The group’s lack of cohesion and its apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgably is unsettling in the face of the challenges so many of its generation face — finding work, repaying student loans, figuring out ways to finish college when money has run out. But what were the chances that its members were going to receive the attention they so richly deserve carrying signs like “Even if the World Were to End Tomorrow I’d Still Plant a Tree Today”?RTWT.
The interesting comparison is to Madison, Wisconsin, earlier this year, where according to the article 100 thousand demonstrators converged at the peak of the protests. They had a specific agenda. The left was energized by losing power and benefits. In turn, the full range of progressive and revolutionary contingents turned out as if this were the start of a national social revolt. In New York, mostly idealistic and stupid leftists converged to make fools out of themselves. The U.S. is not Britain, and thank goodness. Even with national unemployment at 9.2 percent and double digits on some states, we're not having anywhere near the anarchist hooliganism we saw in London. It's not that some progressives don't want it, as we see periodically in the Bay Area. We're just not that far gone as a culture for one thing, with less of popular acceptance for the public dole. And hopefully less acceptance of the latchkey kids swarming the streets like feral animals. Mostly, there's a bankruptcy of militant ideology. Progressives talk the great game, they seek to destroy others with diverging opinions, especially in the (Marxist) academy, but when it's time to put talk into practice, they're AWOL. Bunch of ASFLs.
