3 Types of Wall Street Protesters Hurting Their Own Cause
Dear Occupy Wall Street Protesters,It took me awhile to figure out what was bothering me about you. It certainly wasn't because I'm indifferent to the recession. In the last three years, I've had my ass kicked a lot harder than most of my friends, what with losing my house, my car, and my savings, so yeah, protest seems appropriate. Especially, as we enter a third year with no sign of progress.
I shouldn't say no progress. I hear stock in canned goods and shotguns has gone way up.
I see a picture of a giant puppy being sodomized by industrialists.
Protesters Who Think the Problem is Simply Corporate Greed
One of the best things about working in New York City is that I get to go down to the protests and hear countless demonstrators eloquently explaining the abuses of corporate greed and showing how it has tainted a system at the expense of honest hard-working families - or at least that's what I hear as I have my liberal, pinko wet dreams while snoozing on the downtown 2. Unfortunately, what I actually hear is a lot of people talking about "fuckin' Corporate America, man," and that's just about it. That is not the refrain of a successful protest. That's why you never saw this:
"I have . . . had it up to here with these crackedy ass crackers."
"Tofu? Sure, I'd love some. Just open the cage."
Protesters Who Don't Grasp Symbolism
I'm really happy to see that you protesters have spread out across numerous major cities in recent days -- not just because it means a movement is forming, but because Wall Street was a symbolically flawed place to hold the protests in the first place. You know who would love to see the economy pick up? The day traders on Wall Street. Or did you think everyone who worked in the financial district of Manhattan was in that richest one percent you heard about in Reich's link above? Wall Street might be one of the centers of the world's economy, but to point a finger at it as if there is one bad man in a three piece suit, smoking cigars and raping the statue of liberty on his mahogany desk is just simplistic. What about the banks, CEOs, and, perhaps most of all, complicit government leading up to and existing during this recession? There is no shortage of blame, and to focus anger at the flailing stock market makes as much sense as protesting cancer outside Memorial Sloan Kettering.
"Call a cab, for Miss Liberty. I'm done."