When delegates to the Democratic National Convention arrive in
Charlotte, North Carolina, next September, they may find the
streets occupied by the same protesters who are now the
darlings of the media: the “Occupy Wall Street” crew.
President Obama has expressed his support for OWS in such glowing
terms that the protesters should read it as a personal invitation
to the convention.
There’s little for the Democrats to fear in this, other
than the lack of sanitation that will accompany the “occupation” of
their convention city.
As we’ve seen in the past four or five Dem conventions,
the press will do its level best to suppress any reporting of the
craziest conduct of the delegates, of which there is usually enough
to fill hours of broadcasting and thousands of column-inches. Were
it not for the Washington Times, we’d probably never have
known that the Boy Scouts were booed in the 2000 Dem convention
when they carried the flag to the podium. (BSA didn’t allow
homosexual scout leaders, so all the gay anger among the delegates
was channeled into a rather large outburst.)
Next year, all you’ll see are flags waved, passionately
staged patriotism and all the homosexual-transsexual-dope-smoking
weirdness will be off-camera. Except for the gay soldiers, sailors,
and Marines who will march to the stage to surround Obama and to
demand more military “diversity” at various times.
Because President Obama has embraced the OWS protesters,
many of the delegates may be drawn from among the
protesters. “I understand the frustrations being
expressed in those protests,” Obama
told ABC’s Jake Tapper a week ago. He added,
“In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests
that we saw coming from the Tea Party,” and “The most important
thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting
people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their
side…” What better way to show that support than to enable an “OWS
Caucus” at the convention?
Perhaps most importantly, the OWS crowd isn’t at all like
the disaffected youth of 1968 that brought violence to the walls of
the Chicago convention in 1968.
Nineteen sixty-eight was a horrible year. Martin Luther
King was assassinated, resulting in huge riots in several cities.
Bobby Kennedy’s assassination soon followed. And, all the while,
some of the heaviest fighting of the Vietnam War — in the Tet
Offensive, Khe Sanh, and Hue — poured gasoline on the fires of the
anti-war movement.
The Vietnam anti-war movement was small before it became
an anti-draft movement comprised of those who feared combat and
those who wanted to use the timorous to gain political power. By
the time the Democratic Convention kicked off in August, the nation
was boiling over. Thousands of anti-war protesters went to Chicago
with the express goal of interrupting the convention proceedings.
They succeeded. Poor Hubert Humphrey had to campaign with the
Chicago riots as his backdrop no matter how far from the convention
he traveled.
The OWS crowd has no such goal. Or, discernibly, any
other. The standard response to reporters’ questions seems to be
“Um,” followed by a long pause before rehearsing some half-hearted
talking point about the evils of Wall Streeters who, they believe,
should be in jail.
Obama — and his media cohorts — would like American
voters to believe that the OWS crew is just another version of the
Tea Party. They’re all the same, just expressing anger at
government over lack of jobs and economic distress. It’s just
another false media narrative into which facts will be folded,
spindled, and mutilated to fit.
So who are the OWS protesters? They’re not the
underprivileged and, pretending to be disaffected, but unwilling to
abandon the privileges to which they believe they are entitled.
On-scene reports of four-star cooking being served in the tent
cities, the profusion of iPhones and iPads, all paint a picture of
over-privileged under-achievers who lack anything resembling a work
ethic.
They’re not anti-war protesters trying to end the draft
and the war. There is no draft. No one is threatening to send them
to Afghanistan or any other place they may get hurt. In fact, no
one is threatening to send them anywhere, even out of the city
parks they are soiling.
The first Vietnam draft lottery was held in 1969. I
remember the night very well. Those of us in ROTC watched in
inebriated amusement as many of our non-ROTC classmates pulled
lottery numbers in single digits. None of them, to my knowledge,
fled to Canada as a result, but many others did.
Consider this 2011 version of the 1968 angry young man. He
was photographed in Washington, D.C.’s McPherson Square the other
day holding a sign that said, “college grad. will work for
$75,000.” Only $75,000? He, like too many others of his generation,
is spoiled by a sense of entitlement and privilege. He’s angry, all
right, but only at “the system” which hasn’t awarded him a job at
the salary level he believes he deserves. He’s unwilling to work
for less, but he’d rather not live in his parents’ basement for
another year because chicks don’t like going there.
He’s ignorant of the fact that a rising tide lifts all
boats. If he were better educated, he might have understood that
Obama’s economic ebb tide has left too many boats — including his
— aground.
If that young man goes to Charlotte, it will be on dad’s
American Express card, and he’ll insist on a room at (at least) a
four-star hotel. He won’t riot: he’ll whine about the injustice
found in a bottle of lousy chardonnay.
The OWS crew is a loose collection of iPhone-totin’ tokin’
foodies who would rather walk a mile to get the best sushi than
walk a mile in a poor man’s shoes. Seriously, the poor man doesn’t
even have a decent pair of ASICS training shoes.
So why not invite the OWS crowd to occupy Charlotte and
dominate the convention? Only one reason stands in the
way.
Obama cannot be reelected if he remains the face of angry
liberalism. The anger — built between George McGovern’s defeat in
1972 and Obama’s election in 2008 — spilled out in a tsunami of
legislation aimed at transforming America into a European socialist
state. The 2009 stimulus, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank financial “reform,”
and so much more were the instruments of relieving the
anger.
But even those massive changes to America didn’t relieve
the liberals’ anger because it’s part of their character. And
because their leader is — and always will be — a deeply angry
man.
His polls notwithstanding, the likely nomination of Mitt
Romney almost irrelevant, Obama’s greatest fear is that he won’t
escape the popular backlash to the angry liberalism that is
embedded so deeply in his character. His speeches have revealed too
much. The “No Drama Obama” of 2008 has been replaced by the
“All-Drama Obama,” the angry accusatory orator of 2011. He daren’t
let voters see that in the 2012 Convention or in the campaign that
will follow. His only hope is to conceal it.
So, to all the OWS’ers who may by accident read this, let
me say that we need to hear from you next year. Go to Charlotte,
and not just as protesters. Get a spot as a convention delegate.
For those who aren’t delegates, please take your parent’s credit
card and buy a good hotel room or a nice Eddie Bauer easy-to-pitch
tent and all the gear that you’ll need with it. Camp out in some
nice park and hog as much bandwidth for your iPhones and iPads, as
much good wine and all the sushi you can find. You’re entitled to
it all.
And the Democrats deserve you and thousands like you, in
full plumage, in every bit of media time you can grab in Charlotte
next September.
