Now that the weather is less clement and more seasonal, the “Occupy [Insert Location Here]” movement may go into hibernation. Since its start with Wall Street less than three months ago, it has spread to most major cities — Denver has whined about spending about $800,000 on responding to the protests — as well as some spots that aren’t cities at all.
The most recent edition of Colorado Central, this region’s monthly magazine, shows folks carrying “We are the 99 percent” signs in Coaldale and Villa Grove, as well as Alamosa and Salida. But they just march; if anybody’s set up camp, I’ve missed it.
While the Occupy gatherings may abate for a while, I don’t think the anger of our 99 percent is going away. Why should it?
We’re in the third year, at least, of a recession caused by Wall Street greed. (Blame the Community Reinvestment Act all you want, but nobody held a gun to the ratings agencies and forced them to assign high ratings to collections of sub-prime mortgages.)
Millions of people are worse off than they were. And yet the banksters have more money and power than ever. The bailed-out banks that were “too big to fail” are even bigger. The Republicans keep calling mild-mannered President Barack Obama a socialist. If only.
This falls hard on the young. I’ve seen or read scores of accounts that go something like this: “I worked hard and got good grades. I had to borrow money for college, where I also worked hard and got good grades. And now that I’ve graduated with honors, I owe thousands of dollars and can’t find a job. I thought I was playing by the rules, and look where it got me.”
That’s not a bad description of my own kids, both honors college graduates, except they also own houses that are under water.
As near as I can tell, one main goal of the Occupy movement is to remove the cloak of invisibility from people who would never be featured on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” In America, we basically follow the antics of the 1 percent — the top-tier entertainers, athletes, writers, industrialists, what have you — and ignore the rest.
This brings to mind a theory I developed 40 years ago in college. Call it “Why America will never have a revolution.”
In those days, revolution was in the air. The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane all sang about it. Every college town had a “revolutionary commune” or two, along with an agit-prop underground newspaper. There was Students for a Democratic Society that morphed into the Weather Underground, along with various groups proclaiming their adherence to the theories of Mao Zedong or Leon Trotsky.
Yet when the dust settled after all that ferment, there hadn’t been anything within a day’s ride of a revolution. Over time, it became clear why. Abbie Hoffman was promoting his books. Eldridge Cleaver offered a line of designer jeans. Tom Hayden married a movie star.
It seems clear that anyone with the energy, talent, charisma and chutzpah to lead a revolution in this country becomes a celebrity. And once you’re getting $50,000 a pop for speeches, you’re going to see the system somewhat differently than you did when you were panhandling for your next meal.
The American system really is a work of genius, for it channels ferment in such a way as to maintain or even strengthen the system. So I predict Occupy will return in the spring — and produce a few celebrities who’ll join the 1 percent.
Freelance columnist Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
