Last Tuesday, during his speech at a local high school in New Hampshire, the President inadvertantly encountered members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, who used their human mic as a means of heckling him. Watch:-
You have to assume that the people in that audience attended this event in support of the President, that most – if not all – of the local people attending this were Democrats. Their reaction to the chanting protest of the Occupy people tells me that, whilst liberal, ordinary and small town America might sympathise with some of the stated concerns of Occupy Wall Street (namely income inequality), they are not overly enamoured when the protesters pull stunts like this.
First of all, you’re barking up the wrong tree when you assail a President like this – chiefly, a President who, within the constraints of a particularly obstreperous Congress, is working for your interests and your benefits – far more the only admitted political hero of the Occupiers, Ron Paul. Paul might legalise pot and bring the troops home, but he won’t lift a government finger to help you when you OD on something nasty or when the Army discharges you and you’re homeless. If you’re hit by a natural disaster, you’d better have insurance. If you’re a woman, get used to practicing celebacy because birth control and right to choose will be a thing of the past. And then, there’s the little matter of “property rights …”
These people need to realise that a lot of what they want changed can only come through legislation, unless they want to cast off this form of government to one more dictatorial in nature. Many of these protesters are piping the meme that voting is of no use whatsoever, that it accomplishes nothing, that both political parties are the same.
I say … wake up and smell the bullshit being served you by your “iconic voice,” Michael Moore. Most of these people were probably too young to remember or maybe they’re choosing to forget that Moore propagated that tripe in 2000, and look what it achieved.
Quite frankly, if OWS thinks to target Obama with protests, they may as well become card-carrying Republicans now, because it’s the Republican party behaviour like that aids and abets. That’s what the GOP wants.
If you have to protest politicians, target Congress or, specifically, your Congressman or Senator. Voting is the real way to make your concerns known and to effect change.
If you think, as well, you’re emulating some romantic notion of the protests which occurred in 1968 – the ones being spun has having “brought down a President,” then think again. Lyndon Johnson chose not to run, and the people you’re trying to channel turned on Hubert Humphrey, arguably the most liberal and populist Democratic candidate since the second World War. Humphrey really was for the 99%. He was part of that dynamic.
But the protest movement turned on him. Within five years, their successors were turning on the unions and the Southern and Midwestern working classes. It was the beginning of everything you see now – political movement to the Right, the depiction of anyone no the Left as idealogical, weak on defense, weak on crime and – in the case of their patron saint, Gary Hart, morally weak, also.
The protest movement of the 1960s was instrumental in creating Nixonland, Watergate, Reaganomics, Trickledown and George W Bush. Believe me, what OWS’s naive protest of Democratic events will unleash a whole generation of rabid Republicans, who will make Nixon and Reagan look like babes in the woods.
If nothing else, let the reaction of yesterday’s audience, who ultimately drowned you out, tell you one thing you need to know: this President is not your enemy.
