We couldn't have said it any better.
But we do see some irony in all of these Occupy photos:
1. What are the chances that half the people making these photos have slept outside an Apple store for a new Iphone?
2. What are the chances that this picture was taken on a cell phone worth more than $100?
3. How much credit will people in these lines be using because they are underpaid or unemployed?
4. How many people waiting in these lines are angry at Obama for losing their job, pension, or stock portfolio but are still supporting their former employer or the executive that made a lousy (or unethical or illegal) "business decision" that in turn dropped the stock price that eventually led to the collapse of their portfolio that led to a drinking binge that led to a DUI, that led to a criminal record, that led to an inability to get hired, that led to the loss of the family, that led to a deeper depression, that led to institutionalization, that led to spending tax money, that eventually made some pharmaceutical company another trillion, that made some politician get elected, that led to policy that favored the pharmaceutical company, that led to a $2 billion dollar executive bonus, that led to an overseas investment and a house in Tahiti, that led to more votes for the politician, that led to more tax breaks for the executive, that led to not having money for education, that led to kids not having skills to do jobs, that led to more crime, that led to more incarceration, that led to more tax dollars to build more prisons, that led to a construction contract for the friend of the governor, that led to kickbacks for the governor, that led to bigger tax breaks for the construction owners, that took the sacrificed tax money that would have been spent on education, that led to more deskilling, that led to more crime, that led to the need for more policeman, that couldn't be hired all because this is America and taxing the wealth of the 1% that have made their wealth from exploiting the labor of the world, that sacrificed jobs and investments of the people but kept his.
And because we feel helpless, disenfranchised, political immobilized, and alienated - we support the bastards that strategically strip us of our human dignity by purchasing the products (frantically) and increasing the gap between rich and poor?
"But it is clear that we possess the technology and capital, if not yet the will, to solve these basic problems of subsistence by exporting not military technologies or piecemeal 'foreign aid' but real productive wealth that could transform poor nations into affluent ones."
Ben Agger 2002 - Postponing the Postmodern, 95
But all of this irony leads to an important question, how can we, as citizens, make economic decisions that undermine the system when we are fully encompassed by the system?
We here at WUW? do not have an answer to that question but we are glad that Americans across the nation are willing to sit in parks to force an answer!
Please excuse us - we need to go occupy ITunes,
WhatUpWally?
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