; authoritarian authorities, policing police, the Melbourne weather. But now, it seems, they are to face their biggest enemy.
The enemy within.
For the Occupy protests have themselves been Occupied. Infiltrated by those masters of many dark arts, the Right.
They’re not easy to spot at first, these undermining interlopers, because they mimic their hosts so well. But their presence is evident in the way the protests are now shoring up the stereotype of the Left as scattered stoners, as ineffective bleeding hearts strumming ukuleles as the world falls apart. As people to be ignored.
Like all archetypes, this image of the useless hippy is not entirely baseless. But the Right’s mission has been to ensure that the stereotype eclipses any and all messages the Occupiers want to spread.
You see, the Right got spooked.
In the United States, the Occupy movement has started to have a discernible effect. ‘Occupy’ became the mostly commonly used word in English language media, according to the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Politicians, including US President Barack Obama, have started to acknowledge that they need to address income inequality. Obama has been talking more and more about how the American Dream is “slipping away”, about how the wealthiest people got the country into a mess and things need to change, about chances for everyone. He told the protestors: “You are the reason I ran for office.”
It must be said that the Australian Occupy movement was, from its inception, a shiftless and showerless shadow of its international parent movement.
They are so busy occupying so many things – banks, Christmas, cardboard boxes, Qantas – and fighting for so many things – Aboriginal land rights, better pay for the cleaners of Sydney, a Robin Hood tax – that they start to look not just derivative, but daft.
They should have learnt from the climate change debate that large-scale, complex ideas, despite their very real impacts, tend to alienate a broader audience.
Still, if you can dispel the haze and distil their message, it is an important one. The gap between rich and poor is getting wider. Human need should trump corporate greed.
And this is the message that spooked the Right.
Within their Black Ops unit (the one where they train up the shock jocks), the Evil Grand Master stroked his white cat and told his minions to go forth and disrupt, to grow their hair and sit unwashed amongst the Occupiers, to embed themselves then speak to the media at every possible opportunity and speak nonsense. To make no sense. Give them death by Kumbaya.
And lo, they went forth, and painted signs with Beatles lyrics, and mumbled about love and unity and trust, and uttered their deliberately shambolic words.
They wrote things like:
The idea of societies that allow the co-existence of multiple realities is not a figment of someone’s utopian imagination. It is to assert that, as the saying goes: another life is possible.
Oh wait, hold on, that was from anthropologists writing for the ABC, not right-wing plants attempting to discredit the Left. My mistake.
And yet the plants are winning, the movement is waning, and a recent Sydney gathering heard they may struggle to keep going past Christmas.
Their only hope is to banish the right-wing white-anters, to clear out the Trojan horses.
If the Left is to have any hope of rebuilding its reputation, it must rid itself of these agents imitating dropout dimwits.
They must strip them of their tents, their posters and their place.
Maybe the police can lend them a hand.
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
RT @popculturechris: Meanwhile, Gotye holds no.1 for a sixth massive week in the US - "that" song has now sold over 4 million copies there.
I like how a tip erodes so only you can use it MT “@paulwiggins: BBC News - Why are fountain pen sales rising? http://t.co/0hk2MRtf”
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
Protecting the Barrier Reef is the Fin end of the wedge
When you take on a job like being Environment Minister there’s some hits you can see coming. …
ICB: Is white bread the worst thing since sliced bread?
Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit column. It’s a regular column that looks at skulduggery…
Sometimes, you’ve just got to stick it to the bloody ref
We are taught early in life that we should not question authority. We must listen to our parents, our…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented