Reshared post from +Tim O’Reilly
I just went down to check out the scene at the https://occupywallst.org/ rally. It was a bit of a disappointment, for a number of reasons. First, there were only a few hundred people there (one of the organizers told me they peaked out at around a thousand on the weekend). Second, the people who were there were the wrong people.
What do I mean by that? The attendees were mainly scruffily dressed young people, whose attire and approach was too easily dismissed by those in authority. The smirk on the face of the Fox News reporter who was interviewing various participants said it all. "These people are easy to dismiss."
I couldn't bear to see him goading these idealistic young people into making bombastic statements (the reporter is a tool of AIG was one comment I overheard), so I stepped over and asked if I could speak to him.
I told him that I run a company with about $100 million in revenue, and that it isn't just kids who think that Wall Street bankers got away with a crime. There are a set of people who constructed a set of financial products with intent to defraud. They took our country to the brink of ruin, then got off scott free, even with multi-million dollar bonuses. I'll be interested to see if Fox runs my comments anywhere.
It seems so odd to me that the Tea Party isn't out in force at this protest. It seems so odd that government largesse aimed at rich corporations seems to be OK with them, while government largesse aimed at the disadvantaged ought to be cut. I would have loved to see blue collar Americans out in force at this protest, not just college students.
(Personally, I'm all for a leaner approach to government that I've described with the geeky vision of "Government as a Platform." Spend strategically in order to catalyze society to do what needs to be done. Unfortunately, in this case that wasn't done.)
I highly recommend Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone reporting on the financial crisis of 2008 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 , as well as these recent pieces: http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/guest-expert/2011/09/14/william-k-black-phd/why-nobody-went-to-jail-during-the-credit-crisis and http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/obamas_economic_quagmire_frank.html They should make your blood boil.
It's not the American Spring yet, but it ought to be.
Here are some of my photos from the event:
In album OccupyWallStreet (29 photos)
Google+: View post on Google+
