Why the #ows protesters make no demands
You see, the people that the Occupy movements are protesting against live in a magical little realm I like to call ‘high school debate.’ The point of competitive debate in high school (or college) often isn’t to best your opponent with wits or information. Rather, it’s to come up with any argument you can think of and fight tooth and nail to make others believe that you’re right. Here’s an example. Let’s say someone wanted to cure cancer. The opponent would say, ‘No! We can’t! If we cure cancer, then there will be more people. If there’s more people, there will be less food. If there’s less food, then there will be war. And then it’ll turn to nuclear war! We’ll all be dead in 5 years because you wanted to cure cancer!!’ They then proceed to yell and scream about it as loud and as fast as possible, until you think that maybe they actually believe what they are saying. I’ve competed in debate at the college level, and sadly it does work this way.
I bring this up because the people being protested against are of that mentality. No matter what demand the protesters make, no matter how reasonable and/or beneficial, their opponents will kick in to high school debate mode. They’ll say, ‘No, we can’t do that because [insert ridiculous scenario here].’ Then they can turn around and claim that they tried to negotiate and be reasonable, but it’s the protesters that wouldn’t listen. Then the OWS movement has nothing left, and sticking around in camps would be an exercise in futility. They’d come off looking like the bad guy.