Too Many Police Or Too Many Idiots?

On January 18, 2012 By WinstonIn Personal Responsibility, Rants, SocietyLeave a comment

Recently I was browsing back issues of Maclean’s magazine when an article caught my eye from the September 5th issue. It’s title “Too Many Cops?” makes the author’s position clear. They aren’t asking a question, they’re delivering a verdict. It just looks nicer if they frame it as a question.

The gist of the article is that crime is down, law enforcement is bigger than ever and minor charges are skyrocketing. According to them, we have too many police with too little to do. That’s why they’re handing out speeding tickets, manning record numbers of RIDE checkpoints and arresting far more people for marijuana possession.

It is pointed out that the RIDE program during the 2010 holiday season enjoyed only a .029 capture rate. They feel that this is too low and there may be other, more beneficial ways to spend the same money. Maybe, but I doubt that they’d find a lot of support among people who have lost family, friends or loved ones to an impaired driver. They made “only” 294 arrests, but that’s 294 less potentially devastated families. They lament that it required one million vehicle stops to achieve those arrests. If they saved even one life, then it’s a bargain.

The article also insists that speeding ticket and moving violation increases are just a cash grab on the part of municipalities. These would be the same municipalities that it states are allocating ever increasing portions of their budgets to law enforcement. For example, if I’m the mayor of Toronto, I’m going to spend nearly one billion dollars on police services so that I can collect a few hundred million in ticket revenue. Wow! I’m a financial wizard with no interest in getting re-elected.

Montreal has long been recognized as having the worst drivers in Canada. The article describes it as a “city long known for it’s spirited drivers”. They aren’t spirited, they’re reckless with a blatant and potentially homicidal disregard for traffic laws. According to the authors though, this has almost nothing to do with the 93% increase in citations for moving violations and the 140% increase for speeders. Apparently, it has nothing to do with speeding and moving violations. Nope. It’s all about hordes of bored cops and greedy civc managers.

The other group of horribly abused victims they talk about are the pot users. Yep. Those poor people who get arrested and end up with a criminal record for committing a crime. That’s just terrible. The police are at fault again for charging people who commit crimes. I agree that pot possession probably isn’t the greatest crime a person can commit, but it’s still a crime. The amazing part for me is that they want to blame the police or the government. How could they saddle this poor person with a criminal record that could interfere with their chances of crossing into the U.S. or getting the job they want?

Wait…. what?

This isn’t about over-zealous policing or government hard-liners. This is all about the person who gets caught with a controlled substance in their pocket. If someone is in possession of a controlled substance, after they get arrested is probably the wrong time to start thinking about the long term ramifications. I agree that this isn’t the most serious crime in our society, but it’s not about the severity, it’s about the attitude.

Most people treat traffic tickets and minor pot busts like the Oscars. “Who me? Oh no. I don’t deserve this. Really. I can’t possibly accept that. This is only possible because of my parents/manager/co-workers. Honestly, I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for God!” Instead of implausible deniability, why not just opt for the truth. “Yes, I screwed up. Let’s just do this and hope I learn something from it.”

But that’s not where we live is it? We live in a society where it’s always someone else’s fault. Busted for speeding? It’s not about my lead foot. The cops must a ticket quota to meet. Moving violation? It’s not because I changed lanes without signalling and then hit my brakes almost causing a massive accident. The cops must have a ticket quota. Charged with marijuana possession? It’s not because I broke some stupid law, it’s because some dickhead cop is trying to get promoted by making as many arrests as they can.

Wrong, Wrong, WRONG!

If I get a speeding ticket, odds are I was speeding. If I get a moving violation, I probably did something stupid to deserve it. Busted for possession? I made the choice to break that law. It’s not about too many police or generating extra revenue or appearing tough on crime. If it wasn’t for the people who think the law shouldn’t apply to them, we wouldn’t have anyone for the police to be ticketing or charging.

It’s not about too many police. It’s about too many idiots.

Cheers, Winston

The NCC Rolls Over, The Occupation Rolls On

On November 22, 2011 By WinstonIn Global Issues, Occupy Movement, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Pop Culture, Society, Values2 Comments

Here in Ottawa, the National Capitol Commission (NCC) issued an eviction notice to the Occupy My Last Nerve crowd in Confederation Park. The official midnight deadline passed and the Occupiers are still Occupied Occupying a park they have no right to camp in. Kudos to the NCC for being spineless bureaucrats worried about offending a couple of dozen campers while ignoring the rights of every other person in the city.

