Activists from Occupy Milwaukee shut down a bridge over I-43 yesterday for two hours in a symbolic gesture to bring attention to income inequality and the fragile state of our national infrastructure.
From WSAU:
MILWAUKEE (WSAU) Several hundred protestors closed a bridge over I-43 in Milwaukee for two hours late yesterday. Four people were arrested. But Police Chief Ed Flynn said he refused to break up the crowd because he didn’t want to fulfill their quote, “martyrdom fantasies.” They then declared victory.
The protest demanded economic equality, and was among numerous demonstrations around the country exactly two months after the first Occupy Wall Street protests in New York. Milwaukee’s event began in a nearby park, with signs reading “Tax the Rich Now” and “Jobs, Not War.” The group eventually marched onto Milwaukee’s North Avenue bridge.
A small group of College Republicans counter-protested (i.e. reacted) nearby.
Whitewater’s College Republicans put on a counter-demonstration, saying the Republican Walker cut the state’s deficit, and is making the state more business-friendly.
Once again, the GOP completely missed the point of the protest. The protest wasn’t against Walker or Wisconsin business, it was a protest against income inequality and the economic destruction wrought by financial capitalism. The lack of understanding (willful or otherwise) by these young Republicans is quite telling. Rather than engage the debate on the terms laid out by the protesters, they simply choose to ignore the message and counter-protest against…. someone else. Some other group that is calling for Walker’s recall.
The Republican fascination with their own echo chamber is remarkable. They’ve expended too much energy assembling men from straw to knock down that they’ve lost the ability to conduct meaningful conversation. It’s talking points and vitriol. They seem to have lost the ability, at least in this instance, to engage in a meaningful discussion on the issues raised by the protesters. Are we to infer from this that the Young Republicans feel as does Dennis Gartman?
We celebrate income disparity and we applaud the growing margins between the bottom 20% of American society and the upper 20% for it is evidence of what has made America a great country. It is the chance to have a huge income… to make something of one’s self; to begin a business and become a millionaire legally and on one’s own that separates the US from most other nations of the world. Do we feel bad for the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the US? Of course not; we celebrate it, for we were poor once and we are reasonably wealthy now. We did it on our own, by the sheet dint of will, tenacity, street smarts and the like. That is why immigrants come to the US: to join the disparate income earners at the upper levels of society and to leave poverty behind. Income inequality? Give us a break? God bless income disparity and those who have succeeded, and shame upon the OWS crowd who take us to task for our success and wallow in their own failure. Income disparity? Feh! What we despise is government that imposes rules that prohibit or make it difficult to make even more money; to employ even more people; to give even more sums to the charities of our choice. That is what we despise… oh, and next question please.
How very Randian…
Oh dear, I seem to have constructed a straw man… Naughty, naughty!
Good for them. It’s hilarious to see the whining from the tightie righties on this stuff, because the Occupiers are merely trying to get attention for what is truly wrong in this country. And because we don’t have hours of our side’s story being told on 620 and 1130 AM every freaking day (like the 262 Teabaggers do), going out in the streets is the only way to get it.
Moral of the story- Don’t like seeing people in the streets and pulling stunts to draw attention to issues? Give us an equal shot at the airwaves. DEAL?