On Black Friday, the true colors of the Occupy Wall Street movement really shone through.
Premised on the idea that it speaks on behalf of 99 percent of Americans, the Occupy movement is in fact deeply contemptuous of the masses. In no way was this made clearer than through the alignment of the Buy Nothing Day campaign and the Occupy movement.
Part of the Occupy X-Mas initiative, which will last throughout the holiday season, Buy Nothing Day kicked off the day after Thanksgiving on so-called Black Friday. This is when vast numbers of Americans go on shopping sprees with hopes of laying their hands on cut-price flat-screen TVs, sneakers and other goods that are on their families' Christmas wish lists. Many get in line hours before the shops open, some even set up tents and camp in front of stores to get in early.
The Occupiers are apparently horrified at the prospect of seeing malls and high-street shops filled with the bargain-hunting masses, or 'the 99%' as the Occupiers call the American people, when they need to align great numbers to their cause in order to give it an air of legitimacy and popularity.
But of course Occupy Wall Street never spoke for 99 percent of Americans. This was always a fantasy figure that lent itself well to sloganeering and to presenting a black-and-white view of the world, according to which the powerless masses struggling to get by are on one side, and the fat cat CEOs and reckless bankers are on the other. In this Star Wars-like narrative, the Occupiers serve as the heroes who will purportedly save the masses from their downfall by enlightening them and campaigning on their behalf.
The message that the Occupiers want to send through their anti-consumption campaign is that Americans have been brainwashed by corporations, that they have been induced to blind over-consumption and unthinking acceptance of the messages put out by 'the 1%'. As one Occupy sympathizer recently put it on the movement's website: 'The working class in this country has been brainwashed by MSM, Fox News, and the right-wing propaganda machine... We need to de-programme people against the brainwashing they've experienced.'
This is the Occupier's Burden, a kind of re-vamped version of the civilising mission described by Rudyard Kipling: to 'de-program' Americans and, in the meantime, render them voiceless and clueless so that the apparently enlightened Occupiers can justify stepping in to define their interests for them and to speak on their behalf.
The message of Buy Nothing Day follows in this vein. Initiated by Adbusters, every anti-consumption hipster's must-have mag, the campaign is essentially promulgation for mass austerity -- a point well-made on the American Situation blog -- and it is an elaborate way of telling people they are stupid, irresponsible, greedy and shallow. For this year's Black Friday, Adbusters promised 'flash mobs, consumer fasts, mall sit-ins, community events, credit card-ups, whirly-marts and jams, jams, jams!'
It was Adbusters that originally called for the occupation of Wall Street back in September and designed the Occupy movement's stylish posters and other propaganda. In a message posted on OWS' website in the run-up to Black Friday, Adbusters says:
You've been sleeping on the streets for two months pleading peacefully for a new spirit in economics. And just as your camps are raided, your eyes pepper sprayed and your head's knocked in, another group of people are preparing to camp-out. Only these people aren't here to support Occupy Wall Street, they're here to secure their spot in line for a Black Friday bargain at Super Target and Macy's.There you have it. On the one side are the Occupiers, ready to deploy every thinkable kind of shenanigan to bring the message home to those on the other side -- i.e. vast numbers of ordinary Americans -- that they are 'rabid consumers' hooked on 'conspicuous consumption,' that they are acting like zombies by pigging out and destroying the planet with their addiction to cheap electronics and videogames.
A video ad for the 2007 Buy Nothing Day shows a globe in which a big, fat, lip-licking, burping pig sticks out of North America. A voice-over informs viewers that 'we are the most voracious consumers in the world -- a world that could die because of the way we North Americans live.' In short, Adbusters and their fellow Occupiers see Americans -- or, in their own lingo, 'the 99%' -- as gluttonous, obese pigs. What a joyful holiday message.
Follow Nathalie Rothschild on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@n_rothschild
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The Extreme Economic Inequality they refer to does in fact exist, held in place by the Public Policies imposed Legislators whose principle goal is remaining in power and therefore, are loyal to those that fill their Re-election Campaign Committee's coffers.
Does the OWS Movement offer a solution? I'm not aware of one, as yet. But the injustice they call our attention to, does in fact exist, as does their Constitutional Right to Petition Government to Address their very real Grievances.
Nathalie could show a little more comprehension, if not sympathy.
In Rothschild's venal diatribe, she never once confronts consumerism, but only tries to demononize those who tell truth to power, who ask questions.
You do not have to march with OWS to identify with that group to know something is terribly wrong in this country, where income inequality growing, the money is the only form of free speech, where those in financial power give themselves obscene bonuses while at the same time sending someons job overseas.
Also, Christmas is not just about presents
AND if you have to uses credit cards, perhaps you should ask yourself if you really can afford it.
What about instead of lavish gifts putting money away for your child's education? For your retirement? In case you get laid off?
