You remember billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg, right? The guy who had the expensive neighborhoods plowed during the worst snowstorm of the year while the rest of New York City was trapped? Yeah, that guy. Now here he is, trying to push the absolutely baseless charge that Occupy Wall Street protesters are harassing working-class Joes and Janes on their way to work. Why? Because he's trying to build a narrative that will justify the coming crackdown.
Could he be any more out of touch with the rest of us? Read this story by Alex Pareene:
“The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the bottom line,” Bloomberg said, presumably meaning service workers on Wall Street, adding that “we all” share blame for taking on too much risk, not just the financial industry.
“And people in this day and age need support for their employers. If the banks don’t go out and make loans we will not come out of our economic problems, we will not have jobs so anything we can do that’s responsible to help the banks do that is what we need.”
Wonkette’s Kirsten Boyd Johnson correctly notes that every single word the mayor says here is utterly nonsensical, unless you are, say, a billionaire mogul with deep ties to the financial industry.
Everyone else knows that the banks exist to make huge amounts of money by screwing everyone over, but banks are generally run by human beings (with the exception of Goldman Sachs, a Lizard Person From Outer Space operation), and those human beings have largely convinced themselves that they are very good and productive members of society. Hence, this sort of talk.
Which working-class people making $50,000 a year are the protesters protesting against, exactly? I’m not sure. The people who clean the offices of the financial firms that are actually being protested, maybe? The people who sell them fancy coffees? (This is just a slightly confused version of the old hostage argument against attacking the pillars of the vast, corrupt financial industry — if you hurt the banks they’ll hurteveryone else in America in retaliation.)
Still, Mayor Mike is to be commended for his political acumen. Desperate, terrified fealty to “employers” is a great, inspiring message. That should be his independent presidential campaign slogan. “SUPPORT YOUR BETTERS, OR ELSE.”
Don't miss the rest of the interview with Diane Taylor, Bloomberg's girlfriend (or "live-in gal pal," as the Post would put it). Why oh why does the 1% hate democracy?
Because it gets in the way of taking the rest.
