I Learned a lot Today - September 22, 2014 Part 2

and not what I expected. First, what I saw:

a bunch of hopeful people gathered to flood Wall Street

and we did from many directions,

Protecting Wall Street "ass"ets

only problem was,

we were outnumbered by police .... big time. And access to the NY Stock Exchange was blocked at every entrance for blocks around,





This is the closest we got to the stock exchange and yes those are mounted police and terrorist style road barriers.... for us, a bunch of unarmed regular folks.

Quote is by Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, 2009

People sat around and police did not much and out waited them. 

Here's a Wall Street advert as a little distraction. I guess the hermitage club is a sought after goal, along with gold, not gold plated retirement funds advertised everywhere.

So then I tried going to the UN and found the same story, police everywhere and unless you were a big fat guy in a Jaguar, you weren't getting in (he went so fast I didn't even get my phone out - but I can assure you he was menacing).

So I sat on a bench as close as I could get and along came Jared, a 24 year old anarchist who joined me, and made more sense than anything or anyone else today. He's pretty down on humanity and thinks we don't deserve to survive but if a few do it will be the agile, resourceful ones, used to hardship ... and he thought the Flood Wall Street strategy was lame, (which it was) and we need to be monkey wrenching.

 

Jared gets my vote for agility.

And finally, close to home I came upon this view of humanity with me outlined in reflection and it kind of sums up my very dark feeling about our possibility. Discarded, plastic remnants in a dirty thrift shop in Brooklyn.

Here's what I learned:

1. If you're worried about your kids finding jobs, there seems to be no end to police officer possibilities;
2. Hedges is right - the tiny oligarchy owns the banks, the government, the courts, the media, and I would add, most of us;
3. they have co-opted our values through media and fatted us on consuming their products of electronic toys, keeping us entertained like pacified toddlers in playpens and no more aware or effective than that; 
4. big brain strategy is likely a loser;
5. and the good news is, like my truthful sign said, the planet will recover from us, but we likely will not.