Controlled anger is a sign that the people are serious. A street-smart cop can tell you that a pale, angry face is potentially a lot more dangerous than a flushed, angry face. The flushed face may be looking to lash out in some general violent way, but the pale face is edging towards intent — specific intent.
Mainstream media is having fun photographing dancing and music at the protests, but if you look over the sea of faces, relatively few are there for fun. They have fun to break the monotony, but it’s not a party. Even the protesters’ smiles tend to be ironic, as media try to get them to show excitement.
The temper of the times seems similar outside the protests themselves. Two weeks ago, I posted a Huffington Post article that mentioned “There is a huge sense across America that the rich are increasing their cruelty far beyond the point necessary to live lives of obscene privilege.”
Before posting, I asked several readers if I was going overboard with the word “cruelty.” All said “No.” The reaction was so uniform I became curious, and showed the article to over 20 people. Every one said “cruelty” was the right word — and every face had the same expression: a cold, hard anger. It was faintly eerie. These are minds that have come to their own conclusions; they can no longer be cozened with false statistics about how unemployment is falling, or not rising, or “rising more slowly.” They do not buy stories about the dangers of a “double-dip recession,” because they know that on Main Street, the first dip is still going strong.
In the Occupy Wall Street movement there are demands for a return to financial controls, and a return to reasonable executive salaries — but these are the tip of the iceberg. The protesters are under no illusion that the factory whistle will blow and call them back to work, or that the rich will stop the financial floggings on their own initiative.
In fact, they know there is no return to the American dream world of the 1950s and early 1960s. They don’t believe that a few tepid, anti-lobbying laws will clean up Capitol Hill’s corrupt relationship with big banking, or that the Fortune 500 will start hiring Americans again.
So we will see specific demands for the new, rather than a return to the old.
“For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
- John F. Kennedy
The wave of disruption will wash over us all. Buckle up and brace for the future.
Oh, oh deep water, black and cold like the night
I stand with arms wide open,
I’ve run a twisted mile
I’m a stranger in the eyes of the Maker
I could not see for the fog in my eyes
I could not feel for the fear in my life
But from across the great divide, in the distance I saw light
Jean Babtiste walking to me with the Maker
My body is bent and broken by long and dangerous sleep
But I can’t work the fields of Abraham and turn my head away
I’m not a stranger in the hands of the Maker
