Occupy, are you responsible?

That’s it. We are over with and done. #Occupy, I watched from the side not participating but cheering silently on as you sprung up last year and I was sad that you fizzled out till now and a little excited, almost giddy that you were going to stage a comeback on May 1st. I had high hopes that you were going to be influential. Like in 1968 and unlike the punks in 1980’ies who didn’t do much to change society but did manage to smash quite a few McDonalds. Maybe you would be the counter-tea party.  Because you are right. At the heart of it you are right. There is something rotten in America.

And then you put on a bunch of peaceful demonstrations and let in blackbloc on your day and they vandalize buildings and ruin your reputation.

And you just lost all my sympathy.

Maybe that is not fair. Maybe you did not do the violence and vandalism but like any other organization you have a brand to take care of. This day was your and it was your responsibility that something like this did not happen. This is like Apple having to clean up the mess from their suppliers. They didn’t have a choice. They couldn’t say it wasn’t their fault. None of us would have accepted that excuse.

Maybe it was done by undercover cops, agent provocateurs, maybe not. Maybe it was just done by vandals. Either way you have a choice to make. Do you care about your cause? If so you prove that it was agent provocateurs or you help track down and bring to justice the vandals.

You have more video footage of May 1st than ever before. Welcome to the future. You should be able to find faces in that media and publish the images and if they are cops it will surface. And you will have won. You will get my sympathy, my support , and my money. You will be heroes. Underdog protagonists.

If it turns out the vandals are not cops but just, well, thugs, and you expose them, then you have proven that you are responsible and worth having a dialog with. That you are serious about your cause. And you will get my sympathy, my support , and my money. This way too you can be heroes and underdog protagonists.

But if you do nothing or fail to prove that it really was undercover cops, then you have lost. My respect and any future you might have had in politics.

I sincerely hope you redeem yourself. We need you. Well maybe not you, but we need someone to say what you are saying. Whether we need you is right now, up to you.