The more familiar something looks, the less threatening it
seems. This is why images of funny-looking college students marching up
Broadway or shirtless boys banging on drums comprise the bulk of the
imagery we see of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Stock brokers look
on, police man the barricades, and what appears to be a traditional
protest movement carries on another day, week, or month.
But “Occupy” is anything but a protest movement. That’s
why it has been so hard for news agencies to express or even discern the
“demands” of the growing legions of Occupy participants around the
nation, and even the world. Just like pretty much everyone else on the
planet, occupiers may want many things to happen and other things to
stop, but the occupation is not about making demands. They don’t want
anything from you, and there is nothing you can do to make them stop.
That’s what makes Occupy so very scary and so very promising. It is not a
protest, but a prototype for a new way of living.
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