October 07, 2011

So many social engagements, so little time

The number of Occupy Wall Street solidarity actions keeps growing. In WV alone, I've heard of new actions planned for Parkersburg, Lewisburg, and Elkins since the last post. I plan on checking out the Huntington action this afternoon and will report back from that.

It looks like all kinds of things are in the works around the country, from relatively short rallies to prolonged literal occupations of various places. While I am officially in favor of whatever works, I prefer ones that don't drag out too long.

When I was on the local volunteer fire department, a member once defined a good call (response to an alarm) as one where you get in, get out, and go home. A bad one was one where you were stuck for hours doing nothing interesting.

Examples of bad calls were things like meth lab busts, which entail sitting in the truck for hours while law enforcement does its thing, or downed power lines, where you just babysat the line and kept people away from it until somebody from the power company arrived.

I've modified the good call definition to cover a good action, with a few embellishments: a good action is one where you get in, get out, declare victory, go home and put "Mission Accomplished" on your metaphorical aircraft carrier.

May all your calls and actions be good ones!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, Krugman has this to say about the Occupy actions in today's NY Times:

we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people.


The rest is here.

And here's Naomi Klein.

And here's Jim Hightower.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

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