While it may be that the Fat Lady has not yet sung–we do have an entire Summer and Fall to get through after all–it does look like the “Occupy” movement is sputtering badly and may soon be completely extinguished, having done little of significance except add a few barely-coherent ideas into our political discourse. I find this both a bit of a relief and disappointing at the same time. As I’ve been saying for the last year, no matter what the merits of your position may be, self-righteous rage, incoherent sentiment, and failure to take showers do not a successful political movement make. Even if they do manage somehow to re-surge, unless they completely change strategies and tactics they’re more likely to be a problem for President Obama than his opposition. Being Not-A-Republican, and Not-A-Tea-Partier, and Not-A-Conservative, I find that all disappointing. As Walter Russell Mead says
The ideas behind OWS are more important than the movement; questions about the legitimacy and the consequences of liberal capitalism are going to be part of the political discourse as long as markets produce socially disturbing and morally questionable results. It is natural and healthy for young people to question society and to explore the alternatives to the intellectual status quo…neither Thomas Jefferson nor Andrew Jackson would celebrate the crony capitalism that the conventional establishment takes for granted.
Mead says other things that need saying too. I suggest you read the whole thing by clicking here.
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Dean Esmay is the author of Methuselah’s Daughter. He has contributed to Dean’s World, Huffington Post, A Voice for Men, Pajamas Media. Neither left nor right wing, neither libertarian nor socialist.