Out of the Woods

 

Occupy Wall Street!

The Wall Street protests in New York City are entering their eighth week. During the early days you only heard about it on e-mail, from friends, from the Internet. The newspapers ignored it.

But now the protests spread to other cities, including Boston. 24  persons were arrested there for refusing to leave the Bank of America building. 700 people were arrested in New York City.

This is a real movement and can no longer be swept under the rug. Of course, the newspapers all hurry to dismiss it as foolish. "They have no clear goals," the journalists write.

No clear goals? The protesters want jobs. They want affordable health insurance. They want to have as much power as Wall Street and the large corporations. What's not clear about that?

The papers never accuse the tea party of lacking clear goals. Smaller government and few other government regulations seem perfectly clear. Is it any clearer than 'jobs and health insurance'?

Thousands of New York's finest came out to protect Wall Street. In Boston the police spokesperson is quoted as saying: "When they break the law, we arrest them."

That's really reassuring. But where was the police when Wall Street manipulated the economy into a deep and stubborn recession? Did they arrest anyone?

Well no, because that's not against the law. That's just capitalism. The big operators in the financial industry can take every crazy risk and ruin the lives of many of their fellow citizens. That's not illegal.
Why is it not illegal? It seems to me that it should be.

But then I remember the golden rule: "He who has the gold, makes the rules."

And, of course, he who has the gold has been newspapers in his pocket.

The occupied Wall Street protesters want that changed. They want American democracy to be returned to the people.

What's unclear about that?