We aren’t the 99% 13
It’s even happening in Bath. Even in one of the richest corners of Britain – a city so posh that it refused a local organic dairy farm permission to open a boutique ice-cream concession in its expensive new showpiece shopping development in case it “lowered the tone” – there’s an Occupy protest. A couple of dozen tents huddle together in Queen Square, a small green space in the middle of a busy traffic junction that’s more accustomed to hosting farmers’ markets and games of boules.
To be honest, I’m surprised there are that many. Bath’s housing, parking and public transport are all so cripplingly costly that poor people can barely get into the centre of town even for a visit. But still, like most of the Occupy protests nationwide (those that still survive at all, anyway), the numbers are pretty pitiful. At a time when the government has all but openly declared class war, when everyone from the Socialist Worker to the Daily Mail is furious at the greed of the wealthy, why isn’t the whole country out on the streets, rather than a few little pockets camping in the cold?
The answer is obvious, but for some reason is never spoken aloud. Despite the Occupy movement’s catchy and evocative slogan, we aren’t the 99%. But that’s understandable, because “we are the 33%” doesn’t carry quite the same moral punch.