We all have the right to use and enjoy Confederation Park. My tax dollars help pay for that park, and I don’t enjoy having it full of tents and the twerps who put them there. Seriously, these people have got to have reality explained to them. The longer this idiocy drags on, the more annoying they become. As witness this gem from Paul Boudreau the group’s spokesperson.

“We decided that we would politically resist eviction. What that means is the NCC’s eviction notice is wrong and we don’t consent to it.”

Really? You don’t consent to the eviction order? Really? Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Who exactly do you think you are? This isn’t Libya, or Egypt or Syria. You aren’t protesting a repressive and unjust regime that refuses to let you choose your government. Hell, they’ve allowed you to camp in a public park for two months. That’s pretty much the opposite of repressive.

An un-named protester shared this bit of genius. “I’m graduate of the University of Ottawa and I lost my job and I’m about to lose my apartment. The system is wrong and we have to get it fixed.”

Really? A university graduate? Really? If the best plan you’ve got in the face of unemployment and imminent homelessness is to camp in a park, you should ask for you money back from U Ottawa. It’s pretty obvious they didn’t teach you anything useful. Just out of curiosity, was the system wrong before you lost you job or only after? It’s a fair question.

Speaking of fair questions, here are a couple more. Are you politically active? Not camping wise, but actually campaigning for these dearly held values of yours. That’s how you we fix systems in this country by actually working at it. Not whining and hoping someone will fix it for us.

Now this second question is the tricky one. Have you considered going out and getting a job? I realize that with your grand education and all it’s a bit beneath your dignity but you might give it some thought. I lost my job because of greedy, stupid people at our U.S. parent. If anyone should be out there camping and protesting the system, it’s me. The difference is, I’m a grown up. I don’t believe the Fairness Fairy is going to come along and evenly divide all the money in the country. That’s why I went out and got another part time job where I’m scrambling to get every hour I can to help pay my mortgage and hydro and keep a roof over my daughter’s head and keep her in college.

Everywhere I go, I see help wanted signs. Is there some reason you can’t take one of those jobs instead of joining the walking waste of skin which is the occupy movement? I’ll grant they don’t pay as well as your chosen field, but I bet they pay better than the Occupy Idiocy people do. I’m getting that if you did get an actual job, you might have better things to with your free time than camp in a public park and say stupid things to the press.

As for the other half of this debacle, the NCC needs to get it’s act together and deal with this now. I realize that in our media centric society you have to be very careful not to be perceived as trampling their democratic rights. The short version is, they should never have been allowed to set up tents in the first place. Sure they have a right to freedom of speech and peaceful protest. I’m all for those things so let them have at it. What they don’t have a right to do is build a tent camp on public property. I understand that sometimes the squeaky wheel get the oil, but I think this one just needs to be removed. Their squeak is really getting on my nerve.

Cheers, Winston

Occupational Demands

On November 17, 2011November 17, 2011 By WinstonIn Media, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Pop Culture, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

Usually, I try not to write about the same thing two days in a row. This isn’t my fault though. If the Occupy the Media people would just shut up, I could move on peacefully. Instead, they are talking about maybe issuing demands.

Really? Demands? Who do they think they are? What right do they have to make demands on anyone let alone everyone.

I know they claim to be the ninety-nine percent, but even they can’t be stupid enough to actually believe that. Or can they? Well, it seems they can. Wait, maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe stupid isn’t the right word. Maybe delusional would fit better…. Nope. Stupid it is.

It’s ridiculous, but it started me thinking. Why would this tiny little group of people think the rest of the world should listen to their demands? The answer of course is the world we live in. My theory goes something like this:

We live in a brand driven society. Elections aren’t about platforms, they’re about personality and name recognition. Advertisements substitute product information for celebrities, flashy visuals and are often unrelated to the product being advertised. Celebrities use their fame and name recognition to try and shape public policy as though singing or acting has given some insight denied to us mere mortals.

Combine this with reality media which imply that everyone is secretly a celebrity or a potential business success or otherwise just one video away from fame and it all makes sense. If being a media brand is all it takes, then of course they think their demands should be acted on. The media has taken to referring to them as Occupiers. As soon as they started capitalizing that word, it became a brand and gave them the same social credibility as other pop media brands. Brands such as Bono (0%), Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie (0.03%), or Michael Moore (-300%).

It’s that assumed credibility that creates the delusion of grandeur to which they have succumbed. The media refers to them as the 99% and it reinforces their idea that they really represent all these other people. The fact is they don’t. I’ll tell you why they don’t.

