Occupy!

They are against war, poverty and injustice…the question is, who isn’t? There seems to be a general theme when protesters cluster into urban campsites to exercise part of their First Amendment right and wave crudely fabricated posters with simplistic narratives that often do not even address the reason that they themselves purport for their assembly. I am not at all against the freedom of assembly, though the incumbent stipulation of such is that is peaceable, a fact often overlooked, and it is an implication of a free society; and where would civilized people gather without the right granted…underground, I suppose, metaphorically though perhaps literally, but this is not really civilized at all, is it? Occupation has a distinct way of smothering ‘occupy movements’. That is, an occupied or employed man or woman, does not have the excess leisure to trash public parks without having any real person or group to whom they are addressing their grievances. They often do not even know the names of their Senators or Representatives. The pervasive vagueness of the motive of the majority of these gatherings is sobering, and being “against corporate greed” is a noble position to hold, but hardly warrants an imbecilic display of general discontentment with corruption. Perhaps one of the reasons we will “always have the poor with [us]” is that we will ‘always have the greedy with [us]’. This does not negate the dignified desire to halt it in its tracks, but campout sessions where, far too often micro-capitalistic economies of their own are generated as a few smart ‘occupiers’ exploit (notice, “exploit” has a negative connotation) their fellow occupiers buy selling over-priced food and hand-made items to them, while they vociferously promote their movement as one of redistribution of the wealth and disparage the government not handing out more goods and services. In other words, hypocrisy is ubiquitous – as common as people themselves.