It seems like those in power think they’ve won. Their media campaign of misinformation, lies and propaganda about the Occupy Movement has worked its magic. The majority of Americans have been convinced that the Occupy people are nothing but lazy bums. The real message about Wall Street and Washington DC criminality has been obscured by a blizzard of talking points about socialism, communism, drug usage, trash, law breaking, urination and feces. The Department of Homeland Security coordinated destruction of encampments across the country has eliminated the daily reminder of the ongoing looting and pillaging of the country by the ruling oligarchy of bankers, mega-corporations, and politicians.
OWS is like the Big Lebowski. The rich guy is yelling him – “the bums will always lose.”
“The Revolution is Over!!!!”
Or is it?
What if occupiers aped Wall Street?
If the protesters had wanted to hit the banks where it hurts, they could have given them a dose of their own medicine.
It’s a lucky thing these kids tried only to “occupy” Wall Street.
If they’d been really radical they would have done something much more dangerous.
They would have just imitated Wall Street.
Everyone now knows the rules down on America’s Street of Shame. These are almost the exact opposite of the rules in the real, normal, moral economy the rest of us inhabit.
On Wall Street, you take every nickel and dime you can get your hands on. If it’s not nailed down, it’s yours. You take without conscience or shame. If you see a blind man selling pencils on the street, steal the pencils. Steal his pennies. Steal his dog.
On Wall Street, you gamble. You gamble big. But you gamble with other people’s money.
Borrow as much as you can. If it doesn’t work out, too bad — for someone else. Heads you win, tails they lose.
MF Global, anyone?
There is no limit to how much money you should take. As P.T. Barnum might have said, if he had had the benefit of an MBA, “there’s an investor born every minute.”
And “never give a bondholder an even break.”
After all, it’s not stealing if you get away with it. And because you — or your cronies — write the laws, you get away with everything.
You think I’m exaggerating. But reflect that the top 10 people at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers walked away with nearly $1 billion before those banks collapsed. A billion dollars. That money went to yachts and mansions and mink coats. The people who ran subprime firms like Countrywide Financial walked away with fortunes. Ditto all those mortgage brokers who got paid to sucker people into dangerous loans.
Do you think they’re giving back a nickel or a dime? Do you think they are staying awake at nights? Lehman Brothers creditors lost their shirts. Little old ladies who had been sold Lehman Brothers “principal protection notes” as “safe” investments for their life savings lost everything. They’re eating cat food, while the former honchos eat foie gras. Do you think those honchos could care less? And do you think they look at this economy as a “recession”?
You dummy. They’re laughing into their martinis. Ha, ha! Yes, let the good times roll.
Reflect, too, that the bonus bonanza has been back on Wall Street for at least two years now.
Meanwhile, if you’re waiting for politicians to get tough on the bankers, you will wait in vain. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions, Big Finance has already given $122 million to the candidates for the 2011-’12 races. That’s with a year still to go.
That’s more than any other group. It’s three times as much as the entire health care industry has given, and six times as much as labor. These candidates are bought and paid for. They know who they work for, and it isn’t you.
“The banking lobbyist is on line two, Senator. He says it’s urgent.”
Which brings us to “Occupy Wall Street,” and the protest movement.
Wall Street couldn’t care less about this nonsense. The really rich and powerful aren’t commuting in to offices every day on the subway. This doesn’t affect them at all. They’re riding into work in heated limousines, laughing at the cold, damp kids in the park.
There’s only one thing that terrifies these people. Only one thing that keeps them up at night.
Riots? Revolution? Nah.
Credit cards.
The banks may be greedy. But they are also really, really stupid. They will send out credit cards to anyone, based only on a “credit score” that’s easy to manipulate.
(The credit scores are a joke. Mine isn’t perfect, a bank told me, because I “haven’t borrowed enough.” In other words, they’d prefer I owed more money before they lent to me. Really, you couldn’t make these clowns up.)
If OWS really wanted to hit the banks where it hurts, they wouldn’t have wasted their time camping out in the cold and holding up signs till their fingers turned blue.
They’ve have taken out every new credit card they could get. Lots of them. Card after card.
