Why I support Occupy Wall Street

I support Occupy Wall Street because I believe the financial sector - not the manufacturing sector, not the retail sector, nor the small business sector - has acquired power and influence completely out of proportion to its role in our society. America is not a couple of huge banks and brokerages with 300 million people just sort of milling around outside of them.

I also believe, and have believed since I was a teenager, that Congress responds reliably to two things. The first, and most efficient, is big wads of cash. The way big businessmen resolve their legislative differences is to hire lobbyists, have the lobbyists throw money at the legislators, and whoever throws the most money wins. Very elegant, very polite, very businesslike.

But the other thing to which Congress responds reliably is external irritants, usually in the form of people marching in the streets, screaming obscenities and hurling bags of shit at them. So, if you don't have millions of dollars to spend, you go with the number two choice.

I recognize that some of the people in this loosely-organized protest are far to the left of even me, and some have a personal axe to grind that has little or nothing to do with Wall Street.

In the late sixties and early seventies. we had all kinds of people protesting the war in Vietnam. Some were Marxists and Maoists. Some were peacniks. Some were just John Lennon fans. But if they had not all gotten in the streets, regardless of their particular motivations or causes, I guarantee you we'd still be fighting the Vietnam War right this minute, always throwing just enough ordnance to keep the thing chugging along and keep the cash flowing to the people who hire the people who throw wads of cash at Congress.

The people who are 'way out on the fringe, the anarchists and such, are the ones who push the envelope to the left, making it 'safe' for pundits and legislators to move into the space between them and the so-called 'center'.

Even if you don't agree with them, you have to credit them for creating that space for those who will probably actually get the job done, but not until it's politically safe for them to undertake it.

Remember, Big Polite Money hated Franklin D. Roosevelt, but they feared Huey Long.

That's why we need a Huey Long.

I'm going to the mall now.