Kimberly Emerson

I think I’ve harped on this plenty in the past, but in case someone missed it, I am a busy woman.  I have a full-time job and a full-time personal life.  I have a cat with very high standards about feeding times and litterbox maintenance.  I have a third book to finish and God alone knows how many others left to write. I have to find someone to spend the rest of my life with who doesn’t run away from me or bore me so senseless that I want to run away from him.  I do not have time to point out things to Wall Street that should be as plain as that big bronze bull statue outside their window.

Somehow, however, connections are being missed.  Alas, someone has to be the grown-up here, and it clearly isn’t going to be our nation’s financial center, so reluctantly I will accept the task.  Sigh.

Wall Street has some new neighbors, and I don’t think anyone is exchanging loaves of nutbread.

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has been going on for a couple of weeks now.  It began with some folks loitering in Zuccotti Park.  (Fun fact, they were encouraged by Adbusters, a group based in Canada.  Who knew Canadians could be so subversive?)  According to Wiki, it has now worked its way up to 15,000 people marching in protest.  (Of course, Wiki also insists on describing Los Angeles as a sub-tropical zone, so you could be excused for questioning it.)  Some, including representatives from fifteen different unions (thank you, ABC News), have come in to protest lately, but hundreds have been there since the beginning and have lived in tents in the financial district for the entire duration of events.  The organizers cite facts about the top 1% of earners taking home 24% of the national income (see article here) and sport signs reading “We are the 99%.”  In its infancy, the movement didn’t draw a lot of media focus, but now that the numbers have picked up, seven hundred people have been arrested (for marching on the Brooklyn Bridge) and similar demonstrations have sprung up in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, Portland, New Orleans and several other cities across the nation, the national press has begun to deem it newsworthy.

The powers that be on Wall Street have taken a “let them eat cake” attitude about this.  (Fun fact #2, the quote is actually “let them eat brioche” and Marie Antoinette probably had nothing to do with it.  It showed up in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiography Confessions, a memoir that is, according to scholars, a frappé of fact and fiction.  Even he only attributed it to an unspecified “great princess,” and since he wrote most of the tome when Marie Antoinette was about nine, there’s a good chance it wasn’t her.)  Pictures have shown up of people in Wall Street buildings toasting the protestors with champagne, and some would-be wit in Chicago put up signs reading “We are the 1%.”  I understand their feelings; protests are messy.  Bathroom facilities are seldom adequate and the music can be overly sentimental.

However, like it or not, something big is happening: the protesters have come to Wall Street.

Right now you’re all rolling your eyes at me and saying “Duh, Kimberly,” and you have a point.  Indulge me, though, and read that statement again.  This time, don’t worry about the action of the sentence, just pay attention to the destination.  The protesters have come to Wall Street. Not Washington DC.  Not the Pentagon.  Wall Street.

While Wall Street may boast a lot of MBAs, it doesn’t seem to have many history majors.  Look back at the French Revolution, or the Russian one.  The unrest broke out around the king and the czar.  The reason was simple: they were the power brokers of the day.  If you want something changed, you go complain to the person who can change it, oui?  So the peasants complained to those in charge, and they were ignored.  Things took a turn for the worse, and the story didn’t end well for Louis XVI or Nicholas II or anyone remotely connected to either of them.

Under normal circumstances, this should equate to the masses marching on Washington, and in times past, they have.  Civil rights, ending wars, these things have sent thousands of people to DC’s National Mall.  The result was policy change and a lot of pretty pictures around the reflecting pool.  This go-round, however, things are different. Especially after this summer’s political constipation regarding the budget, which resulted in the down-grading of the U.S. national credit rating, people realized that politicians weren’t going to change anything.  (I have my issues with the agencies who feel themselves entitled to rate national credit, too, but that’s a topic for another day.  One thing at a time.)  What incentive do the elected folks have to make changes? They aren’t beholden to the common people.  They answer to the people who fund their campaigns.  Where do those people reside?  Oh, yeah…Wall Street.

Hence, the protesters decided to eliminate the middle man, and moved from the Beltway to the Big Apple.

Now that I think of it, this may actually be the first time in history that wealth and power have made any pretense of being separate entities.  In times past, the person with the money was the person in charge.  There was an unspoken contract: I will live my life in great material comfort, and that comfort will come from your labor.  In return, I will make sure that you have the resources you need. You won’t have my splendor, but you won’t starve.  When the enemy comes, he’ll be looking for my head, not yours.  It’s similar to the agreement I have with my boss – he makes more money than I do, but he also gets calls at all hours of the day and night.  I don’t.  Personally, I’m happy with the trade-off. Conversely, any time the power brokers fail to live up to their end of the bargain, things get ugly.

Right now, however, the wealthiest members of society are under the impression that they don’t figure in that bargain.  What’s theirs is theirs, and that’s all there is to it.  Once they start making more money, we are told, then things might get better for everyone else.  Maybe.  We’ll see how things go.

Wall Street, they may be carrying cell phones instead of pitchforks, but make no mistake: the masses have arrived at your doorstep.

The wealthiest members of our society have not suffered with the rest of us.  That 1% of which Occupy Wall Street speaks has actually increased their share of the pot during the Great Recession years, while the rest of us have been struggling.  (Check out the Wiki article here, and try not to scream when they talk about the fact that the very poorest members of society “did not have wealth declines at all.”  I can’t make this stuff up.  Apparently someone at Wiki does not understand the principle that when you have no wealth, you can’t have a “wealth decline.”)

I’m impressed by the Occupy Wall Street movement, by the sheer guts and stamina of it, but I’m scared by it, too.  That kind of idea holds great power, and great possibility for that power getting out of hand.  I don’t advocate violence.  On the contrary, I abhor the very thought.  I point out how quickly dissatisfaction descends to violence for just that reason: I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, rich or poor.  I can’t help thinking, though, that by ignoring the legions gathering on their doorstep, the denizens of Wall Street are taking a great risk.  There are millions of people in this country who feel – scratch that.  They don’t “feel” like the politicians aren’t listening to them, they know it for a cold hard fact.  To ignore them is to put our entire nation at great peril.

So please, Wall Street, wake up and smell the port-a-potties.  Convince your minions in Washington DC to quit the partisan bickering and fix our economy.  I’m thinking Louie and Nick would back me up on this.  If they had listened to the peasants and given a little, it is just possible that they might not have had such a close and personal relationship with the guillotine and the firing squad.

Kimberly really hopes Wall Street is listening, because the list of things she should be doing instead of teaching basic World History is growing by the minute. 

Tags: Great Recession, history, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Nicholas II, Occupy Wall Street, Washington DC