The Occupy Wall Street Model: Greece or Israel

Protests, as with other social phenomena, can vary in form and outcome. Reading our newspapers we see Greeks rioting. Entitlements given them by previous governments are now suddenly being torn away. The age for collecting retirement insurance is going up. Tuition subsidies are a thing of the past. In short, the Greek standard of living is dropping like a stone.

The Greek situation is relatively easy to explain, but difficult for Greeks to accept. The Greek people through their various unions and political parties had been able to wrest entitlements from politicians that simply could not be sustained by their economy.

The Greece story is easily explained with numbers and a rudimentary understanding of bookkeepin. But, it's not a story the Greeks want to hear. So what do they do? They burn cars, break store windows, and assault their police. They find it intolerable that their national budget is now being supervised by outsiders; most notably, the Germans, a past enemy. But, hey, that's what happens when you spend more than you collect.

Israel's Social Protesters are also unhappy with economic matters, but their target has been narrower. They wanted more affordable housing and lower food prices -- most notably for milk products. And, here the government was able to respond in a fairly reasonable manner. They set up a commission that explained what most already knew; namely, that housing was in short supply and that dairy prices were high, in large part, because of monopolies that had arisen in this particular market. The Israeli government then proceeded to take steps designed to alleviate both these conditions.

Has this ended social protests in Israel? Not quite. The ranks of protesters has fallen drastically. Only a remnant remains. But the storm seems over.

There are today many other protest movements through out the world -- Tahrir Square in Egypt and the Arab Spring, in general, being prime examples. But, in many of the middle east protests, civil rights and freedom from institutionalized corruption have been the primary targets.

It should be noted, that we in America have had protest movements that have been enormously constructive; most notably, the civil rights march in Birmingham. But the impetus for this and other civil rights protests in this period of American history are quite clear. Young African-Americans were no longer going to tolerate Jim Crow; not when they were dying in Vietnam for a misguided military effort. In Rev. Martin Luther King, these protestors had a preacher who could articulate with crystal clarity what their protest was all about.

The Occupy Wall Street kids have no message other than that they are unhappy with the American economy. Well, who is? But, like the Greeks, they find it either too difficult, or too painful to sit down and figure out where this country has gone wrong. Fortunately, as disruptive as they've managed to be, they've largely avoided the damaging behavior of the Greeks.

I imagine that the leaders of our Occupy Wall Street crowd are well versed in Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals." And, that's good. But, neither the protestors nor their leaders have managed to articulate their goals or objectives other than their wish to tear down American banks, send to prison bankers who took their cues from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and take money from the rich and redistribute it to the poor.

The one real success achieved by the Occupy Wall Street has been in raising money, which by todays count as reported in the press has reached over $500,000. Excuse my skepticism when the protesters tell me the money has come from widows and orphans.