I have considerable experience with this message, and I'm here to tell you: Don't Fuck With Elmo. It's futile. Self-destructive, even.
There will be those who take my message in a less friendly or loving spirit, and that's fine too, in the sense that I don't give a flying fuck. But here's the point: there are people who aren't unsympathetic to the presumed message, if not to some of the wackier statements from individuals interviewed by the media dolts covering the protests, or simply overheard ("reclaim public space"? What the Fuck does that mean? How is it differentiable from "prolonged vagrancy"?). Making traffic worse is not going to capture their sympathy.
There's another element here, which is a little less kind. #Occupy is about as much about sociopathy as much as anything else, by which I mean occupiers asserting that their sociopathy is no less legitimate than the sociopathy of greed. Blocking K Street highlights that. I hate to give the police such a sparkling idea, but there's something to the notion that an aerosol delivery system for Adderall would be way more effective for controlling the protests than is pepper spray, and without the complications of bad PR. I concede that in a very small number of cases, Thorazine would be more appropriate.
Please don't mistake me; sociopathy works just dandy for me. Personally. Your sociopathy does less for me. Sorry, it's the way the thing works.
It's like I said the other day: don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.** Sure, like BFF said in my comments yesterday, it's cool and fun and sophisticated to piss off power, though given all that I'm not sure why he didn't keep smoking like the rest of us cool kids. That gives the lie to any contention that this isn't about sociopathy. But there are sympathetic people out there--me among them--who have as much right to have a day unfucked by other peoples' choices as BFF has to fuck up their day. While my personal day wasn't fucked up, my Wednesday travels didn't take me anywhere near the downtown business district, seeing as I'm smart like Federation (thanks to BFF for triggering that happy memory the other day). Another day, another pattern of geography? I'd be through being cool.
* Yes, while I was not raised on Sesame Street (my brother, 5 years younger, was--that places me pretty precisely, no?), I'm aware that the cited meme predates Elmo, by a lot, having emerged in the halcyon days of original
** I am increasingly aware that this admonition applies to every word ever uttered, on the Internet or elsewhere.
6 comments:
This is not my fight but I want to say that if Occupy takes action that pisses off the 99% especially when they're just trying to get home, they're doing it wrong.
Oscar makes us strong.
My unimportant burg having all-but-zero occupation (i.e. not a damn thing blocking the roads but the occasional orange barrel) I've certainly given this jazz much less thought than you guys, but shorter:
the old way of dealing with shit doesn't work, so here's a new (old) way (that also won't work), and if some fuckers get pissed off, crumbling cookies.
If I was one of those fuckers instead of the fucker that I am, would I feel differently? Possibly, who knows. I have zero qualms about being late TO work due to drum circles or blizzards (though I don't have the private sector's instantaneous damoclesing hanging over my neck where being late is akin to murder) but I do enjoy getting the fuck out of here.
I also feel that any ism involving humans is bound to suck for a sizable chunk somewhere, so, I have a point, I just haven't discovered what it is.
I *am* sure about the suckitude of the Browns.
Oscar is purple trash. While I personally believe that we don't need his kind littering my kid's playroom...Bam-Bam differs. Bam-Bam rules, Bam-Bam is strong like Federation.
Thank you, well said, and I remain open to the very real possibility that the Browns sucking is the point.
Did you realize that Bert & Ernie are gay? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you. This coming from your elder, Landru, who tuned into the original Sesame Street b/w classes at Chapel Hill stoned out of his gourd. Did you know that 'sesame' is like a metaphor for dope, man? It's almost like an herb or something. Far fuckin' out. It wasn't quite as psychedelic as, say, The Electric Company. Nevertheless.
Logistical question: How you gonna' Occupy anything in any city anywhere without getting in somebody's way? Everything is a thoroughfare. And if the 99% is really 99%, how are you not gonna' inconvenience some segment of them as they're trying to matriculate from pt P to pt Q? I mean they're fucking everywhere.
Getting in their faces, getting their attention, pissing 'em off: that's tactics, man. If it's all the time, everyday, that's one thing. If it's only occasionally, then 'oh right, I'm awake and slightly aggrieved (read 'inconvenienced')' is a win. I mean, that's how Rovian rabble-rousers rouse the Republican rabble in the lead-up to elections—god, guns, and gays. Rove's minions do it with BIG money and TV talk and commercials and robocalls and direct mail and chain emails, etc. They piss 'em off so they'll be motivated to vote. I don't think this is conscious motivation behind the occupistas. But these poor fuckers @ Occupy Wherever have zilch but the public square—which is being sold out from under them even as we speak. And you would begrudge them that? Who mentioned Oscar?
Oh, and all politics is sociopathy.
Love,
Jim H.
Don't say "gay" on my motherfucking blog, you dirty hippie fuck. My motherfucking children read it.
Don't take this the wrong way, but are you sure you left your bag of weed behind on Franklin Street?
I wholeheartedly approve of your final reduction on the calculus of sociopathy. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd fucking gay-marry it.
I really do hope that you'll make sure BFF lets me know when you're next in town, Jim.
I was pre-Elmo, in fact we didn't even have tv when I was little. (Because it was broken, or so dad said...)
Anyways, I did have a little brother and sister much later who lived on TV, but as far as I can recall, Oscar was "One of these things...".
P.S. O.K., but I'm over 50, ya know.
~
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