The real ninety-nine percent didn’t vote for them. In our society, we vote for people to represent us. I didn’t vote for them, and neither did anyone else. They need to stop saying they represent us, and the media needs to stop reinforcing that misinformation. Which is funny because the Occupado folks love talking about corporate or government misinformation, but are not so strident when the error is in their favor.

The good news in all of this is the probable timeline. The campers are so fragmented that after two months, they still haven’t decided if they have demands. If they do have demands, they haven’t been able to decide what they are. If they figure out what the demands are, they aren’t sure if they should go public with them. At the current rate and with their “organizational structure” their grandkids may actually produce a working draft for consideration by future generations.

In the meantime, thousands are expected to flood Wall Street to celebrate the two month anniversary of the movement. The plan is to obstruct and delay workers on their way at those evil banks and such. Just out of curiosity, how does their right to free assembly trump these people’s right to go to work and support their families? But that’s not the way Occupied mind works. The unOccupied mind is a much simpler creature. Occupiers are good and therefore whatever they do must be right. Banks and those who work for them are bad keeping them from doing what they do is good.

For my money, the police and civic authorities have a responsibility to ensure the workers can get to work unhindered. The only surprise would involve them siding with the public instead of the alleged protesters. I think it would be cool if the bankers showed up for work carrying signs saying, ” The Pandering Stops Here!”.

They should be allowed to protest too.

Cheers, Winston

Unhappy Campers

On November 16, 2011November 16, 2011 By WinstonIn Personal, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Pop Culture, SocietyLeave a comment

It seems some jokes have a shelf life. Apparently, people are done laughing at the Occupy (Camp) Wherever movement. Now, like “Train-wreck” Charlie’s one man show, it’s time to get them off the stage.

The protesters have proven their irrelevance. Two months into their protest, the only people who care about their pet issues are them. Sadly, after listening to the same tired lines for too long, they aren’t even really funny anymore.

Such media coverage as they have garnered has been more about their novelty value than their message. Of course that could have something to do with their own lack of focus. Really, there’s only so much air time in “Too few people control too much money.”.

Nobody cares. More accurately, people do care. The problem is that the protesters are just pointing at problems everyone already knows about. We don’t need a bunch of whiny, bored urban campers to tell us about them.

If they really want to make a difference, maybe they could volunteer in their communities. Right now all they’re doing is annoying people and creating a mess. That mess by the way, is going to be cleaned up with the tax dollars of the real ninety-nine percent.

The whole Occupy crowd has always struck me as being a symptom of society’s distress rather than it’s cure. Here is an analogy to demonstrate:

A parent takes their child with them while running errands. The child doesn’t want to go, but the parent promises them a treat. This goes on for a while. Finally one say the parent says “No. Not today,”.

The child now has a problem and an easily identifiable villain. Being generally over-indulged has given the child a hyper-developed sense of entitlement. As a result, the child sits on the floor in the store, screams, refuses to move and annoys everyone around in an effort to force the parent to give them what they want.

Unlike various urban bureaucrats, most parents don’t leave the child there for two months. However tempting it may be.

There has been failure on both sides in this fiasco. The second order failures involved city officials allowing the installation of tent encampments in the first place. That was just plain stupid as it did nothing but feed into the protester’s sense of entitlement. Oh it also annoyed people, damaged parks and left taxpayers to foot the bill for cleaning and repairs. Way to pander you spineless bureaucrats.

The truly epic, first order failure must be awarded to the protesters themselves. The idea of alleged grown ups thinking that camping and rallying would end human greed is mind boggling. It’s magical thinking.

I’m old enough to remember Harmonic Convergence (the rest of you should look it up). The short version involved getting a specific percentage of the world’s population to create a certain tone at a certain time. This was going to change the Earth’s vibration at an atomic level and so return us to a state of universal harmony.

That had a better chance of success than marching around saying greed is bad and then sitting in a park waiting for people to stop being greedy. Really. It’s like me writing my blog and waiting for those protesters to stop being spoiled children. The main difference being, I don’t expect my fantasy to come true.

The Occupy movement has once more proven the adage “If you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”. So far, they haven’t offered any practicable solutions that I’ve heard of. On the other hand, with the ever increasing cost of policing, cleanup, detention processing, eventual trials, appeals etc, they are definitely part of the problem.

Just like the public meltdown of the Sheen Machine, they aren’t funny anymore. They’re just pathetic. It’s time to get off the stage and go home.

