I like protest. I always liked cheering for the worst team to see that big upset in a game like when Jaroslav Halak in the 2010 NHL playoffs carried the Montreal Canadiens through a series of upsets, memoreably defeating the Washington capitals in a game 7 stunner. Maybe that's why I like this occupy movement so much. A whole population of slummy underdogs armed with peaceful protest pea shooters up against the armed tanks, tazers, and Harper's F-35 joint strike fighter jets of the 1% ruling class. Remember Tienanmen? Well you'll need a lot of tanks this time, so maybe we aren't the underdogs after all.
It baffles me that through all this political discussion for change there has not been much mention of a maximum wage. Communism failed in it's effort to distribute the wealth, but maybe if America had a maximum wage, a ceiling for how much you can cornhole in this carnival cornucopia, then maybe capitalism wouldn't be such a bust. All this talk of minimum wage should be insignificant. Sometimes I think it only exists to prevent any discussion or utterance of a maximum wage. If there was a maximum wage, employees wouldn't need a minimum wage to protect them because employer's could afford dishing it out. WHY IS THERE NO TALK ABOUT MAXIMUM WAGE?!!! I really want to understand this .. but if I did get an answer from the gods of America and the monetary system it would probably be something like this:
-the whole incentive to properly attract as many people as possible towards migrating to America and playing this game is unlimited exploitation and pleasure.
In Derber's "The Wilding of America" he argues that greed is ruining the nation's character, yet American law has never imposed any limits in numerical form on the amount of greed or money someone can win in this machine. So how is greed not a part of America's character? It is at the heart of it, even though it is supposedly founded on *ahem* freedom, and liberty. This sky is the limit principle is what kills everything.
I think many systems of governance have failed in their rigid effort to impose one way, when a little bit of common sense and moderation could have saved them. Impose a maximun wage! (and destroy the federal reserve) to redistribute the wealth and avoid greed and exploitation of whats left of our free democratic society.
David Suzuki was interviewed at Occupy Montreal recently and he said it best; the corporation, and the economy are just tools to get us where we are going, they should not be omnipotent. I was there when everyone marched down St.Catherine then down St.Laurent, then booed outside the bank of Montreal. People dancing to the big band music, children coloring with fat markers on old cardboard boxes. There was such energy, and hope in everyone that comes as such a threat to the institution that the press must constantly downplay protestors as naive students and unemployed bums. Then when night comes and the energy dies down there are a few of these "bums" sticking it out in their tents and you realize who the hippocrates are. The rest of the world is warm at home nursing off of Satan Incorporated's tit milk, with the blood money opium we call freedom, won at the expense of suffering abroad in Libya and who knows where next, and here are a few brave people, camping out in the shadows of the powerful, trying to speak up for our rights while we ridicule them? These protestors can stay off the hook for a short while, free from the opium these tall figures in the financial district provide, your shelter, your sustenance, your everything! all you require: food, water, sex, soon even AIR, they hold in the palm of their hands, and the resentment you have for being an addict, for not being there with them, makes you want to put them down? How shameful.
I'm a father and I know it's hard but not completely out of the ordinary to make time for such activities, and this is an important one so get behind it, and Obama's effort to pass legislation for taxing the disgustingly wealthy... just please don't make fun of people who are out there defending our rights against an increasingly corrupt and fascist ruling class.
