Lately, we’ve gotten used to the only demonstrations in the U.S. being held by weirdos with tea bags hanging from their Colonial-style hats. The Tea Party demonstrations were originally populated by gun-toting, Hitler-mustache-on-Obama-waving, dollar-bill-at-sick-counterdemonstrator-throwing nut jobs. Today, each of the candidates of one of our two major parties has to kow-tow to them.
Now, perhaps inspired by the Arab Spring, perhaps by this summer’s high-rent demonstrations in Israel, or just because they are fed up, a bunch of twenty-somethings started the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The movement is in it infancy. We don’t really know what these hippies want. And though I don’t agree with every sign out there, I do agree with their disatisfaction with the fact that all of our money seems to go to bail out banks, rather than to student loans, healthcare, etc.
For now they seem just as wacky as the Tea Partiers did a couple of years ago (except their women are hotter and their chants a lot jazzier — “This is What Democracy Look Like” is a favorite ditty).
So why did the New York City Police feel the need to spray several of them in the face with a noxious chemical? After they had already been penned into riot barriers? I won’t venture a guess so as to not add fuel to the fire. I will say that I don’t remember them doing the same to the Tea Party.
What will happen with this new movement? It’s too early to tell if they are the Coffee Party to the the right’s Tea Party (I doubt they will take that name and I hope they don’t since it is a reaction to something rather than being reflective of an organic effort)? Or will they fizzle out when the weather gets cold?
One thing I do know: If the right wanted them to disappear, having those young women injured and the video played on international television and blasted to everyone with a Facebook account was a very, very bad moment for them.
As a side note, I would like to wish all my readers a G’mar Chatima Tovah, the traditional greeting Jews give each other during the week in between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (A Good Final Sealing) . This is the season of solemn introspection and for pleading for and granting forgiveness. If I have offended any of you during the year, please forgive me. After Yom Kippur comes the Feast of Tabernacles, culminating in one of the most joyous holidays, called Simchat Torah. I hope we all are able to experience both serious introspection of extroverted joy.