We had this discussion the other day (last Thursday) at work. The final conclusion was this:
The US Occupy Movement is mostly 1% of the 99% of which it represents. It is not the entire 99% – it’s part of the 99%. That is, it’s part of the US population that is not the top 1% that have all the money. But is it truly representative of the other 99%? I mean, isn’t that their slogan? We are the 99%?
And that’s where I think things sort of come off the tracks for the Occupy Movement. They aren’t 10% of the 99%, or 5% of the 99%. They are technically closer to 1% of the 99%. So that means it’s 1% of activist Americans vs 1% of richer Americans. Because the other 98% either doesn’t care or thinks the Occupy people are lazy, crazy, etc. I think probably 90% of the 98% are just apathetic – only the Rush Limbaugh and/or Glenn Beck fanatics, or the 8%, think the Occupy Movement is stupid, lazy and anti-American.
But the reality holds. I don’t think the US Occupy Movement has over 400k active sit-in supporters (which would make it closer to 2%), so it’s 1% vs 1%. And that’s why I didn’t like the new Batman movie that much – it made the Occupy Movement look like terrorists. I mean, wasn’t that a point of Ras Al Ghul’s daughter’s movement? Make the rich share the wealth and be like everyone else (poor and miserable)?
Except let’s go an extra step further and force the rich to be tried by a madman and walk out on the ice where they die? Because that’s what the unsatisfied activist aka Occupy Whatever in America wants – to kill the rich and cause chaos by burning down Gotham (or New York, or wherever). So they have to be saved by a rich man in a batsuit (aka someone like … oh, I don’t know … Mitt Romney or Chris Christie).
That’s what the newest Batman is teaching younger kids, whether Batman fans like it or not.
Wow, I never thought of it like that. It’d be interesting also to see the demographics of ‘our’ (for want of a better word) 1%… this is totally gut feeling and I’m willing to eat my words, but I’d imagine they’re mainly made up of relatively affluent middle-classers, since the working class generally can’t afford the luxury of weeks away from work or feeding their family to sit in a grubby tent in protest. So I guess it’s the 1% of well-off people VS the 1% of better off people?
Batman: I also agree with you about the lack of motive behind the League of Shadows and their revolution; seemed like a demonstrably bad way to run things. That said, I will hear of no strained analogies attempting to derail how brilliant the latest Batman film was, or its ending. I will not, I will not, I will not!
(Although wasn’t it bizarre that Batman did his silly gruff voice around characters who knew that he was Bruce Wayne?)
LOL
It wasn’t a bad movie. A little too long and a little too much Catwoman.