Thursday, October 13, 2011

Quote of the Day

I look at the world as an integrated system, so I don't see these protests, or the debt crisis, or inequality, or the economy, or the climate going weird, in isolation – I see our system in the painful process of breaking down.

Our system of economic growth, of ineffective democracy, of overloading planet earth – our system – is eating itself alive. Occupy Wall Street is like the kid in the fairy story saying what everyone knows but is afraid to say: The emperor has no clothes. The system is broken. Think about the promise of global market capitalism. If we let the system work, if we let the rich get richer, if we let corporations focus on profit, if we let pollution go unpriced and unchecked, then we will all be better off. It may not be equally distributed, but the poor will get less poor, those who work hard will get jobs, those who study hard will get better jobs and we'll have enough wealth to fix the environment.

What we now have – most extremely in the U.S. but pretty much everywhere – is the mother of all broken promises. Yes, the rich are getting richer and the corporations are making profits – with their executives richly rewarded. But, meanwhile, the people are getting worse off ... realizing their kids will be even worse off than they are.

This particular round of protests may build or may not, but what will not go away is the broad coalition of those to whom the system lied and who have now woken up ... who are feeling the results of a system that saw all the growth of the last three decades go to the top 1 percent.

– Paul Gilding
Quoted in Thomas Friedman's op-ed,
"
There's Something Happening Here"
New York Times
October 12, 2011




Recommended Off-site Links:
Wall Street Sit-In Goes Global Saturday – Alastair Macdonald (Yahoo! News, October 14, 2011).
Five Things Wall Street Protesters Should Demand of the 1% – Matt Taibbi (AlterNet, October 13, 2011).
Fox News Poll Backfires: 70 Percent Support Occupy Wall Street – Alex Seitz-Wald (ThinkProgress.org, October 12, 2011).
Poll: Americans Like Occupy Wall Street a Whole Lot More Than the Tea Party – Steve Benen (Alternet, October 13, 2011).
Five Reasons the Right Is Terrified of Occupy Wall Street – Robert Creamer (AlterNet, October 12, 2011).
Paul Gilding: The Great Disruption
Paul Gilding Talks About His New Book The Great Disruption
The Great Disruption at Amazon.com

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Rocking the Cradle of Power
Quote of the Day – October 1, 2011

Images of OccupyMN's presence at Government Plaza, Minneapolis: Doug Abbott.


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