Protesting the Protesters

If you're in your late teens or early 20s and have nothing better to do but go to class and learn something, you might saunter on down to Wall Street in Manhattan, or any of the franchise protests that have sprung up in cities around the country. There you can find like-minded stoners with lots of pierced parts and groovy tattoos who are also against the same things you are, which seems to include just about everything.

Having seen and heard several radio and TV interviews with many of the protesters, I'm stunned that so few of them seem intelligent. When asked their opinions on the Dodd-Feingold financial reforms, 15 in a row had never heard of them, didn't know of either Dodd or Feingold, and could care less. Shouting out "corporations are evil" and "money sucks," and holding signs suggesting we "get the riches away from the rich!" or "end capitalism!" seems to be de riguer, regardless of any basis in fact. One young woman said that "everything would be fine if we just didn't have any money." The mind boggles.

In my day, at least we were armed with the facts before we made complete fools of ourselves. I know I certainly did, except for that one time when I went along with some friends for a Sunday afternoon drive to Fort Dix, an army base in New Jersey, where a protest was going on to "Free the Fort Dix 48!" Or was it 38? Anyway, I had no idea who they were or why they weren't free, but it seemed like a good time and I was dating one of the guys and we were going out for pizza after, so what harm could there be? Plenty, it turned out, when the Army brought out the tear gas and I got a taste of that stuff on the front lines. My vision hasn't been quite right since.

Call me madcap, but I suspect that the lion's share of all those "occupiers" are just as ignorant as I was back then. On the other hand, at least they're getting some fresh air for a change.