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Tags: New York, Occupy Wall Street
Both the Occupy London and the Occupy Bristol encampments ended up looking so depressing…they dwindled down and down until, in the case of Bristol, they disappeared into mud and eventually were moved on by police. When I was in London it kept striking me that there was something oddly archaic about the language and imagry the movement was using. It was all the same 1970s Hippy slogans and flags which all the people in suits learnt to ignore and dismiss long ago. It made me feel very disconected from something that I theoretically agreed with. I thought that to make an impact we needed new colours, new slogans, new language and, yes, new actions which in England would involve greatly increasing the turnout of voters (look it up, it’s shockingly lower than you would think).
Additionally, I know of a lot of people in support of the movement, but flumoxed by the fact that in order to join it for any length of time they would have to quit their jobs etc..and who right now would leave a job to join a protest which looked like it was going to fail pretty early on?
I don’t know..it’s a hard one…I just felt when I went past the camp in bristol every day a dislocation with it, despite agreeing with all the philosophies. Maybe it is my own impatience which would make sitting in a tent for more than 10 minutes unbareable..but I just couldn’t help thinking ‘what are you achieving 3 months on? They’ve ignored you and they’re going to continue, why not put yr energies into trying something else?’