They would have done what Wall Street does. They would have borrowed every nickel they could.
And then they would have high-tailed it to the Bahamas.
Mai-tais in the Jacuzzi. The presidential suite. These kids are 26 and unemployed. How good does this sound?
And when the money was gone, they’d have said to the banks, “Too bad, suckers. Sue us!”
Good luck with that.
America’s bankruptcy laws are crazy. You can shelter all sorts of money in things like 401k plans and still walk away. By the standards of the real, “moral” economy they are unconscionable.
They are, in a word, as immoral as Wall Street. They let borrowers treat Wall Street the way Wall Street treats everyone else. Look at the behavior on the Street of Shame and tell me I’m wrong.
Actually, maybe the real way to imitate Wall Street would be to borrow every nickel on these credit cards, head to Vegas, and wager the money on black.
Heads, you keep the profits. Tails . . . say, anyone seen Dick Fuld lately? Angelo Mozilo? Jon Corzine?
Yes, if the protesters did this, there would be chaos. Mayhem. A new financial crisis. Heavens, we might even have to change the system.
(You can bet our politicians would lose this bankruptcy loophole faster than they’d change the law against insider dealing by members of Congress).
All in all, it’s a lucky thing this strategy didn’t occur to the protesters. Or, just as likely, it probably did occur to some of them — but they considered it grossly immoral.
Phew!
Instead they spent two months camping out in the cold, eating lentil curry, while the bankers got fatter and fatter. Ha, ha!
As the rich man shouts to The Dude in “The Big Lebowski,” “Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski! Condolences. The bums lost. . . . The bums will always lose!”
And so they do.
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Yup.
The message killed by the METHODS of the messengers.
Q.E.D.
Hot debate. What do you think?
0 
12
5th December 2011 at 1:58 pm
indiejen says:
And the next scene in which the rich Jeffrey Lebowski appears:
“Are you surprised at my tears, sir? Strong men also cry. Strong men also cry.”
Here’s hoping that Jon Corzine cries on Thursday when he appears before the House Agricultural Committee on Thursday. With the lawsuits filed today from former MFG employees, he may already have hankie in hand.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
7 
0
5th December 2011 at 2:02 pm
Administrator says:
HZK is missing the irony gene.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
9 
0
5th December 2011 at 2:53 pm
Administrator says:
“During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think…Millions saw the apple fall but Newton was the one who asked why.”
Bernard Baruch
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
10 
0
5th December 2011 at 3:06 pm
Mary Malone says:
Shame Bernard Baruch is now famous for City University of New York whose student body couldn’t pass 7th grade reading and math tests administered by No Child Left Behind bureaucrats .
How ironic.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
5th December 2011 at 3:30 pm
Anonymous says:
For anyone interested, this might fit here…
Searching over the weekend as usual and caught this from Adbusters:
“Situating Occupy” by David Graeber
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/99/world-revolution-2011.html
Interested me enough to follow the crumbs which led me to this video (1of 3):
“Interview with Immanuel Wallerstein”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAZVERVEtrs
I had never heard of Wallenstein before and I’m still following those crumbs – eg:
(Title & last paragraph quoted)
“The Fantastic Success of Occupy Wall Street”
“Even if the Occupy Wall Street movement were to begin to peter out because of exhaustion or repression, it has already succeeded and will leave a lasting legacy, just as the uprisings of 1968 did. The United States will have changed, and in a positive direction. As the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” A new and better world-system, a new and better United States, is a task that requires repeated effort by repeated generations. But another world is indeed possible (albeit not inevitable). And we can make a difference. Occupy Wall Street is making a difference, a big difference.”
http://www.iwallerstein.com/fantastic-success-occupy-wall-street/
Like or Dislike:
4 
0
5th December 2011 at 3:47 pm
Diogenes says:
Shit – that last was me – sorry
Like or Dislike:
4 
0
5th December 2011 at 3:57 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
“And we can make a difference. Occupy Wall Street is making a difference, a big difference.”
Sure did, in the tons of garbage that had to be hauled away.
