Why "Occupy Wall Street" is not like the Arab Spring

Top 5 differences:

5. Many of the Egyptians and Tunisians have been VERY wronged by their governments, including having their human rights violated and people they know killed and violated of basic fundamental rights. This creates an increased passion in their voice. Literally, just look up any random video if the Egyptian revolution and you will see this, and look up any random video of Occupy Wall Street and you see bored tired people, half of who know what's going on. Here's one of my favorites:



PS random sidenote I got to see them perform this song recently and omg the passion.

4. They are united for THIS cause and THIS cause alone. Americans seem to generally need a lot more to unite them with others. I've noticed we tend to only feel a sense of unity with people who look, dress, act like us. Aka clones. Being "American" doesn't suffice for us. In the Arab Spring, being "Egyptian" or "Tunisian" or "Libyan" sufficed. And it was beautiful.

3. They've wanted this revolution forever. Count how many streets are "dates" in Cairo, Egypt. For example, there's 26th of July street, 6th of October street, and a bunch more that I can't remember off the top of my head. What happened on these dates? Political stuff, revolutions. Ask any Egyptian on the street what the significance of the date is and most likely they'll be able to tell you without having to look it up or ask someone. People have been organizing political revolutions for a long time, and are politically involved. When I visited Egypt one year before the revolution, in Fall 2009, I saw the passion of famous bloggers, students, etc. When this revolution happened, I was not surprised one bit.

2. Fighting to them means "by any means necessary" (quoting Malcolm X here). They're staying up late nights, taking bullet wounds, going out despite what work they have, what classes they have, what the weather's like. Fighting means fighting to them. For us, fighting means, fighting when it's convenient, until we get tired or get hurt.

1. Everyone in the Arab Spring movements knows EXACTLY what they are fighting for and have been knowledgable about it since the beginning. It's not a new "fad."


This being said, I commend Occupy Wall Street for their efforts and think it's great. Just please don't compare yourself to the Arab Spring movements, unless you can really relate to the qualities of the Revolutionaries there. It's just straight up disrespectful to them.

Gaddhafi dead

Gaddhafi, an evil dictator in Libya, died. It was a victory for the Libyan people.

BUT WHY IN GODS NAME WAS IT OKAY TO ACCEPT, WATCH, and GLORIFY the brutal video of his death?!?! watching his bloody face, and people clapping around it?!?!

HUMAN RIGHTS APPLIES TO CRIMINALS TOO. and he was deprived of his human right to trial, and once he was dead he should have been left alone. That should be enough for everyone. What kind of SICK level of humanity have we come to that this is okay?

Also, please tell me why it was okay to watch this but it was not okay for the media/press/government to release more information about Osama Bin Laden's death? That's called shady.

This is a great article by Tariq Ramadan about this issue. I was really glad to see what my thoughts were immediately following the Gaddhafi thing to be well articulated in this article.

http://www.tariqramadan.com/Dead-Without-Trial-Again.html

Occupy America?

So Americans are occupying Wall Street, Chicago, and lots of other major cities.

I'm sort of excited. Occupy Wall Street, not Palestine. WOOHOO.

Like any political activities, they only make sense after they're over. So I'll talk about them later.