Good idea: “Occupy Baltimore!”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2011

The Baltimore Sun gets it right: This morning, we again extend our compliments to the Baltimore Sun.

We recommend their featured editorial. Its headline: “Occupy Baltimore!”

(In our hard-copy paper, that's it.)

The editors welcome the protest movement which they see “spreading from Wall Street.” They offer some constructive ideas about the way the movement might work. Here’s the way the editors started. We recommend every word:

“The Occupy Baltimore protest today at the Inner Harbor, and the protests on Wall Street that inspired it and similar demonstrations around the country, are a welcome sign that outrage at the nation's political and economic system isn't confined to the political right. It isn't just conservatives who are mad about what's going on in this country, and the spreading protest movement among a markedly diverse coalition of people, fostered by a heavy reliance on social media, has the potential to add a left-leaning strain of populism that has been missing from the conversation.”

The editors make a lot of good points. They even say that the Occupy Together protests “have much more in common with the tea party than members of either group would likely want to admit.”

Everyone is getting ripped off as matters stand. We lose when we can’t see and say that.

It’s been a long time since we saw a press corps elite clamber down off its big tufted chair. Today, the Baltimore Sun gets it right. Could happier days be here?

4 comments:

  1. I'm with the Sun in condemning crony capitalism. The public is absolutely being ripped off when the head of Solyndra collects a few million dollars for Obama's campaign and is then repaid with over $500 million from the taxpayers. Or, when Obama's Dept of Labor prevents Boeing from building a new plant in South Carolina, because his union supporters don't like it. BTW this modus operendi shouldn't be a surprise. It's the Chicago politicians' way. They reward their friends and punish their enemies.

    However, the corporate greed thing is mostly nonsense. We're all greedy, in the sense that we'd rather have more money then less. We'd all like to get a raise and we'd all dislike a salary cut.

    Barbara Streissand makes a lot of money. Is she ripping me off? Of course not. I get value when I buy her CDs or attend her concerts or movies. And, those who don't like her singing are free to spend their money elsewhere.

    Warren Buffett makes an enormous amount of money. Is he ripping me off? No. His companies sell products that are worth the money they charge. Again, If I don't like Buffett's products, I don't have to buy them.

    BTW the Baltimore Sun is a corporation. Do they think they're ripping off their readers simply because they're making a profit? I don't think so.

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  2. See also:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-four-habits-of-highly-successful-social-movements/2011/08/25/gIQAeifVNL_blog.html

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  3. I'm guessing only a conservative would say we're all greedy in the sense that the acquisition of absurd amounts of money beyond any amount one individual could possibly have the time to spend, purely for it's own sake without connection to the addition of any value or wealth or the creation of any goods or service. And of course all 300 million of us aspire to this notwithstanding there isn't that much wealth in the world.

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  4. "And of course all 300 million of us aspire to this notwithstanding there isn't that much wealth in the world."

    There's a billion times more wealth in the world today than there was 100 years ago. The poorest person in America today has more material wealth than the richest person in 1800.

    Jealousy of "the rich" is short sighted and belies a complete ignorance of history.

    The United States Government robs Americans to the tune of 4 trillion a year, and you're worried about a handful of CEOS making 10 million?

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