To the people currently participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement:My first instinct is to question your bona fides for one reason, I suspect your angst and anger is politically, rather than principally motivated. Thus far, no one has given me a reason to think otherwise. It may seem somewhat queer to you that I actually agree with some of your complaints against certain financial institutions. The only difference however is that I also fault the politicians, regulators, political activists, unions and consumers (not an exhaustive list) who knowingly and willfully created and/or exploited the system. When people profit on the basis of force, fraud or deceit, all of their gains are ill-gotten and they get no mercy from me. This is a rule that I apply to the beggar and the banker, the government and the governed, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the black and the white the gay and the straight, the immigrant and the native born. Yet when I see your signs and hear your complaints, I see a selective outrage that is designed to serve the interests of a particular political party and ideology.
Imagine if you will that I am a security consultant for financial institutions. This institutions’ insurers actually obligates them to use my services therefore, they are inclined to adjust their procedures according to my recommendations. Somewhere along the way, through either nescience or nefariousness, I advise my clients to take steps which leave them open to loss. Naturally, a group of experienced thieves and/or well-placed employees in the institution take advantage of the opportunity.
Now in this scenario I merely create the atmosphere which enables the crime. The actual deed is perpetrated by people with whom I have no direct connection.
That the perpetrators should be prosecuted for the crime they commit is beyond question (I hope). I however plead innocent on the grounds that while I may have created the environment which led to the crime, I cannot be held responsible for the incident as I did not personally coerced them into acting in that manner. Ostensibly, I had no direct control over, nor association with the perpetrators. As they are all adults, of sound mind and under no duress, they had a legal, moral and ethical responsibility to conduct themselves in a lawful manner without regard to the opportunities available to them.
Now any reasonable person would logically think me the fool for proffering such a defense, and would equally think my advocates to be less than honorable in having presented it on my behalf. But isn’t this exactly what you are arguing? Banks and other financial institutions should be prosecuted for the financial crises that occurred as a result of their activity, whereas the politicians and regulators who fostered the atmosphere wherein such actions were not just encouraged, but mandated, bear no responsibility whatsoever.
We are asked to hate the behavior and the persons of the financial institutions for reasons that are arguably sound and simultaneously expected to ignore the behavior of the politicians and regulators for reasons that are not even articulated. We are told to hate the corporations that used taxpayer dollars to meet their obligations to executives (white collar workers) and simultaneously look the other way when they used those dollars to meet their obligations to the unions (blue collar workers). We are told that it is wrong to subsidize existing energy producers and simultaneously expected to subsidize a non-existent alternative energy industry.
Well, perhaps this duplicity is due to the fact that, you have yet to find a way to criticize the politicians, unions or “green energy” companies without indicting the world-view upon which their actions are predicated. To point the accusatory finger without regard to the identity of the perpetrator or beneficiary would obviously cause you to at least question the basis of your grievance. An interesting conundrum indeed.
This is the perpetual “sword of Damocles” for your movement and your ideology.