Occupy Wall Street’s Beef: Wall Street is Cheating

ByHeather

These people aren’t protesting money. They’re not protesting banking. They’re protesting corruption on Wall Street.

When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money.

Think about it: there have always been rich and poor people in America, so if this is about jealousy, why the protests now? The idea that masses of people suddenly discovered a deep-seated animus/envy toward the rich – after keeping it strategically hidden for decades – is crazy.

— Matt Taibbi, Blog post at Rolling Stone

Matt Taibbi finally articulated what I have been trying to find words for. I don’t begrudge Wall Street, or anyone, their good fortune (I seek the same good fortune). I just begrudge the way a few people have rigged the system in their favor.

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When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk.

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The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents and the ocean was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

— Daniel Boorstin

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Be the Best of Whatever You Are

ByHeather

If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill,
     Be a shrub in the valley – but be
The best little shrub by the side of the hill;
     Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.

If you can’t be a bush, be a bit of grass,
     And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass,
     But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can’t all be captains, some have to be crew,
     There’s something for all of us here;
There’s work to be done, and we all have to do
     Our part in the way that’s sincere.

If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,
     If you can’t be the sun, be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail,
     Be the best of whatever you are.

— Douglas Mallock

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