culture

épater la bourgeoisie

Occupy Wall Street is the rage of a privileged elite.  Here are some images of the digs of some of those arrested.

Most of Occupy Wall Street have no demands at all – they are just astroturf, like the grotesquely well paid “striking” employees of the City of Oakland, sent by the the Mayor to join the protest on full pay.  The protestors did not block the Port, rather the Mayor told her port employees not to show up for work.  They were “blockading” an operation that had been shut down by the Mayor.  It was confrontation theater, the appearance, but not the substance, of confrontation.

Yet there is real rage:  Of course, at the protests, hard to tell the real rage from the choreographed rage, though when they smash up a Whole Foods shop or a Men’s warehouse, obviously there is some real rage. Rage is perhaps more evident in the art world, where official artists blessed by the government as real artists (unlike mere kitsch peddlers who have to humbly rely on people voluntarily choosing to buy their stuff) tend to produce utter garbage, to show their contempt for the bourgeoisie that are forced to pay them, the San Jose dog turd being an infamous example.  The message of the San Jose dog turd is “I can shit on you, proving I am more powerful and important than you are.”  The dog turd statue is spittle directed at la bourgeoisie.

The TSA conveys a similar message:  “We can capriciously humiliate you and degrade you, and you dare not resist, or even complain, so we are powerful and you are powerless.”  Obviously security should be given back to the control and discretion of the airlines, and in particular, the captain should carry a gun, and have final decision making authority over security.  No one dares propose abolishing the TSA, even though it is obvious that such abolition would be hugely popular.

Most real Americans think that money is status, think a wealthy guy is high status, though unless he is rich enough to fly by private jet, he gets the TSA treatment like everyone else, and probably with knobs on, since the TSA does not like wealthy Americans.  A lot of George Washington’s resentment of the British may have been that though he had land, money, education, and military experience demonstrating courage, leadership, and competence, the British did not consider him a gentleman, and since he was not a gentleman, felt his money and land to be rather illegitimate and improper.  The “Occupy Wall Street” mob view the wealth of the productive with disdain similar to that with which the British viewed Sam Adams.

One striking difference between the “Occupy Wall Street” mob and real Americans is that the the “Occupy Wall Street” mob thinks that only the virtue industry is high status:  They think that only their inferiors should degrade themselves by producing goods or services that la bourgeoisie actually want and are willing to pay for.  They think a low paid job in the virtue industry is higher status than a rich man who produces what la bourgeoisie actually want.  Their vision of their personal bailout is not that the government bails them out by giving them a well paid job, but that the government bails them out by giving them a virtue industry job, a job where they get to morally or culturally improve their inferiors whether their inferiors like it or not.

The politicians do not rule, merely compete for the job of public relations officer for the permanent and fireproof government employees.   Government employees were made fireproof to supposedly depoliticize the public service, yet somehow recruitment has become more political than ever it was, as illustrated by the infamous Department of Justice, the EPA, and the SEC.  The “Occupy Wall Street” mob reveals these people who rule us are inferior to us, dislike us, and like to harm us.

A real change of government would require a mass political purge of government employees.

 

7 comments épater la bourgeoisie

anonymous says:

One thing to keep in mind about the left’s rage is that it is manufactured rage. They are told to be angry, even though they have no real reason to be.

Conservatives on the other hand, are told not to be angry when they have every reason to be.

Anyone can tell you which type of person is more angry.

If conservative rage ever actually boils over, it could be glorious.

jim says:

The left’s rage is required by their image as opposing power and the establishment, when they are power and the establishment, for example the City Government of Oakland ordering a general strike (with full pay) against the City Government of Oakland, and paying dockworkers to “blockade” the docks, docks whose workers have been sent home.

anonymous says:

They succeeded in closing the port! Hooray!

Anyway, maybe it has already started: white conservative rage, at about 2min:

http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/05/chaos-video/

The video makes clear: “the 1%” is really “any non-progressive whites” and we are no longer entitled to proper police protection. At this point, conservative events in hostile territory should get the full on G8 summit riot police treatment.

@ floyd- You are right of course, they are genuinely angry, their lives are empty and meaningless and suck in general and they don’t even really have the tools needed to understand why or how to fix it

jim says:

A wonderful and delightful video.

The “Occupy DC” mob besieges and blockades “Americans For Prosperity”. The police, whether through incompetence or the malice of their political masters, are nowhere to be seen.

The mob is thumping on the doors. Then the doors briefly open, people sally forth from the besieged building, and the video becomes very confusing. When the scene clears, we see some large rentacops, and someone who appears to be their boss, outside the doors, and the mob has has retreated from the doors, leaving an open path to the street. The mob successfully injured an old lady, but looks to have been delightfully powerless before the rentacops. What is clear is that while the official cops were otherwise engaged, “Americans For Prosperity” sallied forth, the blockade ceased to block, the besiegers fell back.

At 5:02 into the video, the police show up – because the Occupy Wall Street mob is demanding that they arrest some guy for viciously assaulting poor oppressed members of the Occupy Wall Street mob.

The police, who up till this moment have been the evil bad guys that Occupy Wall Street is supposedly confronting, are disinclined to meddle. Come to think of it, I suspect they have orders not to meddle.

A chant arises from the mob “Arrest that man. Arrest that man. Arrest that man. …”

Which chant wonderfully spoils Obama’s story “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The “Occupy” movement was created in large part to dramatize Obama’s story, to tell the story that the state is defending the owners of property from the revolting oppressed masses ground under the iron heel of Capitalism. When that chant sounded, the dramatization fell flat with a horrid clang.

From the beginning, what was intended was a rerun of the left wing occupations of the University Administration buildings of the sixties, an occupation that continues to this day in the sense that the occupation left the extreme left securely in charge of academia. The plan was to socialize through street mobs what could not be socialized through the legislative process. The radical left would take charge of businesses, the way it took charge of Academia. The radical left would terrorize all its opponents, the way it terrorized its academic opponents.

But instead, the mob is crying for police protection from the evil right wingers: “Arrest that man. Arrest that man. Arrest that man. …”

I very much doubt the Left’s rage is manufactured.

Imagine how angry you would be if you had to defend Occupy Wall Street, the emasculation of men, the glorification of dimwitted government employees, etc. I would be foaming at the mouth if I had to voluntarily ally myself with that crap.

money says:

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