Friday, October 7, 2011

Occupy Wall Street

I was struck by a sign held up by one of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. It read, "I care about you". In the last decade we have seen buildings brought down by hijacked airplanes, a decade long "war on terror", sanctioned torture, wounded vets, financial system excess and collapse, unprecedented long term unemployment, dysfunctional government, a careerist every man for himself ethos that has warped the notion of an honest day's work into an obscene free for all on Wall Street, a middle class under water in housing and retirement accounts, increasing austerity in education and social services...the list goes on and on. It does not surprise me that an alternative answer to the question "why are we here and what are we doing?" is emerging and that experiments in "sustainability", "disruption" and "DIY" (do it yourself) are part of the current counter culture. I have no idea what the answer is but "I care about you" seems like a reasonable starting point. I think the kid who wrote that sign has a future.

4 comments:

  1. i love the idea of combating negativity with positivity. its a principle that i just read about in my book on toaism by benjamin hoff called The Te of Piglet. check it out. thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
    xoxo
    n

    ReplyDelete

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