Every year or two I take a road trip to Massachusetts. Then I write up a travelogue, interlarded with dystopian lefty rants. Here is my 2011 essay. I present to you the following excerpt, which made me think of DailyKos while I was writing it:
(Scene: I am at Central Wharf in Boston, waiting in line to get into the New England Aquarium.)
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I later learned that #OccupyBoston was holding a demonstration at South Station, about a mile away, but there was no evidence of any disturbance at Central Wharf. I wish the occupiers well, but the situation is similar to the end of apartheid in South Africa: it is very, very difficult for the oppressors to climb off their pedestals, having told each other all their lives that they must remain on the pedestals because otherwise surely the unwashed masses will tear them limb from limb! Well, no, actually the masses just want this horrid financial game to be over. It is only after food becomes unaffordable that the violence will start. There is still time for the top 0.01% of the ultrarich to do the right thing, but very little evidence so far that they can find it in their hearts to do so.
There is some confusion among the occupiers about who their enemies are. While “the 1%” is a catchy phrase, most of the top 1% hates the ultrarich as much as the bottom 99% do. Once all the wealth has been sucked out of the 99%, the vacuum will then be turned upon the 1% and probably many of them know that. The real enemies are people whose names you have never heard of, who have fudged the public records so their loot appears to be spread out among a horde of fake nominees, because they believe that if their lives ever became public knowledge then of course they would be put to death immediately. You might as well call them ”the Voldemorts”.
Of course, it is presumptuous of me to be speaking on behalf of the 1%. I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor have I ever wanted to be, a member of that class. At the peak of my career as a software engineer, my income was barely into the top 20% for Americans; it is much lower now. I have always refused offers of promotion into management. I have never kissed anyone’s ass (no, it’s not just a figure of speech) and I don’t intend to start now. I have gotten into stock trading, not because it’s a popular pastime among my rich friends, but because my health is poor and it is one of the few jobs that truly doesn’t need anything more than a brain, a computer, some seed capital, and a whole lotta nerve.
The stock market is broken. It has become a casino where the world’s wealth is gambled away. It should be restored to its proper function. But in the meantime, if you’re not playing, you’re losing. The world’s corporations are taking the money from your pocket and putting it on the stock market. If you want it back, that’s where you have to go. To win, all one has to do is be smarter than the average bankster, which seems like it shouldn’t be that hard. But the banksters have had many years to hone their game, while I am a newbie.
Many people have written their versions of ”What #OccupyWallStreet’s demands should be”. Here is one from Shah Gilani, who is a member of the 1% and has been neck-deep in Wall Street for 30 years. The language is a little stilted, and some of his demands are perhaps too lenient, but he seems to be roughly on the same page as the protesters outside his offices. That’s a refrain I’ve heard from many sources: most of the people who work on Wall Street agree with the protesters, not with their own overlords. They hate how corrupt their jobs have become.
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Aquarium entrance: At 1:40 PM we finally got to the front of the line. In the meantime, the rear of the line had become maybe 20% longer. I pity the fool who joins it now! Admission is only $91.80 for a family of four. As soon as we get in, we immediately find ourselves at a penguin feeding show...