An Idiot’s Guide to Occupy Wall Street
Here’s a helpful tip: if you are a political pundit and you still don’t know what Occupy Wall Street stands for, you are an idiot. If you purport to make your living analyzing the political landscape, or from parsing the effectiveness of various political messages, or if you write columns explaining what the American people want based on your deep, intimate knowledge of what the American people want, but you still, after a month, cannot quite grasp what these uncouth people in the streets are going on about, then you are categorically bad at your job. If you find yourself tuttering and tsking over how the protestors are merely a group of fringe figures, and you do not notice or care to notice the polls expressing wide support for the message, you are a fraud.
It really is that simple, at this point. No supposed “pundit” should be able to say with a straight face that they cannot possibly understand what message the protestors have. Here, I will give it to you in a mere few words: the Occupy Wall Street movement is a protest against rampant income inequality, against corporate excesses, and against a government rigged to protect and worsen both.
It is a protest specifically against the members of the financial sector, who were bailed out at taxpayer expense after wrecking the economy with self-perpetuated fraudulent schemes against one another, and who have learned not one damn thing from the experience, but instead have continued on their merry, privileged way. They assert themselves to be masters of the universe, and pay themselves accordingly, and whether the world they supposedly run hums like clockwork or burns to the ground makes no particular difference to them.
It is a protest against the perceived entitlement of the wealthy, for whom any slight economic injury (say, from taxes) is seen as an apocalyptic event, and for whose sake austerity must be imposed on every other group, from schoolchildren to the elderly, from the poor, the sick and the comfortably middle-class alike.
It is a protest against a government that seems to exist solely to meet the needs of wealthy and corporate benefactors, a government that cannot competently even execute routine functions anymore, but which is instead dedicated single-mindedly to the premise of cutting taxes on the rich and balancing the books on the poor.
It is not a protest against TARP; it is a protest against the failure of TARP to achieve even a stick of reform in exchange for the body blow dealt to the rest of us. It is not a protest against political parties, but against a system that has been so corrupted that the needs of the one percent are considered of greater merit than that of the entire rest of the population.
Bill Moyers had this to say:
Everyone knows millions of Americans are in trouble. As Robert Reich recently summed up the state of working people: They’ve lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings. Their grown children have moved back in with them. Their state and local taxes are rising. Teachers and firefighters are being laid off. The roads and bridges they count on are crumbling, pipelines are leaking, schools are dilapidated, and public libraries are being shut.
Why isn’t government working for them? Because it’s been bought off. It’s as simple as that. And until we get clean money we’re not going to get clean elections, and until we get clean elections, you can kiss goodbye government of, by, and for the people. Welcome to the plutocracy.
The political pundits that don’t understand what OWS is about are paid to not understand what OWS is about. They are paid to keep their viewers/listeners/readers confused and thinking in a single thought track as much as possible.
If you don’t understand the reasons for the OWS movement than your listening to mainstream medias mind fucking spin. The 1% controls the media, owns politicians and has free range on destroying the environment for profit. They also have the power to change laws as it suits them…http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/20/the-1-are-changing-the-law-to-shut-down-occupy-wall-st/
I read an article yesterday by Keith Boykin that I agreed with on several points. I’ll just post part of one.
Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-boykin/occupy-wall-street-media_b_1019707.html
Myth #9. They’re In The Wrong Place.
“I love to hear conservatives complaining that the protesters should be in Washington instead of Wall Street, as if the conservatives were really concerned about the most effective way for the demonstrators to make their case.
This location-based argument suggests a limiting “either/or” mentality that you can’t be in both places, and also assumes that there’s no reason to be on Wall Street at all.
As Herman Cain said recently, “Don’t blame Wall Street. Don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.
But there’s a good reason why Wall Street serves as an ideal venue for the demonstration. Unlike politicians in Washington, who have to answer to voters every few years, corporate executives on Wall Street don’t have to answer to the public, even though their actions have a huge impact on all of us. It seems to me, the protesters picked a reasonable venue to launch their movement. In fact, judging by the row of satellite trucks parked outside the protest, I’d say Wall Street was exactly the right place to draw attention to their cause.”
I just hope the next time these pundits claim to know what’s going on at some roundtable discussion, someone says “Why should we listen to you when you didn’t even understand what OWS was about?” If they wanna play stupid, I say we hold them to it from now on. 😉
Yes, and I believe President Obama helped “Bail Out” and “Fannie May” and “Freddie Mac” those banks as well. Yes “ALL” of Washington is bought out, both left & right. And so shall it be for all eternity. The rich have ruled this world for.. uh, since the beginning of civilization. Nothing is going to change this. Protesting, marching, screaming, and etc.etc. is not going to change a thing. Waste of time and effort. Soon now the rich will pay the right people and all those protesters will be dispersed as fast as they coerced.
There is a Club, and were not in it.