Occupy Encino? The Galleria anyway!

We have our very own Occupy the San Fernando Valley group here now in Encino-Sherman Oaks.

Every Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays at 6:00 pm. We will OCCUPY Sherman Oaks. Our events are at the intersection of Ventura Blvd and Sepulveda Blvd where the Sherman Oaks Galleria Shopping Mall is located. We have several “BIG SIGNS” that anyone can use; or you can make your own—nothing nasty or rude.

When I checked them out last night at 6:40PM there was one lonesome guy with a placard saying “We are the 99%” and he was waving it at traffic. He did get noticed. Other friends saw him but, because they belong to the Marie Antoinette party, they mocked him over dinner. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone is in his corner though:

Well, you know what, Mike Bloomberg? FUCK YOU. People are not protesting for their own entertainment, you asshole. They’re protesting because millions of people were robbed, by your best friends incidentally, and they want their money back. And you’re not everybody’s Dad, so stop acting like you are.

Wow! He is right of course. So my compliments to the lonesome guy who was protesting. At least he is doing something when most people seem content to complain and do nothing. But the criticism from the other side is more valid: when it is 54 degrees and dropping, couldn’t you reschedule this for a time when other people might like to join in? Like Saturday and Sunday at noon perhaps? Better still, why not wait till Spring?

Can’t wait? Bringing about change is difficult. Both left and the right are depressed or outraged. They want drama and they want catharsis. They want the “nasty and rude” option, but this leads to riots and going after the rich and soldiers shooting at people. The Occupy movement is grappling with this, looking over its shoulder at the Anarchist violence in Oakland, without settling yet on what the problem is exactly, other than the banks. Today is “Bank Transfer Day,” by the way. But the problem really is that there is blame to be spread among all of society. Protestors also might want to focus on their own folly in all this, at how this has become an entitlement society, where the rich are the most entitled and the rest are envious. Shame begins at home.

The Occupy movement is squarely middle class and polling indicates their primary focus at the moment is opposition to corporations and their control over politicians, rather than income inequality. But, one thing to note about the middle class is that its members have no idea how rich the super-rich are or that the jobs that are disappearing are not coming back. The middle class must find a way to enlist working class people in their cause, or those working class people will back the 1% against the shrinking middle class. That’s how things have worked historically. Popular protests are rarely effective and violence is not the solution, at least not in this case.

The moral dilemma that is presented to the weak in a world governed by the strong: Break the rules, or perish.

It is the best piece of advice George Orwell ever gave (it was in 1947). So, how do you break the rules? That is the game we are in now.