You know, I shouldn't have to write this, really. I shouldn't.

I'm over fifty, anglo caucasian, professional, comfortable, and sedentary (well, I work in the garden and take walks, but...)

I'm enormously privileged by The Current State of Things. Mind you, I'm a long, long, way from the top 1/10th of 1 percent. Not even close to the top one percent or even the top ten percent. I'm probably hovering comfortably at the upper end of the 60-80% quintile, if you count my esposo as well as myself.

By all measures, I shouldn't "get it."

Y'all are pundits, bloggers, media mavens, commentators, talking heads, and even a few journalists. You're most of you a lot younger and probably way hipper than I am. Your job is to know stuff, to have a finger on the pulse, to analyze and interpret and comment intelligently. To observe and report. You're supposed to be able to "get it." Especially when it's splatted upside your head, repeatedly, with the emphatic sensory impact of a large, wet, dead, fish.

And you STILL can write ***t like this, from the New Yorker:



::sigh::

Really.

Let me spell it out for you, as clearly as possible:

The Occupy Movement has a demand. It has been relentlessly repeating this demand since Day One. It is a simple demand, but with vastly complex ramifications, which may be why it's beyond you. Here it is:

The Occupy Movement demands

CHANGE

Really. It's that simple, and that complex.

And I can hear you forming the words now, and let me tell you before you even open your pie holes: SHUT THE **** UP

You know DAMN' WELL what "change" means, and what it implies. Among other things, it means a world where ordinary working people are valued, compensated fairly, respected, and regarded as fully participating members of their communities, with an equal say in how things are done and why. A say equal to that of the rich folk and the business barons.

Among other things, it means a world where people are people, and a Constitution written and implemented to protect and guarantee our rights is a living, powerful document that DOES NOT APPLY TO CORPORATIONS.

Among other things, it means that the RULES for making money are focused on preventing those trying to make money from doing so by screwing hell out of the rest of us.

I invite others who "get it" to add to the definition of "change," but, really, it SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY.

You should KNOW this shit.

If I know it, in all my un-hip, educated middle-class over-fifty privilege, you should surely know it. Pretending you don't know it reveals you as either clueless idiots, unthinking tools, or witting shills for our Beloved Oligarchs.

Which is it?

Oh, none of the above? Then STFU about the "formlessness" or the "leaderlessness" or the "lack of coherence" or the "need for a demand" or any other halfwitted meme feeding into our Beloved Oligarchs' increasingly anxious need to split, control, and disempower this movement.

Grow the hell up and learn to say the "C" word with a straight face. THEY KNOW WHAT WE ARE DEMANDING.

They don't want to deliver it. They want to parse it out into a dozen points they can apply reductio ad absurdum tactics to, reframe, and use to reinforce the status quo.

So they stand there with this pseudo-naif expression mouthing variations of "What do you mean by 'change?'" (After all, it depends on what the definition of "is" is, doesn't it?)

Bite me.

I should not have to be writing this AGAIN, after all these days and weeks when it has grown increasingly clear what is needed and who is on what sides of the divide.

I just shouldn't.

curmudgeonly,
Bright