The Nature of Things

Can you stand one more reference to Occupy Wall Street?  Here's proof that the movement really has spread to the far corners of the earth! Yes, even in the frozen tundra of the North, a man and his dogs have caught the "occupy" fever.  There's no stopping it now!

The movement that started out as "Occupy Wall Street" has now spread right around the world as people everywhere who are angry at what financial institutions are doing to society have begun to believe that perhaps they can fight back.  In most (although not all) places, the Occupiers have been peaceful even when provoked.  To see thousands of ordinary people gathered together in a peaceful protest against the depredations of the super-rich super-powerful Masters of the Universe on Wall Street and other such financial centers is a powerful thing. But the most powerfully moving and utterly joyful demonstration that I have seen took place in Madrid last week, where tens of thousands of demonstrators sang Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from his Ninth Symphony.  I've often thought of Beethoven's Ninth as the most perfect music ever written.  Surely, the "Ode to Joy" is the most perfect expression of joy in music.  The demonstrators expressed their joy wit...

As one who has fumed impotently for years about the buying and selling of my country's government and institutions by rich, mostly rabidly right-wing corporations and the super-rich, I had frequently wondered whether Americans would ever awake from their apathy and take to the streets to demand change.  It seems that finally we may be stretching, yawning, maybe putting one foot on the floor, and preparing to ever-so-tentatively stand up for ourselves and face up to the powers that be.  That, at least, is the message that I take from the movement that has become known as Occupy Wall Street and has now spread around the country, even into Houston !   This, I think, is the most hopeful event that I have witnessed in many years. And what has been the media's response to thousands of people gathering in New York and elsewhere to protest the buying of our democracy?  Its first response was to ignore it. Literally, for days into the demonstrations, you could not find any ...