Forgetting to remember

I guess it's inevitable that Occupy Wall Street will give in to the pressure to issue a list of specific policy demands, but I still wish they wouldn't. A list of demands would turn a protest movement into a hostage situation. It risks becoming a form of blackmail. "Agree to this list of conditions or we'll never return this captured piece of property." And OWS isn't a hostage situation; it's about calling attention to a broken system, not trying to take advantage of the brokenness to achieve the wishes of a small group undemocratically. This is the kind of thing the banks and financial institutions have been doing that we're all so unhappy about.

Anyone reading this has got to be familiar with current Doctor Who, right? The banks and corporations are the Silence. You're supposed to forget they exist as soon as you look away, but they own our country and our government and our mass media. To follow this analogy down the most obvious path, the Occupy movement all around the world is like the Doctor and his team. For the past month they've been the ones making us notice what we're conditioned to ignore and forget, and telling us not to look away.

(Yes, I realize that analogy followed to its logical conclusion leads to the human race being conditioned to kill them all on sight, but I hadn't really thought that far ahead. There is such a thing as being too literal, okay?)

The people in Zuccotti Park aren't the ones doing the occupying. They're the ones protesting the occupation.

crossposted from Google+