Italy: Americans are amateurs at protesting

Giampiero Gramaglia

Il Fatto Quotidiano

Americans are just not cut out for sustained protest, said Giampiero Gramaglia. They tried their best to emulate the Spaniards, who took over Madrid’s squares for four full months this summer with the political movement of the indignados, or “indignant ones.” But America’s indignados didn’t get as far. While the Spanish movement drew some 8 million people at its peak, the American protests never even broke 1 million, in all cities combined, before being essentially crushed this week.

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Part of the problem is that they picked September as their start. Two months into the movement, it’s already far too cold to camp in the streets. But a bigger problem is that the protesters turned violent. This was probably to be expected: “In America, the seeds of violence are always lurking. Everywhere, there are armed people who react to provocations by shooting.” In the last month alone, there were at least half a dozen deaths at Occupy camps around the U.S. The protesters were simply too earnest and strident to confront the police peacefully.

While Mediterranean indignados can draw on their “irony and creativity” to defuse tensions, those traits “are not the American people’s strong point.” It seems the “culture of the Wild West” mixes poorly with civil protest.