About a hundred Londoners travelled east on the 401 for the Occupy Toronto protest on the weekend.
There was an Occupy London event too, but only 15-20 people showed up. Perhaps the driving rain and a wind warning kept the numbers down. It was an awful morning, weather-wise, on Saturday.
As you probably know, it all started with the Occupy protest on Wall Street in New York. In the US they have different issues such as a government that gives big banks billion-dollar bailouts only to have the bank managers turn around and give their executives six-figure bonuses. One percent of the population holds on to 40% of the wealth. That’s true. But how is letting go of some of that wealth going to help someone who has so little going on in their lives that they can spend a month camping out in a city park?
I’m of two minds about this movement. First, that they have a point. Why in the world should a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates hold on to billions and billions of dollars? But you simply cannot create a law that limits how much money people can have. You can only attempt to put pressure them, socially or otherwise, to put a good chunk of it back into circulation, instead of hoarding it for no particular reason. No one needs that much money, nor do their descendants. Greed is not good. Yes Bill and Melinda gates give millions and millions to charity. They could stand to give millions and millions more. However, a land that worships the dollar, especially in its plural form, is unlikely to shun someone wealthy because they’re not behaving in an ethical way.
On the other hand, for the most part those who have made super-big bucks have done something to earn it. Unless their surname is Kardashian or Hilton, these people have a talent or an idea or have worked their butts off to get where they are. And even in the cases of the aforementioned twinkies, their lifestyles are supported by those who watch them on TV, buy their signature consumer items like perfumes, and purchase their books, which I can only imagine are mostly filled with photos and very few multi-syllable words. You can’t regulate who is worthy of becoming rich. If you could, The Situation would be sweeping up in a hair salon in Jersey where he belongs instead of earning $10 million a year because young people have become addicted to the train wreck show that is Jersey Shore.
I guess I just can’t see what kind of tangible result will come from these protests. As a society, as long as we continue to line up for the next iPhone and purchase the latest gossip rag at the check-out counters and buy into the bullshit of newer, faster, obselete-in-five-months technology, I think there’s plenty of blame to be shared and not just launched up at the ivory towers.
Although I can see both sides of the issue and agree with the sentiment and anger, as with most social unrest, we try to address a problem by fixing the symptom and not the problem. Those on Wall Street are merely a symptom of the underlying problem, Idiot leadership and lax oversight and governance by those more interested in being re elected than acting responsible. If the protesters in the US, truly wish to effect change, they need to push Congress and the Sen it to make a structural change in how the financial sector is governed, and toss the idiot leaders out who don’t pull their weight and do what is needed, verses that which might get them re elected.