David Warren – ‘Money talks’ (Ottawa Citizen, October 5, 2011)

    

David Warren recommends that rather than complaining about banks, Occupy Wall Street demonstrators should purchase bank shares so they too can reap dividends.   This would allow the demonstrators to donate their newly acquired wealth to causes they see as having merit.   What Warren is offering is sage ‘let them eat cake’ advice.  He fails to consider that ‘Money talks’ is precisely the problem. 

Of course Mr. Warren’s whole premise is that the demonstrators are both bullies and wealthy (and by extension spoiled and arrogant) students.  I’m not sure which scientific study he draws his information from.  In my experience the mainstream media is expert at missing the all-ages aspect of such demonstrations – easier to film the flashy and potentially violent than the toddlers and grandparents (both age groups I’ve seen at every post-Seattle demonstration I’ve attended).  Why photograph an elderly person with a clever placard when there might be a broken McDonald’s window in the offing.  Also, contrary to Warren’s assertion that protestors are one-trick ponies, I don’t know a single person who regularly participates in such events who doesn’t engage in other forms of political activism.  Perhaps I’m very lucky and have a group of sophisticated friends.

With the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations one senses there is something larger happening than Warren’s dismissive comments suggest.  For instance, my parents (mother being in her mid-70s, father in early his 80s) are welcoming the recent demonstrations with comments such as ‘it’s about time’.  Now I have to say my parents, rural Canadians who worked hard their entire lives (and still work hard) are not exactly rabble rousers.  In fact, until this year I would have argued they are the exact opposite of rabble rousers. What does it mean when they surprise me by supporting the demonstrations – and this only a few moths after voting NDP for the first time in their lives!  Perhaps they are on to something.  Of course even Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney takes an understanding view of the recent demonstrations – stating in an interview that the protestors have some valid points and legitimate concerns. 

The day before the Ottawa version of Occupy Wall Street I spoke with two people who planned to attend the demonstration.  One is a twenty-something cook and the other a thirty-something business owner.  Clearly neither of these folks fit into Warren’s wealthy student stereotype.  Of course, even if the movement was made up entirely of students I would say: so what?   Let the youth be smug and not altogether clear on what they want or how to get it.  And while I’m sure there are many affluent students out there, most of the ones I know are mired in debt and don’t have any job assurances when they finish school.    

Warren makes additional missteps when he criticizes the movement for not possessing a clear agenda.  As if this could be possible after a mere few weeks with any given body of loosely affiliated people.  What really puts Warren’s piece beyond the beyond is when he champions the mature Tea Party movement in comparison to Occupy Wall Street.  Warren writes, “The Tea Party types have not taken to the streets, and their organizers have consistently struggled to maintain civility: to ostracize any member whose behavior or loose talk detracts from the dignity of the movement.” 

Dignity?   Clearly this is not true – one only has to look at persistent Tea Party rhetoric which claims that President Obama is not American and that he shares traits with Hitler and Stalin.  Even when Tea Party members do confess to ‘going too far’ with rhetoric, the line is that it was all done in the honorable name of spreading a vital message.  At ‘Occupy Ottawa’ I saw no such outlandish hyperbole.  There were none of Warren’s ‘bullies’.  Actually the whole affair was pretty sedate.  I did see a guy dressed as Robin Hood.