Sure did, in the $$$$ in police overtime/court time/jail time in already indebted cities and counties.
Sure did, in the damage to businesses and neighborhoods and parks trashed by the OWSers.
Sure did, in giving everybody else a good lesson in HOW NOT TO GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS.
Not quite the “difference” OWS was expecting but hey! When it is warmer and the kiddies can get out of Mom’s basement, we will then see what stern stuff they are made of…..Valley Forge! Not.
Hot debate. What do you think?
0 
8
5th December 2011 at 4:01 pm
indiejen says:
Well, where’s the nifty blue “OCCUPY” banner that was up on the top left of the TBP website? Was it disabled, or did you not want to be labeled a bum?
The Dude abides, even as #OWS subsides.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
5 
0
5th December 2011 at 4:01 pm
Diogenes says:
Apparently not everyone understands that new shit has come to light…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbIv7W7rhx4&feature=player_embedded
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
5th December 2011 at 4:11 pm
Wyoming Mike says:
Is that Karl Rove?
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
5th December 2011 at 4:17 pm
Colma Rising says:
Indiejen:
The banner’s still there…
It ties the room together.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
5th December 2011 at 4:19 pm
Administrator says:
HZK seems to be conflicted by her emotions. She scorns the OWS movement for standing up to the police thugs around the country and then in the next breath says they are living in their Mom’s basement and need to be made of sterner stuff.
Did you prescribe some psychotic drugs for yourself, because you ain’t makin any sense?
I believe the men and women at Valley Forge were revolutionary soldiers. They were fighting the authorities currently in power. They were occupying land that was not theirs. They should have gotten a permit. Right Hope?
Hope, I even think they urinated and took shits into the Schuykill River. OMG. What a mess. Plus their feet kept bleeding all over the park.
I bet if you were around in 1777, you would have been sitting in your nice warm house in Philadelphia declaring that this filthy mob of soldiers needed to get back to their farms and do some real work. If that damn George Washington had just stayed on message. Do you realize how much damage he caused during the Christmas raid at Trenton? Despicable.
Please keep posting. I’m having so much fun kicking your ass all over the site. It’s just like the good old days when I got to kick that worthless cur Smokey in the balls every day.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
6 
0
5th December 2011 at 4:19 pm
Colma Rising says:
Hope is a Big Dog…
Llpoh would certainly approve.
Like or Dislike:
2 
1
5th December 2011 at 4:24 pm
Administrator says:
indiejen
The occupy banner is still there.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
5th December 2011 at 4:28 pm
brann says:
where is smokey when you need him—-maybe over at zerohedge fucking with them!
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
5th December 2011 at 5:20 pm
indiejen says:
Ahhh, now that I’ve allowed one (called ci.iy) of the twelve scripts that wants to run every time TBP loads, I see it.
Too many scripts slows the fun. At least from my Mac’s POV.
Glad to know it’s still there! It TOTALLY ties the room together, Colma! Thanks to you and Admin for setting me straight.
I may be providing a good example of how we often blind ourselves with our own intelligence. By not running background scripts, I save myself and my machine from being hijacked by corporate marketing analysis. However, I also disable my ability to see the whole picture; in this case, the Occupy banner.
Perhaps HZK can relate…
Like or Dislike:
3 
1
5th December 2011 at 5:27 pm
llpoh says:
Hope – don’t let the bastards get you down. Colma is right – fighting the masses is Big Dog worthy. Just because you are standing alone doesn’t mean you are not right.
Like or Dislike:
1 
2
5th December 2011 at 5:29 pm
Axel says:
“…you take every nickel and dime you can get your hands on. If it’s not nailed down, it’s yours. You take without conscience or shame. If you see a blind man selling pencils on the street, steal the pencils. Steal his pennies. Steal his dog.” –Sounds like the narrator from the movie Goodfellas.
At least the Wise Guys had some rules.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
5th December 2011 at 6:48 pm
Colma Rising says:
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
5th December 2011 at 12:06 am
Novista says:
Anybody know this Big Dog?
http://open.salon.com/files/rebootdog1320910280.png
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
5th December 2011 at 1:48 am