Those on the right who mock the protestors by calling them hippies or whingers, or saying "get a job" should watch out. People pissed off about inequality, moneyed interests and free market fundamentalism go far beyond the usual far left and anarchist types who rioted in Seattle in 1999. On the contrary, their grievances are now very much mainstream
http://liberalconspiracy.org/...
I do appreciate there is an increasingly strong sense of injustice, and its not just the usual suspects on the left of politics, but increasingly a lot of middle class even Tory voting people who feel that capitalism is a game, that somehow its rules are skewed against us.
There are a lot of people I think who are feeling quite a lot of the economic pain at the moment. They've got themselves educated, worked hard, and now they feel themsevles almost as losers rather than winners in the way capitalism is operating.
I think its resonating quite strongly and I suspect when the economic reckoning works its way through, as it will in this country in the next year or two, you’re going to see more and more of these sorts of protests which will resonate beyond the usual suspects on the left of politics.
Those on the right who mock the protestors by calling them hippies or whingers, or saying "get a job" should watch out. People pissed off about inequality, moneyed interests and free market fundamentalism go far beyond the usual far left and anarchist types who rioted in Seattle in 1999. On the contrary, their grievances are now very much mainstream.
Even some on the right are now in agreement. Charles Moore, a staunchly Thatcherite commentator at the right-wing Daily Telegraph says "the Left may have been right all along" (I love how the Telegraph gives "Left" a capital L to make it sound extra scary) and says "global capitalism is a game rigged by the super rich".
Other voices on the right such as Moore's fellow Telegraph commentator Peter Oborne and very right-wing Conservative MP Douglas Carswell concur, with Oborne bemoaning the "feral rich". Even Richard Bloody Littlejohn, commentator at the right-wing Daily Mail and darling of the knuckledragging Little Englander far right, concedes the Occupiers have point!
The right have played their card very skilfully so far, and have cleverly managed to turn a crisis of neo-liberalism into one of high state spending. Their friends in the media have helped by stepping up their vitriolic attacks against immigrants, public sector workers and welfare claimants.
However people are increasingly realising who the real bogey man is. Instead of the 'feral underclass' much talked about since the August riots, it's actually a tiny group of feral rich.
In the summer while Obama and the Republicans were arguing over deficit reduction, the matters of debt and the deficit dominated media discourse in America. Now however the media have been forced to finally begin talking about unemployment and inequality, as was seen in the graph that was posted on the front page of this just a few days ago.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
This shifting of the Overton Window (no one in Britain seems to have heard of this concept) has been brought about directly by the protests.
So our opponents can take the piss about hippies and anarchists who haven't showered for weeks all they want, but they shouldn't kid themselves into thinking the protests aren't effective.
The 2008 crash was the equivalent event of the 1973 oil shock. The inflation caused by the Shock turned the countries worst-affected, such as the US and the UK, sharply to the right and the post-war Keynesian consensus died out. The reverse is now slowly happening.
The tide it is a-turning, comrades!