Zuccotti Park

Quiet since the protesters were roused from their sleep and the park deserted. The OWS movement still rolls along but there is that feeling that the nexus of the movement was in the damp sleeping bags and sterno stoves and mountain pod tents we saw on the news. People were doing something and this was exciting. My generation rolled along under the quiet blanket of a party headed by Duran Duran/ Talking Heads/U2. Our rebellion was more cerebral, if not artistic. Nothing that couldn't be settled with a snoot full of blow.

But the protesters in Zuccotti Park did not graduate into that world. Theirs was very different. We could hide because the economy while not great was not in the dire straits of the last four years. You could find a job and things started to really boom. Girls Just wanna have fun and so did everyone else. And we did. Wasn't much on the social activism side of the equation. But really, what was there to protest against? Not enough money? Not enough thin ties and pointy shoes to go around?

But I digress. Zuccotti Park required that people risk something. Even if it was just a night sleeping on the cold ground or the danger of getting maced or arrested. It has been a long time since anyone I know risked anything. It just wasn't in our lexicon. What is the big deal might sum it up. Or maybe people just wanna have fun. Until they can't.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man...one mans war against suburbia

Are there no workhouses for the ninety nine?

The one percent, a covetous, crotchety old one percent bent over his figures with only a candle for warmth while the ninety nine sits out in the tank scrounging for coal. Please sir may I have an extension of me unemployment benefits or me payroll tax for the holiday. Tis only happens once a year and we would like to make a little merry. The one percent rose up over his candle and looked over. And a fine thing for picking  me pocket with your social security and your medicaid and your unemployment. No. Not another scrap for you ninety nine.

And at that two men came in with their hats off and asked the one percent if they might tax him a bit to help the poor. Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? There are sir and they are full of the ninety nine we are sad to say. Oh. I thought something might have put them out of their usual vigor. No. No. You will get no tax from me for those lazy beggars who haven't the gumption to do something for themselves. But sir, it is Christmas and the ninety nine already pay the tax and many will soon die from hunger. Then let them do it and decrease the surplus population! Be  gone you ninety nine scoundrels and leave me to my business!

At that his nephew approached. Uncle One Percent. What is it you ninety nine. I suppose you have your hand out too? I have come from Wall Street to wish you the one percent a merry Christmas. Why? Why? Would you do that? Because uncle, we are but fellow journeyers to the grave and there is nothing you can do for that. Then why are you happy? Why not uncle? I am young and poor and you are rich and old. One day you will die and decrease the surplus population. Then the world will change.

Bah Humbug!
So a Merry Christmas to you one percent!
Bah Humbug!
And a happy new year!

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Does Capitalism Work for the Many?

Should one human have a billion dollars at their disposal? It would seem an indictment of capitalism that such things can occur. But they do and now we have lots of billionaires. That kind of concentration of wealth into the hands of the few is unsustainable. Should an Oprah have billions and billions of dollars?Should a Bill Gates? Some would say the good provided is worth the payout,but in our wired world of five billion people and three and a half billion jobs, it just doesn't make sense.

Behind the OWS movement is a basic proposition: capitalism favors the few at the expense of the many. The few are people who game the system and make the billions. And why shouldn't they? They are smart enough to do that. But we are all on the same planet and just because one person can have the intelligence or luck to make a billion dollars should society permit that kind of inequity?

The problem is people don't share. Even if the President proposed a tax on billionaires it would never pass the congress because the billionaires can buy the congressmen. Even this rarefied world of billionaires could cry class warfare and say people are taking from them unjustly. We would like think that a sort of mega philanthropy would kick in for people at this leve,l but money has a nasty habit of staying in the same circles.

Capitalism allows anyone to become a billionaire in theory. But becoming a billionaire is largely a fluke in a system that allows one individual to prosper at the expense of the many. It would seem the many are starting to wake up.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

The Sixties are back in The Teens

Was a kid during the sixties but I picked up the vibes and they are the same. The squares thought they could do an end run under the crummy guise of patriotism and fiscal responsibility and call themselves a name hearkening back to throwing tea into the Boston Harbor. Figure the left had gone to sleep and now look what has happened, we have a generational conflict mirroring the big push back of the counterculture in the sixties when Vietnam lit the fuse. Now it is pillaging of the American dream on a massive scale touching off the new powderkeg of populist discontent.

And it is the young again. The middle aged middle class people have too much to lose usually to go park it in New York or Chicago or LA. But if you read about the OWS movement and listen to the pundits calling them anti American or class warfare warriors or mobs or rabble rousers or just plain un-American you think all the way back to the bearded bums statements by many during the sixties. The students then were agitators or Communists or anarchists or socialists or agents of the Soviet Union. The college students to Nixon and company were nothing short of the enemy and Kent State proved the point.

And will we have another Kent State? The keg is being filled and you wonder who will touch it off. Will the police try and clear the park or will somebody call in the National Guard again. Who knows? But the lines are being drawn and it is lining up just like fifty years ago when one generation drew a line against another. And look what came out of that turbulence...our very culture.

We'll see this time what comes out of our new sixties which might well be called... the teens.
It fits doesn't it?

http://www.billhazelgrove/.

Rocket Man...one mans war against suburbia