The reason the media fail to recognize the message of the Wall Street Occupation Movement is that they don't know what the rest of us know. They are part of the corporate ruling structure and it isn't at all obvious to them why people people are so worked up or what they want. It is an expression of a dawning realization that our whole system is rotten. Now, the rottenness of the system is not going to be universally perceived, just as the revolution will not be televised, thank you Gill Scott-Heron. The truth is known by everyone in a primal way. When they call us consumers and consume us at the same time, we get it. When they say they are the source of all that is good and that we rely on their brilliance and creativity while they destroy our public education system through propaganda and ever decreasing funding, we get it. When they are eating us for lunch and telling us we should be grateful, we see the self serving lie. Yea, we get it.
Leonard Cohen writes and sings this mood of eyes wide open recognition of perpetual betrayal. This seeing through the lie is what is going on and why the elite don't get it. As Cohen's lyrics put it in Everybody Knows;
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
The system is rigged and we are screwed. The dice are loaded, the war is over, the good guys lost. So what else can we do? Occupy Wall Street and start something. It is a lot like realizing you have been trying to make a job or a relationship work under a set of assumptions that really aren't shared by your employer or your friend/partner/spouse. It is a betrayal you have blinded yourself to because you really wanted to believe the self serving crap they were peddling. Once the spell is broken and you see it for what it is you can't go back and you realize your acceptance has been part of the problem. You walk out, you tell them off, you don't even make a demand that they change, because you know damn well they won't. But you sure can change now that you know what everybody knows. Cohen again:
Everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
So right now I get it. It's you or me. The longer I wait and stay in this with you the worse it gets, yea it's now or never. And we are enslaved by the system which passes more and more of the rewards of the system up the pyramid of wealth, the ponzi scheme of our political and economic system. As Steven Biko said:
The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
We are waking up and stepping out of the occupation of our own minds and into the streets and parks to let it be know the deal is rotten and we are calling it, the deal is off. Back to a modern New Deal, enough of this wealth redistribution ever accelerating toward the top. Taxes, hell ya. let's get back to the 92% rate that helped build the middle class. We get it the deal is rotten, everybody knows.