Cheers, Winston

Welcome To Pavillion Wyo. Population: Poisoned

On November 10, 2011 By WinstonIn Environment, Global Issues, Personal Responsibility, Society, Values1 Comment

A story on MSNBC caught my eye today. For years now, the residents of Pavillion Wyoming have been complaining about their drinking water. They claim it’s turned black and stinks of gasoline. Many are claiming serious health issues relate to the problems with the water. Why am I writing about this?

Well, aside from the genuine tragedy of the situation, there’s a Canadian connection to all of this. You see, Pavillion sits on a large natural gas deposit. The only practicable way to get to that gas is process known as “fracking”.

This process involves pumping a mix of water and toxic chemicals under high pressure deep underground to fracture the rock strata and release the gas. Residents have long been convinced that this is the source of the problems with their water. Not least because the start of “fracking” and the problems with the water were too close together to seem entirely coincidental.

What does all that have to do with Canada? Well, as you may know we have a companies here with a lot of experience at pulling fossil fuels out of the ground regardless of the cost. At least the environmental cost. One of those is called EnCana.

When the people of Pavillion originally spoke up about their concerns, the company that owned the drilling rights decided it was a good time to cut their losses. All they needed was a buyer with more cash than ethics. Fortunately, EnCana fit that bill perfectly.

For years now they have been insisting that the issues with the local aquifer have nothing to do with all the chemicals and toxins they pump into the ground. I mean really, what are the odds that toxic water pumped into the ground could possibly contaminate the groundwater?

Apparently, they may have miscalculated. Responding to the ongoing concerns of the residents, the Environmental Protection Agency drilled a couple of deep monitoring wells in the area. Can anyone guess what they found?

If you said nothing, go buy some EnCana shares. If you said seriously life threatening levels of exactly the sort of toxins one associates with “fracking”. These include 2-Butoxyethanol, commonly used in the “fracking” process, fifty times the safe levels of Benzene, Phenois, Acetone, Toluene, Napthalene and Diesel Fuel. Despite attempts at damage control by EnCana, there were no traces of Nitrates or fertilizers which would have pointed to an agricultural source for the contamination.

Nope, there’s only one source, and in the words of Battlestar Gallactica’s Starbuck, “It’s pretty “fracking” obvious!”

The EPA has released the raw data, but to minimize any claims of error, they are holding off publishing findings pending further analysis. They want to have all their ducks in a row before it all gets tied up in court for the next thirty years or so.

Meanwhile back in Pavillion Wyoming. EnCana has denied any culpability for the contaminated ground water. It is an act of pure charity that sees them supplying drinking water to the townsfolk. At the same time, they are said to negotiating the sale of their local wells to an outfit from Texas.

The previous owners may not have taught them a clean way to get gas out of the ground, but at least they taught them to cut and run when the going gets tough.

Let’s be clear on one thing though. When I talk about EnCana’s underhanded dealings with the nice folks of Pavillion, I’m not just talking about a greedy CEO or even a greed Board of Directors. I’m talking about the greedy shareholders who don’t waste a lot of time looking at the ethical stance of the companies in their portfolios. They just look at the bottom line and congratulate themselves on backing a winner.

If the EPA rules that EnCana and it’s predecessor and probable successor are responsible for the issues in Pavillion, then their stocks should be frozen the moment the handwriting is on the wall. The people who wanted to profit off the misery of others shouldn’t really be given a chance to sell out. Maybe losing some money will make them a little more sympathetic to those who’ve lost their health, their peace of mind, their homes and for some, their lives. As for the executives and their boards of directors, all of their assets should be seized and turned over to their victims and they should be banned for life from holding such positions of authority and abuse.

Just one person’s opinion.

Cheers, Winston

We Are The 90 Percent

On October 24, 2011October 24, 2011 By WinstonIn Global Issues, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Society, Uncategorized, ValuesLeave a comment

Rare though it may be, I agree heartily with a recent article by Andrew Coyne in this weeks Maclean’s magazine. In it, he argues that the problem isn’t with the super rich one percent. It’s them and the eighty nine percent under them.

Here in Canada, we don’t have the same issues as are motivating the Occupy Wall street movement in the U.S. The fact is, we’ve experienced a combination of good management and good luck. Every time I hear someone advocate for less government regulation I just point at our respective mortgage and housing industries and smile.

So the Occupiers in Canada make me laugh. It’s just more enjoyable and polite than swearing at them. Their main protest seems to be that other people have more than they do. Oh boo hoo.

