Occupying Wall Street appears to be more complicated than it should

(Remember Network? It was a brilliant film that offered remarkable insight as to how ratings drove television and how ratings, capricious as they are, drove people behind the scenes. It’s an amazing film. Watch it sometime!)

People are mad as hell. Still.

They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.

They’re mad as hell and they’re taking their voices to the streets. Or rather, the street: Wall Street.

So a loosely organized group of protestors have been spilling into Wall Street with the only unifying element between protestors being the intention to shut down Wall Street. Or trying. The point of this exercise is that folks are trying to express a point. The problem is that there’s no unifying clarity in their expression. It’s the kind of event that whole slews of guys from Protest Warrior couldn’t get attention for in the crowd if they tried!

It’s not that they have different opinions about whether or not things are bad.

I assure you, things ARE bad. For everyone.

http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/main.swf

They have different solutions, different villains and varying levels of extremity in their vocal opposition for everything from the existence of Capitalism to the Fat Cats in Washington. While everyone’s got an axe to grind, it’s hard to focus when there’s… well, no focus on what’s being protested. The primary things we can all agree on is that we’re collectively mad as hell, the economy is bad and seems to be going in one direction.

The nature of this protest is largely the problem. Not adhering to any one philosophy in order to breed cohesion in a group is admirable to a point, but not when your combined efforts are supposed to achieve something. When you mash up a bunch of individuals with completely different motivations, you are either in the midst of dynamic art theater or you’re at a bus stop.

A shapeless, mostly amorphous entity isn’t going to get anything specific done when it spreads itself so thin with its mixed intentions, varied causes and assortment of mismatched grudges.

What do we want?

STUFF!

When do we want it?

SOONER THAN LATER WOULD BE PREFERABLE! Maybe…

How do we want it?

GRILLED, NOT FRIED!

While their aggressive presence and palpable animosity towards Wall Street is thick in the air, they don’t do much as a group of individuals doing their own thing. Arrests at these gatherings nationwide appear to be growing, but there’s no clear endgame moving these protests as of late. Different factions appear to be taking notes and jumping in line with other protestors in the same way politicians piggyback legislation, which makes the whole event difficult to entirely discern.

We’re hoping people don’t do anything too crazy as there’s nothing wrong with peaceful protest and the exercise of free speech. However, considering the vacuum in leadership and no discernible group goal as this phenomenon gathers steam across the nation, with new “factions” snatching up their signs every day, it becomes the kind of thing to make everyone a little nervous about what happens next.