I AM 99%

Solidarity is something of an illusion.
The media has been reporting for weeks that the Occupiers don’t have demands or a clear message. It’s not that the occupiers don’t have a message, it’s that they have a hundred messages, not all of which are compatible with one another. As I saw just Sunday, even the folks at Occupy LA can’t agree with one another. They literally held something like a coup over the no weed policy.

There’s one exception to this and that’s the near universal dislike for authority in general and the police in particular. Disliking the cops when they show up to roust a campsite is probably the only thing that can truly unify these folks. No wonder Occupy Oakland is now the emotional center of the movement.

And that’s the worry. Having seen it up close, it’s hard to imagine this movement can survive without some galvanizing violence to bind the various factions together. I think on some level the occupiers already know that. And that means we’ll probably see more and more violent confrontations with police either now or in the winter.