As Mr. Coyne points out in his article, our housing market didn’t collapse, so our banks didn’t need to be bailed out. The gap between the top one percent and the next eighty-nine percent isn’t as serious as the one between those ninety percent and the bottom ten percent.

Maybe we can’t get that second car, but the bottom ten percent can’t necessarily get that second meal. I lose my job and we have to cut some corners until I find a new one. For the bottom ten percent, the only corner they have is the one they are backed into. They have nothing left to cut.

Probably the most telling comment in the piece was in the last paragraph. If the money went into the hands of the bottom ten percent, it would take only a two percent increase in the HST to bring their standard of living above the poverty line.

The poor aren’t poor because of the top one percent. They live in poverty because of everyone who believes that tax cuts are the way to create economic health. Sure they are if you already have enough. Sadly, if you have nothing to spend, HST cuts don’t actually help you all that much.

If you want to make the world a better place, how about making better for people who need it more than we do.

Cheers, Winston

Nickelodeon Says It’s Okay To Vandalize School Property

On October 23, 2011August 31, 2012 By WinstonIn Education, Media, Personal Responsibility, Pop Culture, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

My daughter is a fan of the Nickelodeon show Victorious. It’s not one I’ve taken the time to watch, but the bits I’ve seen over her shoulder tell me it’s another teen/highschool dramedy. Seen one, seen them all. Or so I thought. Then I caught a couple of minutes on while it was recording on the PVR.

One of the characters skips a couple of classes. Her friends determine that she is upset because the school isn’t going produce the play she wrote. Apparently, they found it too “strange and disturbing”. Her friends are concerned for her, and go look for her. They find her in the janitors closet where she is cutting up a large wastebasket with pair of scissors.

One of her classmates is impressed that she cut up the janitors large waste bin with a pair of scissors. That’s it. No one comments on her destroying school property. The episode goes on from there with no further mention of it. How is that an appropriate message?

The school won’t produce her play, so she starts destroying school property. Everyone’s okay with this. The writers, actors, editors, show-runners, everyone. People complain all the time about how violent or “immoral” programs are destroying today’s youth. How about youth programming that doesn’t think before it broadcasts?

Sure, I realize that it’s just a waste bin. I realize that she’s supposed to be high strung and emotional because she’s creative. She’s just expressing her emotional distress. Yeah right. If one of the teachers says her play is poorly written, do we get a hilarious scene of her slashing their tires. Too much of a stretch to assume that such an emotionally stunted and self-obsessed character might respond to criticism that way? Ummm…. probably not.

Under the guise of “youth oriented” programming, they are normalizing this type of behavior. Let me break this down for you. A student writes a play and offers it to their school. The school deems it unsuitable and declines to produce it. Rather than accepting the decision and either re-writing it or seeking another venue, the student starts destroying school property. How is that depicting any type of healthy behavior?

Nickelodeon’s message of the day, “If someone doesn’t let you do what you want, destroy their property. It may not solve the problem, but it will show everyone how angst laden you are about things.” Great conflict resolution skills you’re teaching there team.

I bet Victorious gets a couple of awards for that one. I’m just glad my daughter is eighteen. She’s always been pretty good about understanding that not everything in “G” rated programming is appropriate in the real world. I’m more concerned about the viewers who may not make that distinction.

Cheers, Winston

The Fast And The Criminally Stupid

On October 22, 2011October 22, 2011 By WinstonIn Personal Responsibility, Pop Culture, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

According to the Ottawa Sun, a seventeen year old child was clocked driving 175 kph in an 80 kph zone. When police stopped him, he had two other minors in the car with him. His license and vehicle have been seized for seven days. The driver is facing a charge of “stunt driving”. Actually, it wasn’t his car, it was his parents BMW. So am I the only one who’s tired of this crap?

This kid will get a slap on the wrist, the parents probably won’t get even that. In less than a year, he’ll turn eighteen and the entire incident will be officially forgotten. He will face absolutely no consequences to his actions. Is there anyone who is going to try and justify that to me?

This child could have killed himself, his passengers and who knows how many others, but none of that matters. At least not to anyone in the business of passing laws. The Conservatives talk about getting tough on crime, but there hasn’t been a lot of talk about rewriting the Young Offender laws. Or putting some actual teeth into the law. How about some consequences that might mean something?

This kid should have his name smeared across every possible media outlet. His license should be seized for a lot more than seven days. How about seven years? How about a psych evaluation after that before he can get it back? Let’s make sure he’s a little less self-obsessed, self-absorbed and just generally stupid. If not, how about we make it a lifetime suspension? Too much? I don’t think so.

