The “Flea Party”

“Ask five economists and you’ll get five different explanations — six if one went to Harvard.”

Edgar Fiedler’s quote came to mind as I was thinking about the “Occupy Wall Street” protestors.  It seems if you ask five of them what they are protesting you’ll get six answers.

Putting aside the vague unhappiness expressed by the “Occupiers” in the motley hobo camps, there are things to be unhappy about, but Wall Street and the rest of Corporate America are not the total cause or solution of the problems.  The president and Congressional Democrats gush about the protests being a spontaneous answer to the Tea Party organizations, but it’s difficult to nail down a one-to-one list of opposing ideas.

In fact, one of the many things mentioned by members of the “Flea Party” is the National Debt, followed quickly by references to their own student loans.  Many Tea Party members would agree with the protesters about that, although they probably wouldn’t be able to stand the stench long enough to stand too close to them.

I remember the protests of the 1960s, and even then I thought they were stupid.  We live in a country where we don’t need to demonstrate and riot to throw off an iron-heeled dictator (so far), but we can achieve change through the ballot box.

Probably 99.9% of the protestors voted for “Hope and Change” (if they voted at all), but the change they voted for was like the woman who rejoiced when Obama won because he was going to pay her mortgage(!)

It turns out that even President Obama, who has gotten everything he wanted all the while castigating Republicans for opposing him, can’t change the forces of nature, like economics, the weather and human nature.  Apparently the protestors believed him when he said, “We will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”

Or not.