The Occupy Wall Street protest is going strong. My liberal tendency is to somehow join with them by donating money, by doing my own little bit to spread their cause. Every time I get close to moving forward and doing something, I head to the website and do a bit more research and this is where I run into problems.

The biggest problem a protest like this has is that it is set up to be leaderless. There isn’t a central committee, a fixed organization or a group of spokespeople you can go to for accurate information. Everything is kind of free form, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The issue that can arise is perception from our own preconceived notions and that from the press and from individuals with their own agendas.

One thing that has troubled me is there is no central agenda, no message or goal that I can see from the protest. I’m all for protesting to protest, but there has to be a point where there is a goal. This has become a big gripe fest, at least as presented by the media. Even when the media is favorable, as was shown by Up with Chris Hayes this morning, for someone like myself I’m still trying to see if this will have a reason for being, other than people being upset with The Man.

A good majority of the press has focused on the oddball factor. It’s like with the San Diego Comic Con, where every year over 100,000 people show up in normal clothes for the sole purpose of hanging around with likeminded people, but if you look at the coverage of the convention you would think people with arrested adolescent development issues, costumed freaks and nerds are in attendance exclusively. In the case of Occupy Wall Street, drum circles, dancing hippies and free hugs devotees have been given the bulk of the coverage. I was pleased to see Chris Hayes had people on who didn’t fit that mix.

What made me turn around and not do anything this time was when I went on the Occupy Wall Street site I saw where food could be donated, but there was a disclaimer to make sure the food was as vegan as possible. While I didn’t think this would happen, in my head I had images of the dancing flower power people mixed in with a liberal helping of Joe Friday from Dragnet railing against the free love of the hippies. I kept wondering, me being a meat eater and all, would I even be accepted in their ranks. I was able to shrug this off as silly, but the deeper issue for me was how truly accepting would this group be of me. I’m not conservative by a long shot, but I’m not about to bang a gong, dance around a pole and hug a tree just to show how free I am. By the same token, I’m probably more in tune with the group, and I would dare say that someone like myself, just like the people Chris Hayes had on his show, would be the exact people you want to have supporting the movement to have it grow from a perceived bored rich kids protest to a American citizens protest.

I know I have been hard on Occupy Wall Street but in reality I do want this to succeed. Their central issues, as far as I can tell, are things I believe in and I have been railing against for years. My fear is, and I have two big concerns, is that because of the hippie perception a majority of the press is presenting about the moment it will be dismissed as unfocused frustration of youth, or that the movement will be co-opted by other, more organized organization with their own ulterior agenda.

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More Occupy Wall Street Musings - October 02, 2011
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