Is this what democracy looks like? No really, is it? Because if it is, well then, this is sorta awkward.When members of an Occupy faction interrupted a sparsely populated City Council meeting in Northampton, Massachusetts earlier this month, they knew the cameras would be rolling. What they didn’t seem to realize is that barging late into a routine town hearing on snow removal, among other things, is probably not the best way to really land that “mic check” meme, to this point (and especially now that all flagship occupied sites have been evicted) a critical component of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s decision making and publicity engines.You just couldn’t write this sort of thing. From the first hesitant “mic check!” call (:50 in) to the varying degrees (up, down, meh-sideways) of jazz hands-y approval (7:50); from the council president’s “Wanna look at Google Calendar?” burn (~10:20) and on down to the mayor’s goofball tie, the flummoxed reactions of other board members, and a final demonstrator’s solo-chant exeunt that draws the entire episode to a whimpering close, it’s an uneasy bit of civil exchange. The entire thing seems canned — and with cuts between multiple public access cameras that pan across faces, more the stuff of sketch comedy than constructive dialogue for building a new society.I’m still not sure whether to laugh or hand it to ’em or just bury my head in my hands. Between this and some 20 Occupy Albany demonstrators who just the other day rolled a New York state budget hearing, outnumbering legislators 8-1 and otherwise raising the question, “If a protester mic-checks with no legislator around to hear it, does it make a sound?” you get the idea that, however tepid, Occupy is stirring after a brief winter reprieve.And in both cases, it’s “the Establishment’s” cool, OK-let’s-carry-on indifference after the mic checkers up and leave that writes it plainly on the wall: There is always a last laugh for the taking.Reach this writer at brian@motherboard.tv. @TheBAnderson
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