a few months ago a new activist movement made an appearance, in the US. They call themselves the Occupy movement and their most notorious? famous? effort was to “Occupy Wall Street”.

This entailed a fairly large number of people (several hundred) invading Wall Street, holding placards, and trying to get into the NY Stock Exchange.

That never happened, as the security services were up to the challenge of keeping the protesters out.

What was achieved? Well, the Occupy movement got extensive media coverage, and copy-cat movements formed in other major cities, such as London, where they “occupied” Piccadilly Circus. They even pitched tents.

Here the authorities handled the situation in a much more relaxed way, with the bobbies walking between the tents and no force was used. If anything, it was a tourist attraction, which the London authorities realised.

And they realised that those “occupiers” would quickly run out of food, toilet paper, fresh showers etc.

There was even a small effort in SA, with a few people standing around and brandishing placards.

What has happened since? Not very much. This was to be expected. It seems the Occupy movement does not have any strategy beyond “occupying” space somewhere.

Is the Occupy movement the dumbest movement ever created?

Yes there is anger out there, justified anger, at the fatcat bankers and incompetent/corrupt politicians who have got the world into a real mess through their unbridled greed. After all, how could the government of Greece (10 million people, more or less) borrow so much money that anyone with a cigarette box could have worked out that it would be difficult to pay it back?

Now we have a situation where the Greek mess is threatening to sink the euro zone (about 300 million people, more or less). It is preposterous!

So there is reason to be angry. And the rest of the Pigs are not much better off (Portugal-Italy-Greece-Spain). Yet, what did Occupy achieve? Exactly nothing! It may get the people on to the street waving placards and shouting slogans, but then they go home! Because they have to make dinner.

It seems there is no Occupy spokesman who is able to give guidance as to any “great plan”.

Don’t they realise that there has to be a target, a pay-off, for all this activity? The most sensible thing would be to start a political party, which could even be of global impact.

This is what the Greens have done in Germany, and they have been the junior partner in government. At least they have some influence, instead of p*****g against the wind, as the Occupiers seem to be doing.

Unless the leaders, if there are any, come up with a vision and a way forward, this movement will disappear from the scene. The time is ripe for a real visionary movement to change the world. We need something like the Arab Spring, but bigger. Maybe a “Global Spring”? A new Karl Marx is needed, but with a better idea than stupid communism. Do the Occupiers have such a person? The answer is “no”, based on the available evidence.

Richard Gruning

Jet Park