There is a real and potentially fatal problem with the “Us vs. Them” narrative that Occupy Wall Street has made the focal point of its campaign — most famously with the “99 percent against the 1 percent” rhetoric — and that is that it does not transmute smoothly into the more intimate “Me vs. You.” It is one thing haphazardly to generalize about “the 1 percent,” or “the rich,” or “Nazi bankers” and “fascist policemen,” and quite another to get down to cases. When I interviewed a lady who labeled the bankers and the police “Nazis,” she was notably reluctant to describe any one of those to whom I pointed in such extreme terms — “Well, maybe not him personally . . .” Put a face on an epithet, and the vitriol soon dwindles; indeed, the targets who retain their “miscreant” sticker even when named tend to be a long, long way away — far enough removed to be usefully employed as abstractions. This was something I noticed particularly keenly on Friday, at Occupy Wall Street’s march on the banks.
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While the marchers were fashioning their infantile paper airplanes, a couple of Citigroup employees stood by on the street having a cigarette break. One of them got into a conversation with a nearby protester: “Am I the problem?” he asked. “Well . . . not you,” came the nervous response. You see, when push comes to shove, a couple of popular scapegoats aside, it is always someone else who is the problem. Not him, not you, but that guy in the other department. He is the monster. Some of this is, naturally, attributable to politeness; it is far easier to rail in generalities than to look someone in the face and tell him that he is what ails the republic. But I think that this reluctance is more readily attributable to America itself — the United States simply doesn’t produce that many top-notch cartoon villains.
The reluctance to blame is increasingly obvious in Zuccotti Park, which has started to play host to a sprinkling of counter-protesters. On the Day of the Broken iPhone, I met two men who were wandering around arguing with the encamped. They stood out like a sore thumb, being in favor of free markets and of the idea that OWS is misdirecting its ire. One of them owned a string of bars in Brooklyn, and the other was in construction. One was a first-generation American. Both were self-made men. The pair were, self-admittedly, in the “1 percent,” and both had seen the benefits of the capitalist system. Both were Republicans. But they were dressed normally, in jeans and sweaters. The construction guy was wearing work boots and was indistinguishable from any of the union types milling around. He was also dark-skinned. Put simply, the protesters didn’t quite know what to make of him. “The rich” aren’t supposed to look like that.
How could they know what to make of him, though? “Occupy” is running a national chain of makeshift boarding houses for the terminally disaffected, the prerequisite to opening a franchise being only proof of sufficient indignation indefinitely to maintain a lease. This is not to suggest that there is no reason for the dissidents’ disquiet, or to deprive many of the boarders of their legitimate reasons to be upset with their lives (even if, more often than not, their plight has a radically different root cause than the one they have identified). But, justifiable angst aside, establishing exactly who is their problem remains elusive to most. Kevin D. Williamson put this most brilliantly in the last-but-one issue of National Review, in which he described the protesters as essentially being on a “witch hunt,” searching for any explanation of why their crops had failed.
A number of participants may well fancy themselves actors in a glorious revolution, but they nonetheless have their work cut out in identifying their targets, especially given the understandable temptation to issue a waiver to anyone who so much as shows his face. Until OWS not only decides upon a plan of action but agrees on who exactly fills the “1 percent,” the band of shady figures who are allegedly corrupting the sacred principles of our democracy will remain steadfastly in silhouette. Referring to the recent Citizens United case, representatives of OWS frequently tell me that “corporations aren’t people.” As a matter of constitutional law that is debatable. But as the protesters mean it, the statement reveals a fundamental problem for those who are storming Bastilles across the country. You cannot put Citigroup’s head on a stick.
— Charles C. W. Cooke is an editorial associate at National Review.
Come-on. If you really are that ignorant to not see that millions upon millions in America are struggling because banks *owners of banks* are facilitating a safety net at the expense of the American tax payer like you and me so they do not lose their billions or trillions of Dollars. Get a new job. Understand the Federal Reserve, they are a centralized bank, a bank that taxes the Government to print money. We can never make enough money to pay that debt back no matter what. That is how the system is rigged. Look at history and write a new article. These people protesting know more about how banks work than you right now. It is a journalistic measure to investigate every part of a story before you report. Get off your tush and research.
I see, so the fact that we spend well more than we take in, require banks to make shoddy loans to underqualified applicants under threat of lawsuit, set up GSEs which flood the market for demand for this unworthy paper, which we then unleash on the world is all the banks problem. The banks merely facilitate the wishes of the political class to buy off people for votes. For instance, Medicare for which we can no longer pay for in its present form.
