How To Fight The Power

Around the world people are standing up, saying “No!” and then sitting down in a public place. Damon Blake  is a shitty person who doesn’t understand what the Occupy movement is about. 

It’s been a while since I rebelled against anything. Gone are the days when I could jump on my moped, put on my Quadrophenia t-shirt and do other things from the 70s that I Googled. No, nowadays the most rebellious thing I do is change the language on my Facebook to “Pirate” while I try to convince Amazon that I live in the UK so they’ll ship me a cheap knock off iPod.

But that’s not enough for those burning with the spirit of Che Guevera. They want to tear down the system. They want to destroy the hegemony. They want to pull capitalism’s heart out and piss in the open hole.

Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds.

 I’ve been checking out the whole “Occupy X” international movement that’s been in the news, safe in my ivory tower, surrounded by gargoyles made out of the Styrofoam cups of investment bankers. To be honest, I don’t really understand it. If they had made a Tumblr feed where pictures of Jeff Goldblum deadpans reactions to their demands I’m sure it would’ve clicked easier with me.

Oh, sweet Jeff Goldblum, you explain everything.

But they didn’t. I live in Dublin these days and a group of people under the moniker “Occupy Dame Street” have made the most adorable bonsai shanty-town, where people sit around and drink tea and secretly make tunnels between their tents, in what I assume is a miniature version of the sewer city run by Dennis Leary in Demolition Man.

This is my most current reference.

I’ve walked past them a few times, somewhat scared that at any moment I would be dragged out of my clean, capitalist world into the centre of a drum circle, made to keep a hacky-sack in the air while dub step remixes of the Angelus play because I am nothing if not a cliché monger. I’ll admit, I am sceptical of the whole thing, not only because I feel like an outsider to outsider culture (as well as insider culture, really). That’s totally on me. I am not an optimist, I’m barely even a hopeful person. The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is the fact that I’ve turned my room into a time-share and I need to be vacated by 8am so Tim who works nightshift manning the phones at the local taxi company can get 40 winks. Otherwise I would gladly stay in bed until such a time as Death reached his bony hand up through the earth and dragged me to the Hell that I am destined for.

I saw a lot of talk on Twitter when it first started on “Well, WHAT IF it works? What if people pay attention to people doing nothing? You expect to get the rewards?” No, not really. But then again I don’t particularly understand what their demands are, how what they’re doing will impact anything or what more they can do except parade back and forth between O’Connell Street and Dame Street like that lunatic child in cartoons who thinks they’re the head of an invisible marching band.

But the best of luck in what they’re doing. If my tax returns are anything to go by, I am one of the 92%.