Occupy X

Back to the Occupy (insert place) movement.
The Occupy X movement has been plagued by a lack of meaning.  Protesting has become a fashionable badge that people like to wear at a certain age, mostly since the 60s.  It didn't change anything then, and it won't now.  Older adults often participate in the desperate hope that they really aren't older, and because it was fun when in college.
The overall direction of the protesting appears to be about inequality.  This seems noble; a peasant revolt against the kings; the proletariat against the oligarchy.  The problem is, that is exactly what it is.  Inequality has always exist, and will always.  Inequality is what allows each one of use to strive to improve, to better the self in some way.  It is unfortunate that there isn't a clear message as that might allow some root to take hold and have a real, albeit small effect.  The revolution started by Ross Perot played a real role nationwide for a few years.  It was not as held back by youthful idealism and poverty as the Occupy X movement, but eventually did itself in.  Jesse Ventura brought it screaming front and center, and then let it die as the idealism collided with reality.  Occupy X will probably host a few candidates in 2012 for office.  Few will be elected and reality will affect the rest in a predictable manner.  Witness the Tea Party.
The bigger issue is that most of us are in the center.  We aren't 99% vs 1%.  We aren't red vs. blue.  We are the middle two purple standard deviations.  We are going to work, paying taxes, walking dogs, raising kids (some of us) and voting.  Occasionally we do join the national conversation by joining together in meaningful ways to make a difference in something we believe in, then this is labeled as "special interest."  But, I'm digressing into a future blog.  The point is, there are two ways to influence the system.  Money and violence.  Money works, and violence is thankfully usually quashed by money (in this Country - mostly) at the same time the means marginalizes the message.  Since Occupy X doesn't have money, violence is the unavoidable option if they really do want to have an effect.
There was the case recently of the police officer using pepper spray against Occupy X protesters (somewhere) in California.  Pepper spray is a tool that should be used against people who are actively resisting.  The protesters were passively resisting.  However, once the police give the order to leave, there are two options, and only two.  One, follow the order and hopefully find a way to get arrested in the process (Occupy X thinks the courts are a good venue for free speech).  Two, the police force the order.  If they don't, then the police orders in general will only be suggestions, and the situation will escalate.  The policeman in question should not have used pepper spray, and he certainly appeared to enjoy it.  But, once the order was ignored, it had to be enforced.  The police would have been just as demonized if they had forcefully ripped the protesters apart and paddy-wagoned them off to jail.  It was a no win situation.  No sympathy for the protesters, they got their voice.  Sympathy for the police?  Not really, but they had no choice.
So where does this leave us?  I guess money is still driving the system.  Unless Lenin was right, it is the past, present and (slightly depressing?  or less idealistic?) future.