On The Wrong Street

The thought that keeps running through my head whenever I see a news report about the Occupy Wall Street protest is that the have the wrong street. The best places to start would be the nearest Federal Reserve Bank. There are 12 branches. The nearest to Indy is the Chicago Fed. Locations.

I also think about Thomas Jefferson's admonition about private banks (such as the Fed is) and corporate power. Consider that he made his remarks over 200 years ago, so it isn't

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

* Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802) and later published in The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill (1809)

Or, if that doesn't resonate, pick one or the other of the following streets: E. Capitol Street, or Pennsylvania Ave.

Is corporate power too great? Don't like the bailouts? Well, who granted that power? American corporations didn't magically divine their powers. They were created by government. The money corporations get from government? Corporations may well ask for it, but it requires a bailout, or a stimulus program, or a subsidy for that money to end up in corporate hands. So, protest to the government that makes it so. Strike at the root, don't just pop the head off the dandelion.

The Fed is also the root. Where did the stimulus money come from? It was printed out of thin air. It did not back actual value. If governments cannot command their private bank to print money out of thin air, then banks on Wall Street cannot so blithely be bailed out when they screw up royally.

I admire many things about the protest (the 'Stop Capitalism' notably excepted), but I believe it is ultimately misdirected. There are members of Congress and executives at the Fed laughing and high-fiving over the misunderstanding, and the idea that the protesters are on the wrong street.

Update: Oh, did I say I admired Occupy Wall Street? Well, yes, I did. They just went way down the toilet in my estimation, now that I have read the 'Proposed List of Demands For Occupy Wall Street'. I beg the world's pardon. I fucked up. I saw protests against corporatism, and they had my interest. But now that I see that particulars? Sheesh. There are two good ideas in there along with one needless one, and 10 big stinking losers. They thought the economy was bad now? Bwaaahahahaha!

Now, Back To Obama

I returned from Chicago today and checked the mail. You guessed it- an irritating direct mail piece "from Obama", addressed to me.

I put "from Obama" in quotes, because the letter says, "Barack Obama" on the envelope's return space, and on the letterhead, but the back of the envelope has a return for the Democratic National Committee.

This mailing confirms another thing that irritates me. The conventions of the Ds & Rs are not what they were. They're press conferences. Coronations. Yawn.

The letter reads:

"As Democrats, you and I are united by the great traditions of our party, and bound by its longstanding commitment to social and economic justice for all of our citizens."

This is just as presumptuous and offensive as the McCain letter. I am a well-advertised Libertarian partisan. I just cannot think well of someone so sloppy that they would put their name on a letter as ill-informed as this. If you cannot be trusted to be in charge of an organization that acts on your behalf to get a basic fact or two correct, what can you be trusted with?

Beyond that, my break with the Democratic Party in 1995 occurred in large part because of my profound disagreement on the terms social justice, and economic justice. At the core of it, I do not believe it just to take the earnings of one person and give them to someone who has not earned them. It is a basic injustice, and a perversion of the meaning of the word justice. I simply cannot have anything to do with such bullshit merchants.

I could be a Democrat, if indeed the party was true to its' traditions- its' Jeffersonian traditions. Honor this quote, if you honor Democratic traditions:

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

-Thomas Jefferson

Alas. Beyond this mailing, I then noticed Obama's tax plan, via Harvard economist Greg Mankiw's blog. In a nutshell, almost everyone will be paying more in taxes under Obama.

That's not a change I can believe in. So, I'm down on Obama right now, at least until I notice McCain again.