So, yes, I have no love or hate for the banks in general, but they reacted to the rules as they were set by the representatives you and I elected. They assumed - rightly so far with the exception of Lehman - that those representatives would be so terrified by the exposure of their little game that they would make sure the majority of the money men got paid. We are now beginning to see what that looked like - Dodd's bribery and the EUs distress are laying open the ugly reality of the parasitic relationship of the govt crook - ahem politician - and the banks who they regulate.
When you rail at the banks, think twice. They are necessary, even a central bank to facilitate the inner workings of capitalism that has raised all our standard of living. The people you should be angry at are the politicians. Most GOP and every Dem.
don't confuse the progressives with facts, it hurts their little brains...after all it is very hard being one of the (self) proclaimed (self) righteous intellectual superior elite surrounded by the fat, stupid, lazy unwashed peasant masses, they just don't have the energy to read
if you have a problem with the federal reserve then you should protest/petition your government to audit or to eliminate it as is your constitutional right. as it stands these banks are doing nothing illegal. it is up to the government to establish the laws once again protest your government for making these practices legal
Ken Chenault, American Express
Ken Lewis, Bank of America
Robert Kelly, Bank of New York Mellon
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup
John Koskinen, Freddie Mac
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase
John Mack, Morgan Stanley
Rick Waddell, Northern Trust
James Rohr, PNC
Ronald Logue, State Street
Richard Davis, US Bank
John Stumpf, Wells Fargo
These are all hired managers, not owners. The owners are insurance companies, mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds and individuals who invest in the stock market. These people may own some small portion of their respective institutions, but they are , under no uncertain terms, their owners.
I realise that, MarkW. But they DO control them. Read '13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown' if you are really interested in a detailed analysis of the banking system and how banks that once answered to Washington have come to have such concentrated power.
Then you completely missed my point, champ. I wasn't asking for who runs banks; I was asking for who owned them. In the context of Tara's post, whysoever do you think I may have been asking?
Work on that for a while. You sure didn't get it the first time.
Here's a start for you:
Bank of America:
Individuals
Kenneth D Lewis holds 2,372,260 shares
John A Thain holds 679,946 shares
Bruce L Hammonds holds 504,429 shares
Keith T Banks holds 336,371 shares
Charles K Gifford holds 334,176 shares
Institutions
Barclays Global Investors holds 192,077,414 shares 3.83%
State Street Corp holds 187,394,299 shares 3.73%
FMR holds 152,596,052 shares 3.04%
Vanguard Group holds 142,204,635 shares 2.83%
Capital World Investors holds 114,829,550 shares 2.29%
Wellington Management Comp holds 102,053,133 shares 2.03%
AXA holds 89,824,923 shares 1.79%
Bank of New York Mellon Corp holds 65,284,687 shares 1.30%
Morgan Stanley holds 58,081,288 shares 1.16%
JP Morgan Chase & Co holds 54,816,605 shares 1.09%
Folks, are we really going to fight about this? Can't we acknowledge that Tara Smith at least partly correct?
Do we really all believe that Goldman, MF, the SEC the CFTC and all the other alphabet soup that was created to prevent investment fraud, is following the same rules that you and I have to follow? The protesters are ignorant of the causes but conservatives are crazy if we don't take their cause and run with it. Every month I put money away for kids college, I pay my mortgage even though I live in Detroit in a house that's worth half of what I paid for it, I save for retirement, and I'll bet everything I have left (even though that number seems to get smaller every day) that I'll never get a bailout and I'm doing nothing wrong!
What the protestors seem to see is that the game is rigged. Alger Hiss is dead. People who do what I do are stupid and the smart money is figuring out a way around this mess and I'm going to wind up paying for it. Again.
This should be a conservative issue!
She does have a point, but she has the wrong villian. The villian is the govt that while claiming to act in our interest, really acts only in it's own interest.
The idea that we can solve the problems in this countries most heavily regulated industry by writting even more regulations is ludicrous.
The problem is that the government, supposedly the servant of the people, is now the servant of huge corporate interests, to the detriment of the average citizens' interests.
Mr. Cooke's willful obtuseness towards OWS is becoming comical. The movement is concerned with rising economic inequality. "Cartoon villains" aren't necessary.
Is that so hard to comprehend? Not, apparently, for most Americans:
Even in communism, everyone did not make the same amount of money. Those who ran the system, their friends and family, made much more than did everyone else.
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