While we’re at it, how about something similar for impaired driving. Only for that one, how about a mandatory lifetime suspension? Too much again? How about we take a poll of everyone who has lost a family member to an impaired driver? How about just the people who’ve been crippled, maimed or scarred for life? I bet they wouldn’t find it too much at all.

Let’s keep in mind that driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. Like any privilege, it has to be earned, and it has to be deserved. When a privilege is abused, it needs to be revoked. If it is a serious abuse, that revocation needs to be permanent.

Some people do the right thing because it is right. Others will only do it if they are sufficiently afraid of what will happen if they don’t.. Under the current laws, there’s nothing there for them to fear. That needs to change. It needs to change now, before anyone else dies.

That’s something worth thinking about.

Cheers, Winston

Math For Protesters

On October 20, 2011October 20, 2011 By WinstonIn Global Issues, Media, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Pop Culture, Society2 Comments

The more I see of the Occupy This And That crowd, the more they annoy me. One of their most annoying habits is claiming to be the “99%”. Even the most math challenged should be able to understand that this is decidedly not the case.

I’m going to be generous (and lazy) and give them a total of 500,000 protesters in Canada. Judging from the reports in a variety of media sources, there aren’t that many, but like I say, I’m feeling generous. A quick Google search for the population of Canada reveals that in 2009 there were 33,739,900 people here. If you divide the protesters by the population, you find out that the Occupy Whatever movement actually accounts for less than 2% of the available bodies.

Of course, “We are the 99%.” sounds much more impressive than “We are less than 2%.” But hey, what do I know? I’m not part of a magazine that specializes in inflammatory, anti-capitalist images and soundbites like AdBusters. For those of you who hadn’t heard, that’s who’s behind the “spontaneous” Occupy Wall Street movement. The nice people at AdBusters claim they were inspired by the Tahrir protests in Egypt. Because of course we have so much in common with people living under a military backed single party system. Sure we do.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The people in Tahrir square weren’t there because they were too lazy to get involved in the democratic process, they were protesting the total lack of a democratic process to be involved with. The issue in Canada and the U.S. isn’t that people can’t change the system, it’s that they can’t be bothered.

The tragedy of Democracy is that you end up not with what you wish for, but rather what you deserve. The system isn’t broken, it’s ignored. It gets ignored for the same reason our personal debt is so high. (If you said “Corporate Greed”, consider yourself slapped.) It’s all because people want short cuts. They want what they want, and they want it right now. Thank you very much.

Instead of saving up to buy a house, car and big screen TV or pay their tuition, they borrow and then blame their debt on the “greedy banks” with easy credit and high interest. Instead of years of political action and organizing and hard, slogging work, they expect the system to change because they spend a few weeks or months camping in a bunch of parks. Yeah. That’ll work for sure.

The biggest indicator of how the protests are failing is the media coverage they are receiving. Think about who owns the major media outlets. Those nasty, “greedy” corporations. If the Occupy Yourselves Protesting movement offered even the slightest threat to them, do you think they’d give them any ink at all? Sure, you’re reading this online, but answer me this. Who gets more voting eyeballs, YouTube, or CNN? That’s my point. Those big corporations don’t feel threatened because a couple of thousand people in a park are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

They are just another part of the Roman “bread and circuses”. They occupy the attention of the people and repeat the message that the system is broken. That means that people won’t engage with the system, and that ensures status quo, and that’s good new for all those evil corporate types.

So to wrap up, the math is pretty clear. half a million (inflated to salve the organizers egos) divided by thirty four million is not ninety-nine percent. Nobody voted for you, so you should stop saying you represent the ninety-nine percent. Next time AdBusters decides to stir people up , it would be nice if they could do it during an election year and try to stir them towards the polling stations.

Oh yeah. One more quick note. When movie stars and directors show up in support of people protesting against the “economic divide”, it looks a little bit… what’s the word I want? Oh yeah…. HYPOCRITICAL!

Cheers, Winston

Brain Bits To Go

Category: Personal Responsibility

Too Many Police Or Too Many Idiots?

The NCC Rolls Over, The Occupation Rolls On

Occupational Demands

Unhappy Campers

Welcome To Pavillion Wyo. Population: Poisoned

We Are The 90 Percent

Nickelodeon Says It’s Okay To Vandalize School Property

The Fast And The Criminally Stupid

Math For Protesters