Thursday, October 6, 2011

Have Youthful American Wall Street Protesters Caught "Arab Spring" Fever?

Roger L. Simon contends that that--along with the usual youthful longing for a "social justice" Utopia--is what's behind the Wall Street hijinks:
An additional factor in all this is something I might call “Tahrir Envy.” Misbegotten – in fact in most ways disastrous – as they were, the demonstrations in Cairo’s main square have caught the fancy of the world’s youth. They want to be part of it, even to the extent that vast numbers of Israelis (actually dwarfing the Wall Street demonstrations even though drawing on a far smaller population) have camped out in the streets of Tel Aviv seeking their version of economic justice — all this with Israel one of the few developed countries relatively unaffected by the economic downturn.
“Tahrir Envy,” indeed. Everyone wants to be part of the show and the insatiable media needs a subject. Factor in too something that might be called “Tea Party Envy.” The left, historically the ones making the noise, were shocked, appalled and, yes, envious of the Tea Party being the prime focus of attention over the last couple of years. They yelled and screamed imbecilically of racism and now they have a demonstration of their own. (That won’t stop them from screaming racism, of course.)
Where will this all lead? In the short term I’m betting on the good sense of the American people who will ignore the demonstrators while evicting the current president in November 2012. 
I'm betting it will lead to more demonstrations as the V For Vendetta crowd dust off their Guy Fawkes finery and continue to "protest" against amoral Capitalism. (For some idealists/anarchists, there's nothing more compelling than getting to show off your costume and your virtue in public, something you can't necessarily do on Halloween.)

V for Vendetta--and virtue

1 comment:

Al the Fish said...

Maybe just send Anderson Cooper down to the park so they can rough him up like at Tahir to see if that satisfies them.