Disgruntled of the world, unite! ... Now what?

The drive is the broken economy.

Ok, 99 percent. I’m with you there. But what exactly is going to be accomplished with Occupy Wall Street and all subsidiary protests? What is the end goal?  Unofficially: to abolish “corporate greed and politics.” The timeline? Indefinite. Or as the New York Times put it, “till whenever.”

Not to put a damper on the whole movement —which I think is admirable in its own way — but is this really going to reverse the way our country operates? Of course, everyone is entitled to exercise their freedom of assembly and speech.

But isn’t there a point when this assembly seems, well, futile? And the speech— repetitive, superfluous, inessential, redundant?

Sure, bringing awareness to the problem is important, though it’s unclear to me how anyone could really be unaware of the dire condition of our economy. And it doesn’t seem like the protestors are offering any real, viable solutions to the problem. It’s just: There’s a problem; they aren’t happy, and they want it fixed now now now. The mantra of the movement is tax the wealthy. In fact, tax the crap out of them. Create jobs; spread the dough. Yet, I don’t foresee standing around being the end all, fix all remedy to our economy. Nor do I think the problem is so simple that squeezing money out of corporations is the ultimate solution to our problems. Remember: the situation we are in today is a product of years and years of debt accumulation. Recession-shattering change doesn’t happen overnight, nor necessarily in the first term of a presidency. I don’t know what the solution is, but somehow, I don’t think those occupying the streets of America are loitering their way to a better world. They are passionate, sure, but their energies seem unfocused. They’ve taken to the streets to have their collective voices heard, but their rally cry is a discordance of vague demands.

The main problem I have with the protests is the ambiguity of what its proponents are exactly, well, protesting. They seem to march under the amorphous banner of an ill economy. Ok, so then everyone should be on board. But that isn’t the case. And I think it’s because of the nebula of messages put out by the protests.  The participants want a redistribution of wealth, they think, and they want jobs—but that’s not necessarily the main impetus for the movement, or is it?

If the protests were more centralized and inspired more discussion about real solutions, rather than gaggles of hipsters flocking around  a message they themselves don’t entirely understand, perhaps it would be more productive. If anything, to a degree, it’s resurrected a public mired in years of apathy. That is, until its participants tire of proving little more than a nuisance to pedestrians and return to occupying their parents’ basements.