Occupy Wall Street Ironies

One thing you can always count on when it comes to popular culture is irony.

The recent Occupy Wall Street protests are filled with it, particularly in the attempts by opponents to shut it down.

My favorite irony revolves around the fact that the protest is aimed at the rich and their greed.  In listening to the wealthy denigrate the movement, and the government's complaints about it, the differences between the 1% and the 99% become crystal clear.

For example, the leadership in several cities including New York and Oakland have decided that the protesters have to go because they simply aren't rich enough to be allowed to remain.

In both cities, the mayor's office has raised a ruckus because nobody has bothered to pay the fees required for protest permits.

I find that hilarious, because I can't find a single line in the Constitution that says you have to pay a cover charge to express your grievances.  Apparently, free speech isn't free in New York or Oakland.

More proof that only the wealthy are allowed to protest is in another gambit being employed by these municipalities.  Protesters were swept out of their park in Oakland and were threatened with expulsion in New York because of their cooking facilities.  In both places, the argument is that the open air "kitchens" don't meet code, and must be shut down until the appropriate upgrades and improvements are in place.

Usually, that means National Sanitation Foundation-approved refrigerators and stoves. 

Have you priced one of those suckers lately?

I feel confident in saying that you could go to Home Depot and buy a nice Frigidaire refrigerator for about $900, but it won't have the NSF logo on it.  To get the exact same model that has an NSF label, you can add another 2k to the price.  Seems kind of pricey for a paper sticker, but that's the way the game is played.

Basically, the authorities are saying that if the protesters included more wealthy people willing to pony up a few grand for first-rate appliances, they would be allowed to stay without complaint.

I find it particularly ironic that a lot of wealthy right wingers have nothing good to say about the 99 percenters.

Here's what I mean:

When the first brontosaurus burger concession came into existence, you can bet that a caveman with a protruding suborbital ridge and a clipboard showed up, grunting that the Neanderthal-preneur needed a city license and had to pass a health-department inspection.  I'm not sure how you lose points on such an inspection for having dirt on the floor when the floor itself is made of dirt, but I have faith that prehistoric bureaucrats found a way to work it into their citations.

Ever since the days of Fred Flintstone, the right has been complaining about government regulations like that.

However, now that it's the 99 percenters getting hammered with these requirements as the ruse being used to evict them, those wealthy anti-regulation zealots remain curiously quiet.

As for the complaints about a lack of bathroom facilities for the protesters, I have no sympathy for the anti-occupy crowd.

And it's one more briquette on the charcoal irony pyramid.

Everyone knows that those obscenely rich Wall Street types believe their crap doesn't stink. So when the smell of unfiltered humanity wafts beneath their nostrils, they go into a panic.

Want to make the smell go away?  It's easy.  Simply let the protesters use the bathrooms at the New York Stock Exchange and at those fancy bank buildings lining Wall Street.

But no, the police have put up barricades and prohibited the protesters from setting foot in these elite facilities. 

I guess it makes sense.

Obviously, the authorities figure those places filled with bankers and stock brokers are already so full of crap that they couldn't accommodate one more bean fart.

And on this one point, I would have to agree.