Last Week San Francisco... Tomorrow Wall Street!

I've been following the Occupy Wall Street (and related protests) for some time now, and even, last week, with the encouragement of a friend, took the plunge and marched in the inaugural last week in my hometown. It was the first such event I'd been to since... oh, since my once-activist parents took me to a demonstration at the Soviet Consulate in my native Montreal; you can tell how long ago that was. Normally, like most white-collar working folk, I tend to hold neutral-to-middling opinions about protestors; in San Francisco particularly, spurious self-righteousness is practically de rigueur -- from hysteria at the accidental killing of a single endangered snake (this shut down a major construction project a decade or so back) to shooting down plans for a new branch of popular discount grocer Trader Joe's in a bustling neighborhood because it would add... a bit more bustle.

But this time it was different: I've been watching the income inequality and general economic mismanagement of my adopted homeland with increasing alarm and dismay, and worry that our activism is horribly misdirected: the ill-conceived Tea Party, with its deranged calls for 18th-century free-market fundamentalism, seems to me a surefire path to turning the world's most powerful nation into another has-been banana republic. So I was heartened that the real "grass roots" types have begun to stand up -- and I think the contagion of the Occupy movement is a sign that Americans, in Winston Churchill's words, do the right thing after all other options have been exhausted.

I'm in New York on a quick stopover these next couple of days, and I'm positively itching not only to visit the Occupy Wall Street mothership, but also to dole out some admittedly unsolicited advice on more concrete demands they should be making; specifically, asking the One Percent to pay up, to make better use of their hedge-funded booty than for houses in the Hamptons and private jets. I'm still not sure if I'm going to do it, but if I do, I'll be sure to post more about it here.