A Litte Bit Outraged / Fernando Dámaso

Photo: Rebeca

Here in my country, the movement of the outraged is front page news. In the three national official newspapers and on television photos, images and praised are repeated, to no one’s surprise, accustomed as we are to the government’s taking advantage of anyone who criticizes the empire and its lackeys. More than politics, it is an unhealthy obsession. The same thing doesn’t happen when people protest in countries with friendly governments. These protestors are considered to be sponsored and paid by the empire and are totally ignored.

I admire and respect the movements that deposed their autocratic governments in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as in Libya with outside help. Also those who are trying to do it today in Yemen and Syria and other places. In the aftermath of them, in some countries, those called “the outraged” have come to the fore.

But who are these known as “the outraged“? They remind me of the hippies of the sixties, but without their exoticism and charisma. The hippies passed and, at least, they left behind songs, musicals, films and novels. I don’t know if the outraged will have the same luck.

Protest, in recent times, has become a universal sport in developed countries, rather like football. What are the outraged protesting? Are they proposing something concrete? Perhaps the failed socialism. A new economic system? from the photos and images it seems the majority are young, and I suppose with little or no work experience, and without having yet created families. They haven’t even had time to make mistakes.

It seems there are some oldsters who, with their obsolete language are people out of step with their times, eternal losers, incapable of opening the paths of their own lives. Occupy Wall Street is one of the main slogans. For what? To destroy it? Are those who have never even run a hot dog stand going to run the economy? What’s more, what have they contributed to their countries.Have they created something that is today the patrimony of humanity?

Sometimes I am outraged by some of these outraged, but I am reassured to understand that they over respond to juvenile hormones, that they need where they demonstrate. Plazas and parks are good places, especially where they are conveniently equipped with modern tents, as well as food, music, interesting books and agreeable company. It’s like going on a picnic or camping, but in the center of the city. I completely agree that a better world is possible, but this will not be achieved through protesting but through working.

November 4 2011