Look Who Lost, And Look Who Won

It appears the Occupy movement, if not completely dead, is at best moribund at this point. The kids have been rousted from their encampments, nothing followed the Day Of Action, and the days are getting colder as Winter nears. This was to be expected. As #OWS grew, I saw the tragic situation unfold precisely as preordained. Occupiers started taking themselves very seriously, and as time wore on, the Mainstream Media took them seriously, and the more delusional among the protesters and the media started talking about the Revolution, or lacking that, Real Change in America.

There is a snowball's chance in Hell of Real Change coming to America.

That was true from day one in Zuccotti Park. What did you expect?

I know people don't like to hear Bad News, and in so many cases they simply can not hear it, but the Obligatory Hope started to get truly ridiculous at the height of protests. Right from the start, I supported those crying foul about the tilted game, glad of the fact that a relatively few Americans had become somewhat aware that they live in a society which has grown so corrupt, so decadent, so dumbed-down, so callous, and so grotesquely unfair that opportunity can hardly be said to exist for all but those at the very top of the income pyramid.

But I never took seriously the idea that real political and socioeconomic change was even remotely possible. And now the bare-naked truth is there for all to see—

Look who lost, and look who won

This blog is not called Decline Of The Empire (DOTE) for nothing. Yet so many deluded people can not take America's decline seriously. It's time they did. The now comatose Occupy movement has just added more fuel to that roaring bonfire.

After yesterday's strenuous effort to explain ourselves to ourselves, I will turn to occasional Bloomberg columnist Michael Lewis today. I can't top his Sunday column, and only hope he won't mind me stealing so much of it. Lewis' satire takes the form of an internal Wall Street memo.

To: The Upper Ones From: Strategy Committee Re: The Counterrevolution

As usual, we have much to celebrate.

The rabble has been driven from the public parks. Our adversaries, now defined by the freaks and criminals among them, have demonstrated only that they have no idea what they are doing. They have failed to identify a single achievable goal.

Just weeks ago, in our first memo, we expressed concern that the big Wall Street banks were vulnerable to a mass financial boycott -- more vulnerable even than tobacco companies or apartheid-era South African multinationals. A boycott might raise fears of a bank run; and the fears might create the fact.

Now, we’ll never know: The Lower 99’s notion of an attack on Wall Street is to stand around hollering at the New York Stock Exchange. The stock exchange!

[My note: Not to mention New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's house!]

We have won a battle, but this war is far from over.

As our chief quant notes, “No matter how well we do for ourselves, there will always be 99 of them for every one of us.” Disturbingly, his recent polling data reveal that many of us don’t even know who we are: Fully half of all Upper Ones believe themselves to belong to the Lower 99. That any human being can earn more than 344 grand a year without having the sense to identify which side in a class war he is on suggests that we should limit membership to actual rich people. But we wish to address this issue in a later memo. For now we remain focused on the problem at hand: How to keep their hands off our money...

Looming Threats

We have identified two looming threats...

The second threat is in the unstable mental pictures used by Lower 99ers to understand their economic lives. (We have found that they think in pictures.)

For many years the less viable among us have soothed themselves with metaphors of growth and abundance: rising tides, expanding pies, trickling down. A dollar in our pocket they viewed hopefully, as, perhaps, a few pennies in theirs. They appear to have switched this out of their minds for a new picture, of a life raft with shrinking provisions. A dollar in our pockets they now view as a dollar from theirs.

Fearing for their lives, the Lower 99 will surely become ever more desperate and troublesome. Complaints from our membership about their personal behavior are already running at post-French Revolutionary highs...

Lewis goes on to facetiously suggest that "actual rich people" leave the country they have looted. After all, "ordinary Greeks seldom harass their rich, for the simple reason that they have no idea where to find them. To a member of the Greek Lower 99 a Greek Upper One is as good as invisible." The truth of course is just the opposite. The Occupy protests (or similar protests in the future) pose no threat whatsoever to "actual rich people."

Good luck.

Bonus Video — An oldie but goodie about America's decline.

 

Comments

[Steverino]

While there may be some of the 1% that believe they are are part of the 99%, I know at least a few 99ers that fully support the ideals, motives, and practices of the 1%! I suppose they think they will one day move into that realm...hah! Thus, the numbers at least wash out, and I dare say, may even reduce the 99 by a few points.

Dave, thanks for DOTE! I view your site as one of the few beacons of reality.