Remember how at the end of 1990s, everything and everybody was becoming Dot-com. We started seeing companies like pets.com and we even had lice.com and every imagineable Dot.com. Everyone was starting a Dot-com. I had registered couple domain names myself. Then few years ago, everyone went facebook. Moms and dads started having facebook accounts. As of now, for Iranians, Lavashak is an entity on facebook just like “ghalatnameh Kadkhoda”, “ashpazee Irani”, “ahanghaye Ghadeemi”, etc, etc.
This morning, I just saw a posting online that made me realize that occupy movement is starting to become what Dot com was at the end of 1990s. These days, people are attaching Occupy to every word and thinking that it makes sense. Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. Since we are in the beginning stages, it more often makes sense than it does not. But I have seen Occupy being attached meaninglessly to some words already.
There is much interest from online community about the occupy movement and I share some of this interest but at times I chuckle. Hate to say this but some online friends have no idea what regular people say about occupy. Activists may see the interviews with the homeless and unemployed on TV about importance of the occupy movement, but do online activists hear what the employed people in downtown Oakland say about the camps?
Many segments of the society in western countries may not be rich but have little in common with the homeless or few other segments of the occupy movement, or they do have few concerns in common but are not aware of them. There are many working people in the United States who have had their lives affected by corporate greed and effort must be made to ensure that they know how occupy movement relates to them.
So let’s remember to take actions to keep this Occupy movement as a movement and not let it become a fad. Because fads die young but movements live longer and even when they die, they change the society forever.
