In the journalism world, they teach you to fix the headline of a story to be some sort of a one line summary of the piece at large. Two weeks ago, popular Washington Post blogger Ed Rogers boldly declared in a three word headline above his article what many had begun to speculate.
“OWS (Occupy Wall Street) is over.”
Although I’m a few shades more to the liberal side in comparison to Rogers, I’ve got no other option but to begrudgingly agree with the man. I believe it had all the promise and potential in the world early on, but in the end it’s what you get out of it that matters; not what you put in.
We, the American people, are walking out of this with nothing and that’s exactly what we deserve for letting this movement turn to crap.
The OWS movement was ideologically beautiful; a manifestation of the sing-songy chant, “The people united will never be defeated”. In the end, numbers and standing around were not enough and the movement wielded about as much true influence as Hands Across America in 1986.
I had unknowing written the phrase “in the end” twice within the first 200 words, and it’s telling of the latent sense of demise most clear-thinking Americans are feeling right now. As much as we’d like to metaphorically strangle a few Wall Street execs and see the disentanglement of corporations and democracy, it’s just not going to happen this time around.
Why?
The methods to achieve the final goals were inherently flawed.
My heart absolutely goes out to those who are gathering at points across the country demanding a morally-sound reform. I love it.
But camping out, chanting, walking around in circles, chanting Kumbaya, or generally having a big hippie carnival in front of a building isn’t going to change to world, and you’d be a hopeless romantic to think otherwise. It won’t happen.
Not in a million years.
America has turned it’s back on people living on the streets for years; they’re called the homeless. It’s disgusting that we as a nation have the capacity for ignorance of that magnitude, but it’s the sad truth.
The more the movement grew, the more it filled with folks who’s opinions are not often taken as seriously as others. Our own Occupy Huntington began to abandon itself after drug use and the potential for violence started to grow from within.
Occupy Wall Street was, is, and will always be beautiful to me, but it was ruined by hippies.
This movement was killed by drugs, unwashed hair, and general lack of perception.
Thus is life in 2011.
