Lord of the Flies Beds Down in Animal Farm.
The Occupy UK shower have done their best, there was always a delicious irony in their making their bed in the guest accommodation of the wealthiest ‘corporation’ in Britain and certainly the one that pays the lowest rate of taxation, whilst protesting against ‘capitalism’; but all credit to them for forcing the caring sharing happy clappy Church of England to reveal that their concern for equality and the poor ‘they are very welcome to stay’ only lasted until the moment that worship at the altar of Mammon, in the form of the temple traders, shop and restaurant, was suffering a downturn in projected profits. ‘It is with great regret’ etc…
The dedicated student of irony needs to cross the Atlantic though, for there in the land of ‘we do it bigger and better’ the New York chapter of #Occupy (Wall Street) have truly excelled themselves.
Take a few hundred people, dedicated lovers of equality and freedom of expression, apparently professed of a hatred of hierarchies, organisation, forced taxation, violence and all the other apparatus of the state, termed ‘anarchists’ by the media and watch what happens…
We have all ready picked out the irony of the unwashed matted hair, the ripped and torn designer jeans, to be worn with accompanying $5,000 Mac powerbook…but there are certain other givens in this new tribe of ‘anti-capitalism’, you must be unified by discordant sounds.
Thus it is that the insistent beat of the ‘new age’ drum music is heard day and night. Dum, dum, dum, Dum, dum dum, they pound away, hour after hour, drawing attention to their cause. Some of them anyway. Some of them slept. (God knows how, no one else in the vicinity did!) Whilst they slept, others, who had perhaps heard tell of the ‘fringe benefits’ of being a drummer, crept in and stole their drums.
The ‘sharing’ that they demand of the bankers, did not, it seems, extend to themselves.
All animals are not equal in Wall Street protests; a hierarchy has built up, a disciplined hierarchy worthy of Lord of the Flies. It seems that in just a few short days they have acquired Regressive Taxation:
“The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips.”
The drummers demanded $8,000 dollars in ‘rebate’ to allow them to buy new drums; they played their victim trump card:
“The majority of the drummers are people of colour with low-income or no-income backgrounds, and Wall Street was built by slaves when they brought the Africans over here.”
“Yo! Man”, they said: “We have worked for you! Appreciate us,”
To no avail. That’s the trouble, working for fledgling capitalists; the organisers were unmoved.
“Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt, a drummer. “We’re like, what’s going on here?
They have new leaders, ‘facilitators’:
“Someone has to be told what to do. Someone needs to give orders.”
Enter Health and Safety, in the form of a self appointed ‘Facilitator’:
Daniel Zetah, a 35-year-old lead facilitator from Minnesota, mounted a bench:
“We need to clear this out. There are a bunch of kids coming to stay here.” (An early example of ‘think of the cheeeldren’?)
Cue property rights: One of the hoodied men fought back:
“I’m not giving up my space for fucking kids. They have parents and homes. My parents are dead. This is my space.”
Before too long they had repression of free speech: “…a facilitator in a red hat walked by, brow furrowed. “Remember? You’re not allowed to do any more interviews,” he said.
Even a fledgling Libertarian Party, protecting their own! “Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.”
Lest we forget the origins of this ‘sit-in’ – the disgraceful activity of the sinful bankers, members of the United States of America tribe who had made everybody’s life miserable and must pay for their actions….
Listen to Michael Glaser, facilitator, on how to deal with members of a tribe who make life miserable:
“This is its own city. Within every city there are people who freeload, who make people’s lives miserable. We just deal with it. We can’t kick them out.”
As I said: Animal Farm morphs into Lord of the Flies.
October 27, 2011 at 08:56
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I do not remember where I read it, it was a long time ago, but it went
something like this:
If all the wealth and money in the world were to be
collected and equally redistributed among all people on this planet, by day
two, there would already be those who would have spent all their money
foolishly. Within a month there would be rich people and poor people and
within a year the situation would have returned more or less to the time
before the equal redistribution of wealth.
The ‘occupy Wall Street’
movement is just a bunch of the that group of people who, no matter how much
help they get, their default value is always ‘poor’, simply due to their
attitude to life.
Go get a life and leave the hard workers working for your upkeep. If you
destroy the rich, you would all die of hunger.
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October 26, 2011 at 15:41
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With all those tents being left empty at night and the number of homeless,
I am surprised that squatters haven’t moved in!
- October 26, 2011 at
09:45
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Hilarious
- October 24, 2011 at 08:49
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These occu-pants also a vital source of entertainment in the lovely country
of Northumbria:
http://caedmonscat.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-eyed.html
They’ve
had their pep talk from their spiritual leaders, too..
http://caedmonscat.blogspot.com/2011/10/inspecting-troops.html
Bless.
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October 24, 2011 at 02:16
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There was a story online about a OWS protestor in NYC who mounted a 70 foot
statue. And when he got on the top of it he demanded many things of Mayor
Bloomberg, including his first demand for a cigarette.
Maybor Bloomberg, having just spoken in front of the UN’s General Assembly
a week ago and having said that a “government’s most noble duty” is to
implement smoking bans, indoors and out, along with bans on salt, sugar,
transfats and anything else deemed unhealthy, is no way going to stand for an
OWS demanding for a cigarette.
Although the OWS NYC was going to not be rounded up and sent packing, now
that they have publicly demanded – a cigarette – Mayor Bloomberg is certainly
going to have to “do something” – as that is clearly breaking government’s
“most noble duty” – and will require the utmost attention.
- October 23, 2011 at 22:02
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Idea! Will gladly chip in for a ticket to send them to a bigger place, free
of law and capitalism, where they can work out their theories. Only, nobody
under 18 as it could get nasty.
I’m thinking: Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan…anywhere there’s a big space and an
obliging government. If they are right, they’ll be building paradise and
finding out all over again what America meant, and if they are wrong we’ll
have one heck of Big Brother show to watch. I’ve never bothered with these
ghastly simulations but I’d like to watch the real thing.
- October
24, 2011 at 11:17
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^
This!
- October 26, 2011 at 00:32
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Awesome – I’ll chip in to that
- October 23, 2011 at 20:53
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We’re all equal, but just some pigs are more equal. Guess we have to learn
and live with that. I “loved” Lord of the Flies BTW; the book rather than the
film. Have to look up Shaun of the Dead now …
- October 23, 2011 at 19:46
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The protest outside St Pauls will finish this week.
Rain is forecast.
- October
23, 2011 at 19:09
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… and next week Lord of the Flies will morph into Shaun of the Dead.
- October 23, 2011 at 18:26
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This sort of thing should be encouraged, for the behavioural research and
educational potential.
I hope there are plenty of sociologists and historians in there,
undercover.
Is it possible that none of them are real?
- October
24, 2011 at 11:16
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Maybe they’re all sociology and history graduates?
After all, there can’t be that many McDonalds needing staff in the
country, can there?
- October
23, 2011 at 15:43
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Wonderful stuff. They are discovering for themselves how human society
works. Very soon they’ll have they’ll have people ‘ocuupying’ them. ‘Bigger
fleas have lesser fleas etc…’
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October 23, 2011 at 12:59
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I hope these sit ins continue for months.
What better way of clearly demonstrating the rank worthlessness of the
‘protestors’ and of their ‘ideas’.
- October
24, 2011 at 11:15
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They won’t continue for months. As the Starks know, ‘Winter is
coming’…
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