Wednesday, November 23, 2011

to whom do I owe this debt?

Strikes me that the one thing the U.S. has manufactured successfully this past year is a sense of crisis over the national debt, which has been around for decades because -- now here's novel thought -- that's how capitalism works.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Occupy by the numbers

       As I looked at a photo of thousands of Egyptians filling Tahrir Square once again, I contrasted it with pix of Americans at Occupy encampments, then reminded myself how decentralized and large this country is.  Is ground zero for the movement Wall Street?  What about the equally large & persistent & perhaps better organized Occupy Boston?  Or Occupy Oakland, where a vet who was beaned & badly injured by the police  became a rallying cry?  Should the center be in Washington, where the officials who can actually change the protested policies gather? 
        Then I began to wonder if anyone has tried to count the number of Americans who have been involved in the occupy movement.  There are approximate tallies for people sleeping at various encampments -- a total somewhere in the high hundreds, I'd guess -- but others who have rallied, marched, taught, dropped by and dropped off supplies over the last two months must number well into the thousands.  Many thousands, probably. As many as rallied to overthrow governments in north Africa, even?  It would be an interesting & enlightening undertaking for some enterprising soul to gather the info from all the reports -- kind of like icasualties, which keeps track of deaths and injuries in Iraq & Afghanistan, using news and govt. reports.  It would take time and need to be maintained & updated, but time seems to be on the side of occupiers.   I suspect the numbers would be too.