A reader writes:
Andrew, I’m used to you painstakingly gathering evidence for your arguments. So where is it that you get the “impression of the OWS crowds is that they express an almost fanatical hatred of anything called a ‘corporation.'” I mean, other than they’re a bunch of dirty hippy kids, is that proof enough?
Nope. Just listening to countless interviews, reading many articles, absorbing as much info as I can. Some proof in the above segment, from the worst kind of hippie. Another reader:
What gave you that impression? As someone who has participated in #occupywallstreet, that is not my impression at all. Have you perhaps bought into the right-wing’s caricature of the movement (however slightly and/or unintentionally)?
Most of the #occupiers are smart enough to not “fanatically hate[ ]” anything. What
they find dispiriting, and the focus of much of their collective outrage, is the manner in which the corporate form is abused by human actors to colonize (for lack of a better term) the political system and to perpetuate class injustice. I feel like such a scold, as the last time I wrote it was to express that I “expect better” of you. But again: I expect better of you, Andrew. You audience is simply too large, and your voice too influential, for me to ignore moments like this in which you propagate unfounded stereotypes from the detached comfort of your blogcave.
As an aside, and for illustrative purposes only, did you fail to notice that the official Facebook page of #occupywallstreet eulogized Steve Jobs upon his death? This is not a movement that fanatically hates corporations.
Another reader calls the above cartoon Sully bait. Another:
But isn’t it also true that pointing out that their world is saturated with corporations proves their point? That point being that corporations have their hand in everything we do and that we’ve grown so complacent that we assume this is the best thing for all of us, even when those corporations act against our well-being. If corporations weren’t saturating our world, OWS would be less necessary. It’s not really a critique to point out that they and all of us have no choice but to let corporations into our lives.
Another:
I just think you are wrong about OWS and corporations. I wish I had more to back this up than just my watching the livestreams all day and night, but here goes:
We don’t want an end to corporations. We want them to hire us.
We just want them to stop being jerks. To return to society the all-for-one spirit that we gave them. To wake everybody up that we are all in this together, not in the splintered, fractured groups we’ve been put in by political abuse. To say enough is enough. Everybody play nice.
Especially the banks and credit card companies. Yes, it’s been oh so amusing, their little parlor game where they try to wring out every dime from the customer that they can (raising rates, fees, etc.) I especially “loved” the last trick BofA ever pulled on me: putting my deposit in last after the checks that day so that everything bounced and I suddenly “owed” them hundreds of dollars. (Hello, local credit union, nice to meet you.) But now it’s time to stop it. I will now use my Mom voice. STOP IT.
I think the world we all hope will emerge is not one without corporations, but one where society serves the needs of the people, corporations and governments alike.
And yes, that world will have my iPhone, and I will meet you at Starbucks. (Not really, their coffee is terrible. Over-roasted beans to get you to buy junk to put in it to kill the bitterness. Flipnotics in Austin is far and away a better coffeeshop.) And I will meet you after WORK and spend some of the money I made, helping a corporation to help society by making good products and treating people fairly.
Yes, there are some kids with End the Fed and No Corporations signs. But I think it’s more of an overdrawn sentiment, a feeling, an emotion, much like my STOP IT. Not to be taken literally, though the young person holding the sign probably thinks it does, with his young, overweening heart. That’s okay too.
One more:
You throw a “fanatic” blanket over all who are part of the OWS crowd, and that is a lot of people. I even have a picture of my 64-year-old conservative mother with a “We are the 99%” sign. She thinks the Republican party left her about a decade ago and they are still in the wilderness. She and my father live with me because they lost their home in 2008. They have both worked my entire life (I am 31 years old) and are both very loving and generous people.
It is not greed or envy that motivates many in the OWS movement but rather the lightning speed with which our social fabric – our opportunity for all society – is coming unraveled, and the fact that no one with the power to do anything about it, who promises to do anything about it, ever does.
Since I’m working on an essay on OWS, I’m grateful for the input. Perhaps the word “fanatical” was too much. But the anti-corporation know-it-all hippiedom is part of this movement, and it’s dumb.
The Dish 