Wednesday, October 12, 2011

So.. I am simple minded

So, I am simple minded.  No reason to create complex solutions, when simple answers exist.
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For example, Occupy Wall Street.  Very Smart People are trying to put this into context with the street rallies in Egypt, Tunisia and England.  The ideas have ranged from the end of capitalism, the problem with globalization as brought on by Ronald Reagan, to Class Warfare (I cannot bring myself to link to Mitt), to Mob Mentality (nor can I, in good faith, link to Eric Can't or).
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But it seems to me to be much simpler.
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Occupy Wall Street is just like the protest in Egypt, or Yemen or England or Tunisia.  It is the "powerless" demonstrating against "those that have power".  In the case of Wall Street, both economic and - through their donations - political power.  But, unlike Egypt et all, #OWS will fail to make any big changes.
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Not because they are wrong - they are powerless and Wall Street is pretty much in charge - but because the rest of us are okay.  The "Wall Street / Washington" nexus does control all the power and most of the money in the country.  But not all of it, and there is a LOT of money in this country.  The rest of us aren't "the 99%" doing crappy.  MOST people are doing okay, to pretty darn good.   The employed, the successfully retired and those caught by the safety net are doing just fine.  Those occupying Wall Street don't represent the 99%, but the - maybe - 10% who are both failing and are "not disillusioned" with the political process.
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And, in thinking about this I wondered if not-disillusioned is a double negative, meaning illusioned. ha ha.  But I don't think so. "Un-disillusioned" in terms of the political process probably translates to delusional. ha ha.
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But then I figured that un-jaded is probably a better term.  Because those not protesting... we are jaded, and pretty sure we can't change the world.  I wish I still thought marching down there would help.