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The American Left: Time for Another Nap

By John Lockwood at Nov 16, 2011

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What I'm Doing Thursday

I've been thinking about what I'm doing tomorrow, on this National Day of Action, a couple of days after the eviction of Occupy Wall Street from Zucotti Park.

I'll be working, mustering up such gratitude as I can that among wage slaves, I am somewhat well treated.

But I won't be in New York, which is what I know I should be doing.  I'll just be working, and keeping my head down for another day.  Nor will I be participating here.  During the day I'll be working -- at night I'll bring my wife to class.

It seems to me there's something like a sort of downtrodden elitism about having a National Day of Action on a Thursday.

Number of Arrests:  0

In an interesting twist on "what did Occupy contribute so far?", I'm embarrassed to say I've never been arrested.  I admire people who have been, I just haven't done enough myself to wear this badge of honor.

I've been on a single Zombie March, and brought some food down once.

So you may with impunity take what I'm about to say with a bigger than usual, "Love Me I'm a Liberal" grain of salt.

Time For the Left to Take a Nap Again

Already a couple of days after the eviction, people are starting to console themselves with the idea -- as though we'd been thinking it all along -- that physical occupation is just a tactic.  Winter was coming anyway.  We should be thankful that Bloomberg gave us a dramatic ending instead of watching numbers fall off due to cold.  Now we can spend energy we used to spend simply maintaining the occupation on something more constructive.  Etc. Etc.

Well, OK, I supposed.   Occupation may be just a tactic, but isn't the movement named for a tactic?  Maybe we need to call it something else now, like, "Used to Occupy Wall Street -- all of us except that lousy Lockwood character -- later sent home by a judge."  This lacks a certain ring, though.

Nobody was arrested following the judge's ruling that Occupiers would be allowed back in to Zucotti Park without tents and sleeping bags.  It seems that after a certain point even people who get arrested well on good days, which is not me, have a hard time doing it.

I'm clearly missing some sort of education in civil disobedience, or tactical thinking, or something, but isn't that the best time to be arrested -- when you're not supposed to be doing something?  Or does that sort of defiance not run in our veins?

I'm really worried that what will really happen in the aftermath of all this is that the left will take another nap.

I'm not worried about me doing it -- as I said, I'm not proud of my own record of simply working and keeping my head down -- so one might argue that I've been doing it all along. 

I was for a moment encouraged when the rest of you woke up, however.

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