The best way to hit Eurozone-type numbers is to use Eurozone-type policies.

A fellow SF writer noted, on his blog, that it seems (at least judging by the wearethe99percent tumblr) like alot of the emotional impetus behind the Occupy Movement comes from people who identify as middle-class but feel like America has broken its pact with them. The tumblr is rife with stories about people carrying 100k debt loads from undergraduate and graduate education and yet being unable to find jobs in the fields that they trained for. It’s these kind of people–those who’ve experienced downward social mobility–that are probably going to be the ones upon whom success or failure will hinge.

One of the basic differences between then and now is the nature of criminal records and how easily searchable they are. If you get arrested for disorderly conduct now, any future employer can (and almost definitely will) spot it on a background check within 10 minutes of considering your application. You probably won’t ever have a chance to explain that you were standing up for your ideals–even if they did bother to find out the reasons for an arrest, HR personnel wouldn’t risk their own careers on hiring someone with a record when there are 40 other spotless candidates with similar resumes.

One of the reasons there were more successful protests in the early 60s was that the black community had so little to lose. The jobs that people had, if they had them, didn’t preclude public protesting and the occasional arrest as they do now. That said, if unemployment hits eurozone-type numbers (or worse) in America and young people truly lose faith that they can ever get the type of jobs that prevent people like me from protesting today, then we might see some serious action.

–Tristan

I am not sure I can agree with you on King’s goals. He not only wanted a government that didn’t encourage discrimination, he also
wanted a ban private discrimination. This is still fairly controversial and I imagine it was even more controversial at the time. Secondly, he also wanted some kind of economic program aimed at assisting blacks (and poor whites). He explicitly linked this demand to reparations for slavery and called it back wages for years of unpaid labor as slaves. This was also fairly controversial.

I think that King’s message and the message of the civil rights movement as a whole has only taken on a kind of post facto clarity as years have passed. I have a strong suspicion that for people who were there, on the ground, things were not very clear at all.

I think that Occupy is the same way. People are still deciding what they want. We have a tendency to want our political messages spoonfed to us, but with Occupy, we have a chance to go out and determine those messages for ourselves.

The Occupiers did not seem to have a goal. I heard outsiders on left and right try to discern or ascribe the true goal. I saw plenty of Occupiers on the news who wanted all kinds of stuff and many that didn’t know what they wanted. And there were plenty of them who lived in the middle of a big contradiction, as exemplified by the OWS GA meeting at which they realized that without capitalism they couldn’t survive, but they would try to minimize their contact with capitalism.

There’s no way I’d take up a lot of time marching in protest of “?” Though, like you, I’m not the marching kind.