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Saturday, October 8, 2011

Occupy You Know, I'm Totally with the Protesters, I Am the 99 Percent, But, Um, Some of These Speeches...

Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 3:45 PM

Earlier today up on the stage a man was yelling about the actor Christopher Reeve and the country of Chile, about how we all needed to be more like Christopher Reeve was when he visited Chile, or something—it was hard to follow, and there were cops on horses on hand, and somehow the associations made it hard to avoid picturing horrible equestrian accidents. Poor Christopher Reeve. What a bummer.

Next thing I knew, another speaker—more like a screamer—was yelling about how the FBI controls the media. Then there was a spoken-word artist I missed ("He read a modified pledge of allegiance to corporations and the man," I'm told), but I made it back in time to hear the lady yelling, "HOW MANY IRAQIS HAVE DIED? HOW MANY IRAQIS HAVE DIED?" and then whispering that Ron Paul is "the only one," and adding, "And one last thing. They all need to go. They all need to go. Right and left. And no more hate! NO MORE HATE! I'm not Muslim, k? I'm not Christian, k? I'm spiritual, I'm not religious."

Now a banjo is happening.

You know what would be awesome, organizers? Some more great speeches. We have any of those coming up? Executive Secretary of the King County Labor Council David Freiboth was great earlier today—can he come back? Maria Guillen was articulate, charismatic, and on point, too—you have more to say, Maria? What's the mayor doing? What's the county executive doing? What's the governor doing? Could we at least get a good band down here?

Comments (12) RSS

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All the good bands are too busy getting paid by the "top 1%" to make it.

Posted by KittenKoder

on October 8, 2011 at 4:19 PM

Uh oh. Does this mean that the Seattle professional protesters have showed up? Was anyone there selling socialist newspapers?

Posted by TLjr on October 8, 2011 at 4:31 PM

Bono is counting the 550 million he made from foisting Palm off on the middle class.

Oh.

But you don't want to hear that...

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on October 8, 2011 at 4:35 PM

I agree. I was there earlier today and many of the speeches felt off. I could see others around me shaking their heads at some of the things being said. Better speakers are needed. It also doesn't help that their trying to incorporate some Indigenous protest in as well. Not really sure what that is even about, but it was muddling the message today.

Posted by Conrad McMasters on October 8, 2011 at 5:01 PM

Well... you know the saying, "90% of everything is crap"?

It means only 9% of the "We Are the 99 Percent" speeches won't be.

Posted by Timrrr on October 8, 2011 at 5:29 PM

@4: They were here first!

(No, I don't mean here as in "here in pre-proto-America before the white man came." I mean: they had already gotten a permit, scheduled & planned a rally for Westlake on this afternoon, well before the Occupy Seattle people ever considered occupying the park.)

They'd called dibs already.

Posted by Timrrr on October 8, 2011 at 5:34 PM

You can't wonder why even the most sympathetic people look at these protests as a complete waste of time.

It's all about the diversity of democratic voices, right?

Bullshit. It's embarrassing to any thinking person.

And why I and most the people I know won't go back down there. We've seen all this before. The Seattle activist scene is like a perfect distillation machine for sanctimonious deluded dipshits that wouldn't know the working class if it came and cleaned thier yoga studios.

Posted by tkc on October 8, 2011 at 5:38 PM

Is Radiohead coming?

Posted by Thom Yorke on October 8, 2011 at 6:00 PM

It's a REVOLUTION! and you're bitching for the mayor and the the county executive to come speak to you?

really?

Posted by is King George available? on October 8, 2011 at 6:49 PM

@4

The indigenous stuff is a vestigial bit of the underlying theoretical Anarchism that the protest organizers subscribe to. Your more academically inclined Anarchist today has studied peasant and aboriginal uprisings all over the world, and there's a bit of a reflexive need to include some sort of "native" group in every Direct Action.

There are things to be said for their all-inclusive organizational approach-- for one, you don't have anyone bitching to the press about how their subgroup has been ignored. There's also an internationalist facet to it; it's not accident at all that you've heard about Occupy Wall Street protests in "countries all over the world"; these are very much a planned part of the Direct Action, and not completely spontaneous shows of sympathy. That's good for press, too.

But yeah, it's definitely a big, big problem when it comes time to rouse the rabble at a rally.

Posted by robotslave on October 8, 2011 at 8:48 PM

This was the Indigenous People's Rally, not Occupy Seattle. The two are not the same, although the former accommodated the latter, and the latter accommodated the former. The former after about 3pm turned the amplified microphone over to whoever wanted to use it, and clearly stated that they were doing so, so I'm not sure why the latter is responsible for the content.

I look forward to the correction.

Posted by trstr on October 9, 2011 at 2:55 AM