What about the gift of your time to volunteer, in donating to good causes, to helping someone who is lonely and alone during the holidays?
I mean, there are plenty of good reasons to take stock of consumerism, and this rather nasty piece does nothing to instruct,to provide insight or to uplift in any sense of what Christmas actually means.
Ms. Author, I may have misread your intended tone but by the end of our post you ended with "in their own lingo, 'the 99%' -- as gluttonous, obese pigs. What a joyful holiday message," which sounds like a stab at Occupy.
To be honest, yeah...the Average American is overweight, consumerism in the United States is gluttonous, yes it happens to be holiday season. Don't punish, chastise, or write off people for being accurate.
The socialization of capitalism must succeed
Soulless, libertarian, antigovernment rhetoric
Promoting self-serving feudal 1% overlords
Freedom is responsibility
Not regressive opportunism
We are all cattle, commodities
Quarterly profits, planned obsolesces
Buying fleeting gratification
To what end?
We fear a plant the government tells us to fear even though it's been proven to help greatly with pain, and even cancer.gov has to admit it has shown anti-tumor properties. I'd say that constitutes being brainwashed.
As is mentioned here on huffington post, black friday shoppers walked over a dying man in order to save a few bucks.
We support products that are built by near-slave-labor overseas. We allow corruption in government because we are so used to it.
No, you're right, the average American doesn't need a major re-education. We're doing great.
I imagine that a responsible dictatorship can actually be far more effective than any democracy. But that requires a dictator who truly is wise and cares for his people deeply. It requires that he always looks out for the needs of everybody and finds solutions to problems. It requires a lot of careful compromise. And I don't believe such a person exists.
I stand by my statement - at the moment most people still don't spend the time to learn about relatively important things going on around them. This needs to change.
Also, it is a good reminder that you don't have to go into debt at Christmas. Considering that the credit card companies have outrageous interest rates, it is a good idea to not use credit cards.
It feels good to give someone a gift, so buy presents, but that is not what Christmas is only about, and the author seems to have forgotten this, in what is a rather sloppy diatribe.
Sadly many Americans do not. CHRISTmas was hijacked by capitalism and turned into X-mas. Nonreligious people celebrate a Christian holiday...in a sacrilegious manner....
just an observation.
Best article so far on the ridiculousness of the OWS movement.
My favorite part:
‘But of course Occupy Wall Street never spoke for 99 percent of Americans. This was always a fantasy figure that lent itself well to sloganeering and to presenting a black-and-white view of the world, according to which the powerless masses struggling to get by are on one side, and the fat cat CEOs and reckless bankers are on the other. In this Star Wars-like narrative, the Occupiers serve as the heroes who will purportedly save the masses from their downfall by enlightening them and campaigning on their behalf.’
You sum it up perfectly.
Kai
A few clarifications on your talking point:
a) 99%, as the author points out above, is an arbitrary number picked to elicit class warfare. In reality, about 30% of Americans identify with OWS, and of them only about 20% strongly identify…so what you think is the 99% is really just the 30%, or worse, the 20%
b) Just be being born in America, we are already in the top 5% of global population. Does that mean that you are angry at Americans for taking more than their fair share of global wealth? We should tax Americans and give it to the Chinese along with our jobs to make sure that it is fair, right? Additionally, since we are the 5%, and there are 20% (as above that) feel they should take more, they are really the 20% of the 5%, or…wait for it…the 1%
c) True we have income disparity, but another word for that is meritocratic reward. Since the same amount of national income is going to labor as in the 1970’s, it is not the greedy rich investor class that is taking the money, it is other people in the labor pool who have adapted to skill-biased technology change.
d) income disparity has what ghastly effects? Research shows that it has almost no effect on the economy. Anyway, most measurements of income inequality are incorrect, with the US having the same GINI that it had in the 1950’s.
Kai
nor did it create the reasons OWS has struck a strong chord with people who aren't hipsters, and those who might be considered to be the 'masses; that is,
if you want to de-individualize a population into a lump, or the 'lumpenproletariat'.
OWS strongly is abut the end of the bad joke that is corporate personhood, the end to the graft and usary on Wall Street, and pro elections in which money doesn'y play a central role.
The anti-consumerism movement is a component, but hardly the sole focus.
Also in regards to that movement, there is variety even there. There is the Shop Local mvmnt, Shop U.S.A. Mvmnt, Shop Small Business Mvmnt, DYI (Do It Yourself, as in make it yourself) Mvmnt, and then there are 'freegans' who celebrate dumpster diving, recycling street finds, and revere that type of 'shopping' That the Back Friday sales were up strongly points to how important a bargain is to so many people who are struggling, but also it's true that some people reward themselves with objects, rather than valuing interpersonal experiences more highly; such as a day playing with one's children. It's complex, and once again Adbusters doesn't speak for OWS.
Lumping, is the opposite of being on the side of the 'people' as the 'people' are thankfully a very diverse group.