WEBVTT 00:00:00.968 --> 00:00:02.436 illdoctrine.com 00:00:02.436 --> 00:00:04.171 Occupy Wallstreet 00:00:04.171 --> 00:00:06.406 I started out feeling skeptical about this movement, 00:00:06.406 --> 00:00:08.575 and I think there's still work to be done 00:00:08.575 --> 00:00:10.612 making sure it's as inclusive as it needs to be 00:00:10.612 --> 00:00:11.865 among other things 00:00:11.865 --> 00:00:13.547 but I've been watching it, and I've been going down there 00:00:13.547 --> 00:00:16.384 and I have to say it is an inspiring scene, 00:00:16.384 --> 00:00:19.220 and I think they are getting a lot of things right. 00:00:19.220 --> 00:00:20.875 And when it comes to the core of it, 00:00:20.875 --> 00:00:22.356 the goals and the messaging, 00:00:22.356 --> 00:00:24.158 I think Occupy Wall Street is dead on. 00:00:24.158 --> 00:00:27.161 I think it's every bit as specific as it needs to be. 00:00:27.161 --> 00:00:30.564 And every bit as non-specific as it needs to be. 00:00:30.564 --> 00:00:34.368 It's just specific enough to capture that basic sentiment so many people share, 00:00:34.368 --> 00:00:38.038 and it's just vague enough to let many different people come to it 00:00:38.038 --> 00:00:40.107 with many different shades of that sentiment. 00:00:40.107 --> 00:00:42.309 And as it keeps growing and coalescing, 00:00:42.309 --> 00:00:45.245 if certain people keep on professing not to get it, 00:00:45.245 --> 00:00:48.785 those were probably the people who weren't supposed to get it. 00:00:48.785 --> 00:00:52.520 And that is what I love most about Occupy Wall Street 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:56.190 As a media person who loves to watch how we communicate in that sphere, 00:00:56.190 --> 00:01:01.862 I love Occupy Wall Street for how it manipulates all the news media's biggest corn balls 00:01:01.862 --> 00:01:04.731 into outing themselves as corn balls. 00:01:04.731 --> 00:01:09.503 I love watching them go on and on about how they have no idea what everyone's protesting. 00:01:09.503 --> 00:01:12.539 I love watching them pretend it's just a bunch of hippies who don't matter 00:01:12.539 --> 00:01:14.041 because they don't dress respectably. 00:01:14.041 --> 00:01:16.009 I love how when it gets too big for that, 00:01:16.009 --> 00:01:19.880 they start saying it doesn't matter because it's a bunch of yuppies who DO dress respectably. 00:01:19.880 --> 00:01:24.585 I love when they say it's off-the-mark because the financial sector is mostly in midtown nowadays. 00:01:24.585 --> 00:01:28.322 Like you really can't comprehend that this is about what Wall Street symbolizes. 00:01:28.322 --> 00:01:32.193 I love when they say it's off the mark because we should be protesting Washington. 00:01:32.193 --> 00:01:36.296 As if the symbolic Wall Street's undue influence on the symbolic Washington 00:01:36.296 --> 00:01:39.499 hasn't been a running theme of this protest from the start. 00:01:39.499 --> 00:01:44.035 I love this whole spectacle of everyone scrambling and scraping for ways to pretend that something 00:01:44.035 --> 00:01:49.164 serious isn't happening here. It's like a big gameshow where everyone competes to see who 00:01:49.210 --> 00:01:52.613 can build the biggest strawman. And it's not only fun to watch, 00:01:52.613 --> 00:01:58.718 it provides a valuable service, because it reveals to us all who the Ringers are Wall Street's Three-card 00:01:58.718 --> 00:01:59.972 Monte table. 00:01:59.972 --> 00:02:03.390 Back in the 80s I bought all my vinyl at a place called The Music Factor 00:02:03.390 --> 00:02:08.535 in Time Square. So I used to hang out on that block and study how the Three-card Monte games worked. 00:02:08.535 --> 00:02:13.467 And as you probably know, every Three-card Monte setup has a Ringer. The Ringer's job is 00:02:13.467 --> 00:02:17.270 to pretend they're an objective, outside observer commenting on the game, 00:02:17.270 --> 00:02:21.408 when they're actually a part of the hustle who's there to help bamboozle 00:02:21.408 --> 00:02:26.213 the public into thinking this game is legitimate. So naturally if we stand next 00:02:26.213 --> 00:02:29.917 to the game and start telling everyone that the game is rigged, the Ringer is going 00:02:29.917 --> 00:02:33.454 to flip on us and start doing everything they can to make sure nobody 00:02:33.454 --> 00:02:37.024 listens to us. They're going to tell everyone that we're a bunch of losers who are just 00:02:37.024 --> 00:02:39.614 hatin' because we don't know how to play the game. We're a bunch of 00:02:39.614 --> 00:02:43.030 cardgame-hating socialists. They're going to try everything they can 00:02:43.030 --> 00:02:47.300 to discredit us so they can protect that game that they're so invested in. 00:02:47.300 --> 00:02:51.172 And it feels like that's what we've been seeing all month with Occupy Wall Street. 00:02:51.172 --> 00:02:54.341 And you might be thinking to yourself my analogy is incomplete because 00:02:54.341 --> 00:02:57.888 those card games also have a lookout, who's there to make sure the cops aren't 00:02:57.888 --> 00:03:00.648 coming to shut the game down. And they usually have some muscle, 00:03:00.648 --> 00:03:03.450 who's there to intimidate us from messing up the game. 00:03:03.450 --> 00:03:06.920 And you'd be right, but that's how this version of the game is different. 00:03:06.920 --> 00:03:10.557 In this version of the game, the hustler's don't need lookouts because the cops 00:03:10.557 --> 00:03:15.162 don't want to shut down the game. In this version of the game, the cops are the muscle 00:03:15.162 --> 00:03:18.065 to intimidate us from shutting down the game. 00:03:18.065 --> 00:03:22.369 And that's not to say I think every police officer is a bad-guy, I suspect that many 00:03:22.369 --> 00:03:25.072 rank-and-file officers are sympathic to this cause. 00:03:25.072 --> 00:03:28.863 But the police, as an instititution, their function in this game has been to 00:03:28.863 --> 00:03:32.780 step in and quiet us down whenever we shout, at the top of our lungs, 00:03:32.780 --> 00:03:35.249 that we think this whole game is rigged. 00:03:35.249 --> 00:03:38.652 So like I said at the beginning, I think there is a lot of work yet to be done, 00:03:38.652 --> 00:03:43.056 and a lot of cards still left to fall just the right way for this to become everything that 00:03:43.056 --> 00:03:46.960 it could be, but I do think it has incredibly potential. I think it's already 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:51.298 accomplishing big things. And if it doesn't accomplish anything else, I think Occupy 00:03:51.298 --> 00:03:56.193 Wall Street has provided a vital service, simply by making it clear who the Ringers are, 00:03:56.193 --> 00:04:00.708 and who the muscle is, at Wall Street and Washington's Three-card Monte 00:04:00.708 --> 00:04:05.446 table. And I just hope the movement is sharp enough to survive this next stage of the game. 00:04:05.446 --> 00:04:09.615 Where they realize they can't shut us down, so they start trying to co-opting us instead, 00:04:09.615 --> 00:04:12.192 and make us a part of the game.