Tell me why

I was listening to BBC World Service yesterday, and even they - et tu, Brute? - had someone on who just didn't know why the Occupy Wall Street protesters were protesting. He said it loudly and repeatedly over the course of ten minutes or so until I had to leave for an appointment. I saw it in three or four news articles yesterday as well. Oh why, oh why are you protesting? Why won't you tell us, sweetums? Just tell us and then we can all go back to being normal.

I think it's quite plain why they're protesting - and why I support them.  The whole "why are these inarticulate hippies protesting? Aren't they just jealous of others' success?" schtick is completely manufactured. They are complaining because laws over the past 20 to 30 years have been increasingly rigged so that money flows towards people who already have money. If you're young, you generally don't have any money (that you've earned, anyway) and there are stringent mechanisms in place to make sure you never get any. Well, just enough to buy an X-Box or an iPad or something, to keep you docile.

This cartoon sums it up very nicely. Unfortunately I can't read the signature. It looks like Hurwiti, but I can't find that easily in a Google search.



For the visually impaired, the cartoon shows protesters at Wall Street carrying banners that say things like:

End Corporate Welfare
Stop Corporate Control of Government
Banks Got Bailed Out We Got Sold Out
Bring Back Glass Steagall Act
Wall Street Bailout is socialism for the wealthy

... and so forth. The rich Monopoly board Rich Guy is leaning out of a window with a megaphone saying, "Say they don't know WHY they're protesting."  In front of the crowd, a pretty TV news blonde is smiling widely into a camera as she says, "...they don't really seem to know WHY they are protesting!"

It's a message the media seems to have taken to heart. I first saw this cartoon on October 26th. It's November 16th and the media are still pretending they can't figure it out.