Occupying My Thoughts

Have you seen the letter that's circulating, written by some Wall Street or Chicago Board of Trade type, denigrating the Occupy movement? Well, RJ Eskow at the Campaign for America's Future has a pretty great response to it.

One phrase that Eskow used to describe the writer and his colleagues was "government-subsidized losers." This reminded me of Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone blog post, Wall Street Isn't Winning -- It's Cheating. Taibbi writes,

And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.

In this country, we cheer for people who hit their own home runs – not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.

That's why it's so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life. This isn't disappointment at having lost. It's anger because those other guys didn't really win. And people now want the score overturned.

Meanwhile, in other Occupy news, the Portland, Oregon, police are posting mugshots of protesters who've been arrested (not convicted, nor even charged) to Facebook, of all places. Including some minors. Because the arrests are of "high public and media interest," you know. So people who've been arrested --  not convicted -- will now be found by any future employer who searches their names.

Once again, it's time to hope your name is really common, and not something unique, like my old friend Olav Ormseth.