Three fellows, ‘Wisconsin’, ‘Pride,’ and Mehmet pass the time on a cold evening.
Wisconsin: I been on the road for ten years man. Bin all over the place and I’m out o’ work. I’m from Milwaukee but I looked near everywhere. It’s all the same. Fuckin’ Mexicans man. I even go for the crappy jobs, workin’ kitchens, cleaning dishes. It don’t matter where you go: same thing. IHOP, Applebee’s, Denny’s, all of them. They all hire fuckin’ Mexicans. I go for a job there and they say to me “do you speak Spanish?” Well, fuck no!!
At the word ‘well’ he rears back and looks to the heavens in disbelief. Yet ‘Pride’ disputes his xenophobic screed.
Pride: You got it wrong man! They ain’t all that bad. Mexicans aren’t the problem man. You know they work hard and shit. Plus they bring their women with them. I’m sick of the women from here. My ex, she was American, and I asked her to iron my shirt… just a simple request to help me out, and she tells me “shut the fuck up.” Natalia, this Mexican I was with after that, I didn’t even have to ask her to iron my shirt, she just did it. Great women man. And they look after themselves too. My American ex would just get drunk as shit. But Natalia, I’d take her to a party and she’d have two drags on a cigarette and half a bottle of Corona and then stop, encourage me to have a good time, but take care of herself.
A bystander nods in agreement with ‘Pride.’
Wisconsin: You guys are fucked up!
Wisconsin walks away despondent at the poor reception his views have received.
Pride: I just let people say negative things but I’m not into that. I’m not into gettin’ angry with people. I sell Buddist statues, incense and flags, by the way. If you need any, I’m here all the time.
This small businessman gestures upwards towards the ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag aloft above his tent. Mehmet gestures towards the Ron Paul 2012 sign attached to the table.
Mehmet: And you’re for Ron Paul?
Pride: Yeah, but I’d vote for Newt Gingrich as well. Him over at the White House, Obama, that is one evil man. He’s just lied and tricked his way to the top. That’s how he got there, totally corrupt. And it’s not what people need. People have to be proud of this country, of America. Some people just don’t give a shit about our history. That’s why I play patriotic music here at my tent. But over there– (he gestures toward the White House again,) those are just bad people.
Mehmet: But Newt Gingrich walked out on his wife when she had cancer?
Pride: Lesser of two evils… Hey, are you from England? I read the Daily Mail. Telegraph, Daily Mail, that’s some of the best journalism in the world. I read the Daily Mail every day. But you have exactly the same problems over there that we have here. You have these immigrants who come and they just don’t care about your history. And you have what you call “Asians,” but they are really from Pakistan, and they’re corrupting the young English girls with weed, and vodka, and crystal meth.
Mehmet: That never happened at my school.
Pride: Well things have probably changed a lot since then. And the benefits cheats as well! They cover this stuff every day in the Daily Mail. There was a man from Africa who got a million dollars from the government in benefits and he was living in this enormous house and he didn’t have a job. Then you had those riots this year, didn’t you? There was one women, like the Secretary of Education or something, a blonde woman, and it was like all her fault. They said it in the paper. People are out of control…
This really happened!
Combustin Justin (@combustinjustin)
December 14, 2011
I’d be worried about Wisconsin and Pride spreading their message to newcomers – these people should not be serving as representatives of the Occupy movement, but since the Occupy movement hasn’t latched to any particular ideology (or even a counter-ideology, or the complete rejection of capitalism), it leaves the door open for these kind of people to show up and express themselves (expressing their support of Ron Paul, not of racism).
From these guys’ perspectives, racism and unfettered capitalism are the solutions to the problems of … … racism (redlining, predatory lending, etc.) and unfettered capitalism (deregulated markets).
I was wondering what you guys think of this article that Al Gore and David Blood recently released in the WSJ?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203430404577092682864215896.html
It seems like an attempt on Gore’s part to try and use lingo that WSJ readers could understand to somehow “meet in the middle” (meeting the middle of the shitstorm that is capitalism, perhaps).
Lawrence McMahon
December 21, 2011
Yes, I agree completely that one of the most disturbing things about the Occupy movement is that it can’t, as it were, distinguish left from right. And, yeah, the mantra that the solution to the problem of unfettered capitalism is unfettered capitalism is quite common at the occupations. I was in Austin last month for a buddy’s wedding, and I took the opportunity to head down to Occupy Austin for a couple hours with another old friend. We got into this crazy talk with a classic Ron Paul freemarketer who, by the end, was saying that society’s problems could be solved if only everyone were able to practice subsistence agriculture in their apartments, aided by hydroponic gear and plantlights powered by generators running off used restaurant cooking oil. (He failed to account for how there would be restaurants in a future society based off subsistence agriculture.) It was a great example of the absurdity of the “pure free market” position if you take it all the way to its logical conclusion. I’m planning to put together an article about this conversation for the site.
But, on Al Gore: I’ve always found this term “sustainability” really interesting ever since it came into common parlance about a decade ago. It also makes perfect sense that we’re now talking about capitalism with these ecological metaphors right at the time when both capitalism and the environment are facing severe crises (for quite obviously interrelated reasons). The idea of creating a “sustainable capitalism”, I think, is significant simply because it immediately presupposes that whatever-we’re-doing-now (ie., current capitalism) is NOT sustainable. Of course, this was EXACTLY Karl Marx’s own argument about capitalism: He was never saying that capitalism was “bad” or “evil” or really even “unjust”, but simply that it was unsustainable. His argument was that capitalism, playing by its own rules, must inevitably destroy itself because of various contradictions within its underlying economic logic. So, it’s obviously significant that today’s liberals, who simply want to make a “nicer” and therefore “more sustainable” capitalism, are forced to tacitly admit that Marx got it right. And, really, the logic of the welfare state and the New Deal was exactly the same: invent some kind of capitalism that’s sustainable, because the one we currently have clearly isn’t. But the welfare state is now gone, and with all the debt crises (and “austerity measures” in Europe), it sure doesn’t look like it’s coming back. So, the Al Gores of the world have to come up with a new plan for the same basic idea, and the ecological metaphor lies easily right at hand, so who not use that? This time around, though, they have to talk about “business strategies” and things like that, because the classic answer (welfare) is no longer an option. The only problem with their plan, then, is that Marx was still right. Every time that capitalism requires some “intervention” in order to keep it running, that just proves more and more that, at its core, it’s completely unstable, contradictory, and unsustainable.
At least that’s what I think!
And, oh yeah, the most important point: Occupy DC is freakin’ CRAZY. This little vignette here was from a friend of mine, but I’ve experienced some of the same wild stuff going on there, too.
Thanks for chiming in, as always. Talk to you soon!