Friday, October 21, 2011

For What It's Worth

So we’re into Day 35 of Occupy Wall Street….a couple of random thoughts about that and other things:

It’s understandable that some are frustrated by the movement’s unwillingness (or inability) to articulate exactly what the problem is and how to correct it, but I haven’t heard the President or Congress stepping up to the plate on that issue.  The next meaningful conversation between both sides will be the first.  And maybe those Fox News pundits and condescending MSNBC correspondents would treat the movement with a little more respect and importance if the protestors dragged a bank CEO or brokerage president into the street and did a Gaddafi on them.  I’m not advocating violence but that seems to be the only thing they understand.  And it’s hard to take serious anything Mayor Bloomberg has to say about the protest – he’s part of the 1%.  Perspective comes from your position.

I have come to the realization that I don’t need to understand everything – I can live quite happily without in-depth knowledge of things like quantum physics, exactly how car engines work, and the composition of the universe.  It’s the job of people much smarter than me to figure that stuff out.  So now that the scientists at the Berkley Earth Project have again confirmed and concluded that global warming is real, I believe we should start doing something about it.  First somebody needs to apologize to Professor Phil Jones for “climategate”.  Then bring Rick Perry into the 21st Century.  After watching the Scorcese documentary on George Harrison, I believe that I haven’t appreciated the Beatles as much as I should….even Ringo.  But I’m okay with my attitude towards groups like KISS, Rush, and Journey as well as the scarcity of their cd’s in my music library.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Revolution Starts Within

The rage continues and the anger grows.   

With each day that passes it becomes increasingly clear that the movement that started on Wall Street a few weeks ago (OCCUPY WALL STREET) as well as the one continued by WE ARE THE 99 PERCENT is gaining traction across a wider, diverse audience of people who are pissed off about corporate greed, inefficient policies and the politicians who created them, and the direction this country is heading.  The movement is about accountability.  And in spite of Mayor Bloomberg’s sadly erroneous (and seriously misguided) claim that the protestors are targeting bankers who are “struggling to make ends meet”, the real targets of this movement remain the banks and financial institutions who continue to run roughshod over the 99%.  Appropriate that this week Bank of America – the same financial institution that paid zero taxes over the past three years, earned $3 billion in profits, and announced plans to cut 35,000 jobs to increase profitability – announced plans to impose fees on debit card use.  Bloomberg, like Trump, exemplifies what is wrong with the elite 1%.  We need to kill that myth that banks are in business to lend money and create jobs.  That is a fairy tale.  Banks are in business to make profits.  Nothing simpler than that.


Occupy Wall Street and We Are The 99 Percent are everything the Tea Party pretends to be.