Other Fish To Fry . . .

OCCUPIED . . . (with other matters)

Chick with nose ring - thinks you're an asshole

                                               Volker Rule Author: can evaporate 1/3 of your income

They say - and they are right - when trying to explain difficult things it is best to resort to simple examples which can give the uninformed a 'feel' for the issues.  ...so, Question:  If you were a rich guy living in New York and found out the two folks above were extremely pissed at you, who would you try to straighten it out with first?

It occurred to me last Sunday (when many of my readers were no doubt in church houses) to visit the operational church of America. Wall Street is, as you have no doubt heard, neither occupied by protesters nor is it available to be occupied by protesters.  Wandering around on Wall Street in war paint at 3 am has always been a pretty sure ticket to plastic handcuffs (at best).  After 9-11 the American church has been guarded as well as most military installations. If you think the NYC cops are irritated (to the point of needlessly pepper spraying chicks like the one above) check out the attitude of the BlackWater types that the NYSE hires to keep an eye on the $25 trillion or so they have stashed away down there.

"Occupy This..."

New York's finest, guarding the Circus at Zuccotti Park

"Help you with something?"

Later that day...two doors down from the New York Stock Exchange

A lot of what you're hearing about these protests is, strictly speaking, true enough.   Allow me to sum it up?  (again, bringing to bear the tools of simplicity)  "The protest lacks a unifying theme and its participants are molly coddled little pricks."  Simplicity frequently requires recourse to bluntness.

Reaction from actual Wall Street figures has been a hodge-podge ranging from willingness to engage the protesters to basically calling them all idiots.  These reactions call to mind those of various individuals in the Obama administration when seeking to engage the Tea Party...

Unemployed Columbia MBA reading "Occupied Wall Street Journal"

Still living in the East Village on old man's dime, railing against Capitalism

A more coherent agenda?

Tea Partying Social Security recipient railing against Socialism

Huh?

Keep that Nazi out of out of my over-alls

Fact is, whether you're gonna call bullshit on the over arching unfairness and greed of capitalism or the madness that has become Washington after 250 years of governing history's most renown culture of crybabies, you're very likely going to have a little trouble wrapping up your message in easily digestible proto-memes.  Perhaps if they are lucky - no one will step forward to make it all too clear.  The Occupier movement could end up with its very own Sarah Palin.  That would probably clear things up.

Clearer heads on both Wall Street and Main Street (along, one can only hope, with a few of the heads in that park on lower Broadway) are well aware that the protest sign we all should be carrying might look something like this:

Take your medicine - before you get really sick

Whether you're old and scared of the government socializing your Medicare or young and too impatient to ride out the economic cycle,  things might get a little dicey for you in the coming decades.  But then again - that's life.  And death (with or without the panels.)

But cheer up - those guys with all the money on Wall Street won't actually let you starve.  Who would be left to buy the IPods?

Casual Protester, Apple Customer

NYU Nursing Student M.S. Lee - fair weather protester spends 21st birthday Occupying Wall Street

Interviewer:  How long will you be protesting today?

Protester: Until my father agrees to take me to Century 21.

Interviewer: I understand it's your 21st birthday today?

Protester: You ought to know.

*   *   *

One thing's sure:  making a lot of money has never been a meek man's game.  Whether it's the threat of losing your bay house courtesy of Darth Volker or having some lesbian economics PhD start a global smear campaign against you (which might just be deserved...and cost you your other bay house) you've got to earn your keep boys.

Idealism is no picnic either is it?

Best of luck to you all.

M. Lee

NYC, Oct 11, 2011