You might be wondering, what in the above three items could have in common? I too literally have been timid in publishing this diary, however rereading it over and over think it necessary to explain the metaphors.
Join me below the fold for the justification of such apparent lunacy.
We’ll start with a quick overview of activism and occupy.
What is activism? What drives one to be an activist and join towards a cause, or goal? Many of you on this site have at least at one point signed a petition, sent a letter, made a phone call, or at least in some physically tangible way contributed towards a unifying goal of ‘change’. But think back to that moment you decided to physically take part, what made you leap beyond the mental and jump into the physical?
Many times, and I am borrowing from my own experiences here, it comes when a particular issue is so egregious to your nature, so fundamentally against your views, so opposite to your vision of the future that you are spiritually forced by your nature to throw your body upon the gears.
We very literally go through those now well known steps of anger, denial and yet however instead of continuing to acceptance… we stay at anger. We let that anger fuel our actions and movements. But do not mistake this anger as violent anger, this is righteous anger. It is directed anger and pointed anger at a very specific target and reason. The more things stay the same, the more we push to change them.
And so this is why you see Occupy, and its blossom into what appears to be the beginnings of a true grass roots nationwide movement. We have had literally thousands upon thousands of people reach that moment previously mentioned…find that anger and direct it at the entities which have wrought destruction on our nation and the world. The banks and our government have literally sold us out and yet despite earnings on Wall Street, we still see the millions of Main Streets failings. This is why you do not see Occupy letting up, nor do you see its core supporters relenting. What you see is people with righteous anger at the injustice that was wrought in the last decade. We grow stronger the more things stay the same because our righteous anger grows ever upward.
The angrier you make us, the stronger we get.
Which brings me to the comic angle and the reason why I decided to diary this in the first place.
Enter stage right, The Incredible Hulk. (I having just watched an animated Marvel series)
The Hulk, a massive angry entity with immeasurable power based upon his emotional state. Really, one could apply the same adjectives to the American electorate if you think about it. The American people are a very emotional unstable entity, very similar to Bruce Banner. We have seen for the last ten years the top 1% percent continually poking us, prodding us, shoving us, and hitting us financially. And for the last ten years we have done nothing physically, but mentally and verbally have been saying “I’m getting angry…..You wouldn’t like us when we’re angry”
So literally in New York on that fateful day in September, the American people turned green. The economic fallout could be described as the Gamma Ray bomb that transformed so many Americans into their own personal Hulks. We saw the power of collectivism and grew in our righteous anger, just as the Hulk grows in strength as his emotional state grows.
And when the pepper spray, tear gas canisters flew we continued even stronger. Every blow did nothing but strengthen us and grow our righteous anger. Occupy grew just like the Hulk does, every blow both physical and virtual grew us in size, scope, and reach.
And now here we sit. Though while occupy might not be occupying the news much, if you scourer the wires you will find thousands of examples of direct actions that the movement is taking. From stopping home foreclosures to networking, examples for instance, like the upcoming Occupy the Midwest conference.
We have grown to the point where there genie is out of the bottle and Pandora’s box has been opened. There is no putting the angry green entity back into the bottle that is Banner. That is until justice has been served.
I watched the recent trailer for ‘The Avengers’ and one scene struck me as poignant for this diary.
Loki states very defiantly to Tony Stark that ‘We have an army’, to which Tony replies ‘We have a Hulk’. I think this very aptly applies to our current situation. Wall Street and the Government have very clearly said ‘We have money and force’ to which Occupy has said ‘Yeah, well…we have a Hulk’
Solidarity and Peace!