Conservatives Are ‘Fighting the Last War’ Against Occupiers

While remotely controlling my life last week, I clicked my way around Cable News Land and here’s what I encountered in about 20 minutes:

Click: A leggy Fox Morning News blond sassily saying that the Occupy Wall Street crowd had to do one thing before anything else: “Shower” she yelped and wrinkled her nose while the guys flanking her smiled, Adam’s Apples’ bobbing. Later a toothsome brunette guest commentator testified that most of the Occupiers “were so high they couldn’t string a sentence together.”

 

Click: Emaciated conservative humorist P.J. O’Rourke asserting that the protesters’ actual leader was a set of bongo drums, then proceeding to demonstrate by playing air-bongos with his bony hands. This unfortunate performance only showed the audience that if O’Rourke would get more airtime, he would quickly replace Dennis Miller as the most loathsome conservative “funnyman” on the face of the earth.

 

Click: Cross-eyed, token-black GOP shill Ron Christie looking every which way while instructing the protesters to “Get a job.” He then intimated that on his recent visit to Liberty Park, he saw people engaging in open sex on the lawn, eye-balled brazen drug use, spotted filth everywhere (including an abundance of feces) and concluded that the demonstrators were both un-American and shamefully shameless.

 

And all around the dial there were thundering quotes from GOP presidential candidates, Fox commentators, Republican elected officials and assorted right-wing yakkers charging the Occupiers as being disgraceful, dangerous, potentially deadly and certainly capable of tearing this nation apart via class warfare. Not surprisingly, almost all of these individuals cited, with voices cracking, “the children” as being their overriding concern.

 

The problem with this particular strategy is that it involves utilizing the same fatal practice that has brought down many of history’s greatest generals: Fighting the last war. Labeling the protestors dirty or unpatriotic or juvenile or subversive; or of being simply a small, silly number of idle-rich college partyers not representative of the great Silent Majority; or of being a mob of commies or criminals or freaks or druggies or whatever, has been the scorched-earth tactic that has worked quite well, thank you, for the Republicans going all the way back to the ‘60s and before.

 

But these arguments won’t work this time for one simple reason: On the most basic level, the vast majority of Americans agree that there is a real problem with the wealth disparity in this country and that tens of millions of people are suffering because of that massive gap. Historically, most protest movements begin with a small group representing a minority position in opposition to something that’s generally popular with the majority.

 

In this case, however, the relatively small group of Occupiers represent a majority of the country and are railing against something (Wall Street, et.al) that’s increasingly unpopular. Which is why the tactic of trashing the protesters with the same tired dirty-hippie-commie charges that have been the Right’s go-to move in the past and may have worked against those opposing the wars in Viet Nam or Iraq can’t and won’t succeed this time. All movements end up being numbers games and, in this case, the numbers are hugely in favor of the Occupiers.

 

The Republicans have always cried “class warfare” when the Dems go after the super-rich because the righties believe that most people think they are going to be rolling in the dough someday and therefore – intoxicated by the prospects of their own soon-to-be opulence – would eagerly take up the banner of the put-upon rich. Even during good times, this contention seemed a bit of a stretch. However, during the current brutal economic situation, it’s kind of the understatement of a lifetime to say that not too many folks feel on the verge of becoming millionaires.

With their strident attempts to overkill the Occupiers, conservatives have come across as clueless in the face of the millions of “regular” Americans from just about every demographic group who can instantly identify with the frustration and plight of the growing numbers showing up in hundreds of cities and towns around the country.

 

Melville wrote that in order to discover the truth one must “strike through the mask” to find out what’s behind it. For too long America has been locked into the diversionary, “role-of-government” debate which obsesses over the “tastes great, less filling” taxes vs. spending argument that is really little more than a circular firing squad in which each side shoots at the other’s special interests in order to mask their own narrow concerns.

 

And that’s all well and good up to a point. But this shell game is a distraction from where the light of truth needs to be shown. Which is on the grotesque influence of money in politics, as primarily represented by the huge corporations, dominant financial institutions and obscenely rich plutocrats who are pulling the strings that have produced the chasm between the top one percent in this country and everyone else.

 

When the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott took place – ignited by Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat – a gear shifted in society. Something similar may be happening now. And it doesn’t matter whether or not Occupy Wall Street unfolds without a hitch; or if it sputters, splinters and stalls for awhile; or if vast numbers don’t navigate the winter on the streets; or if there is a spate of infighting, co-opting, or violence; or if right-wing infiltration and withering propaganda against it financed by billionaires goes into overdrive; or whether or not Obama officially endorses it (he would be wise to be very patient and let the positive momentum flow freely. As of now – and in the foreseeable future – neither needs to be formally tied to the other).

 

None of these potential stumbling blocks matter as long as there is steady, grassroots organizing and careful coalition building assembled through hundreds of smaller cells and, ideally, punctuated by occasional mass rallies – all of which will be greatly helped along by the Republicans’ whistling-past-the-graveyard vilification of the usual suspects with the usual hysterical taunts. But most of all Occupy Wall Street can’t fail because, as Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”

 

And as far as this burgeoning movement for economic justice being class warfare, I say it’s about time.

 

 

Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com

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