The recent Occupy Wall Street (and accompanying “Occupy” movements in various cities, such as Occupy Boston) are amazing. Protests are ephemeral – an afternoon, maybe a few days, just a blip (if even mentioned) on the news radar. But the Occupy movement has been able to persist, not unlike the protests in Egypt and other areas of the Middle East.
It’s like people finally had enough, enough of obstructionist politics, of government always helping corporations, letting business and profits drive government. It’s like other people have been thinking along the lines of my “People VS Profit” post and decided to stand up.
It’s an open secret that our “free market economy” is only free for the corporate interests. They get to profit with abandon, using workers as if they were unfeeling robots, often not even caring much about customers, as long as both profits and stock prices keep going up. About 99% of us are left to manage on our own – and those who are not extremely privileged are more-or-less screwed.
If “business” destroys the land near you or poisons your health or destroys small businesses or hires people at wages so low they need food stamps, it’s all good, as long as the business contributes to our national GDP. Why is the measure of our economy all about aggregate revenue and never about wages or well-being of individuals?
I think people are tired of this broken system – they want financial reform, they want political reform – they want a system by the people and for the people, not a system based on profit and greed.
Live long and Occupy.
Here’s what the Occupy folks have to say for themselves (self-produced video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5O_Ao9w1u7c
Here’s an Onion satire on the bankers vis-a-vis Occupy Wallstreet (precariously close to the truth, but hilarious nonetheless):
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bank-executives-on-15th-floor-gambling-on-which-oc,26565/
Here are Lemony Snicket’s observations on Occupy (copied below):
http://occupywriters.com/works/by-lemony-snicket
Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance
1. If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald.
2. “Fortune” is a word for having a lot of money and for having a lot of luck, but that does not mean the word has two definitions.
3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.
4. People who say money doesn’t matter are like people who say cake doesn’t matter—it’s probably because they’ve already had a few slices.
5. There may not be a reason to share your cake. It is, after all, yours. You probably baked it yourself, in an oven of your own construction with ingredients you harvested yourself. It may be possible to keep your entire cake while explaining to any nearby hungry people just how reasonable you are.
6. Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.
7. Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.
8. Don’t ask yourself if something is fair. Ask someone else—a stranger in the street, for example.
9. People gathering in the streets feeling wronged tend to be loud, as it is difficult to make oneself heard on the other side of an impressive edifice.
10. It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.
11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.
12. If you have a large crowd shouting outside your building, there might not be room for a safety net if you’re the one tumbling down when it collapses.
13. 99 percent is a very large percentage. For instance, easily 99 percent of people want a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and the occasional slice of cake for dessert. Surely an arrangement can be made with that niggling 1 percent who disagree.