Occupy Wall Street: Outing the Ringers
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0:01 - 0:02illdoctrine.com
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0:02 - 0:04Occupy Wallstreet
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0:04 - 0:06I started out feeling skeptical about this movement,
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0:06 - 0:09and I think there's still work to be done
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0:09 - 0:11making sure it's as inclusive as it needs to be
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0:11 - 0:12among other things
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0:12 - 0:14but I've been watching it, and I've been going down there
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0:14 - 0:16and I have to say it is an inspiring scene,
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0:16 - 0:19and I think they are getting a lot of things right.
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0:19 - 0:21And when it comes to the core of it,
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0:21 - 0:22the goals and the messaging,
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0:22 - 0:24I think Occupy Wall Street is dead on.
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0:24 - 0:27I think it's every bit as specific as it needs to be.
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0:27 - 0:31And every bit as non-specific as it needs to be.
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0:31 - 0:34It's just specific enough to capture that basic sentiment so many people share,
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0:34 - 0:38and it's just vague enough to let many different people come to it
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0:38 - 0:40with many different shades of that sentiment.
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0:40 - 0:42And as it keeps growing and coalescing,
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0:42 - 0:45if certain people keep on professing not to get it,
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0:45 - 0:49those were probably the people who weren't supposed to get it.
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0:49 - 0:53And that is what I love most about Occupy Wall Street
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0:53 - 0:56As a media person who loves to watch how we communicate in that sphere,
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0:56 - 1:02I love Occupy Wall Street for how it manipulates all the news media's biggest corn balls
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1:02 - 1:05into outing themselves as corn balls.
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1:05 - 1:10I love watching them go on and on about how they have no idea what everyone's protesting.
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1:10 - 1:13I love watching them pretend it's just a bunch of hippies who don't matter
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1:13 - 1:14because they don't dress respectably.
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1:14 - 1:16I love how when it gets too big for that,
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1:16 - 1:20they start saying it doesn't matter because it's a bunch of yuppies who DO dress respectably.
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1:20 - 1:25I love when they say it's off-the-mark because the financial sector is mostly in midtown nowadays.
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1:25 - 1:28Like you really can't comprehend that this is about what Wall Street symbolizes.
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1:28 - 1:32I love when they say it's off the mark because we should be protesting Washington.
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1:32 - 1:36As if the symbolic Wall Street's undue influence on the symbolic Washington
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1:36 - 1:39hasn't been a running theme of this protest from the start.
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1:39 - 1:44I love this whole spectacle of everyone scrambling and scraping for ways to pretend that something
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1:44 - 1:49serious isn't happening here. It's like a big gameshow where everyone competes to see who
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1:49 - 1:53can build the biggest strawman. And it's not only fun to watch,
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1:53 - 1:59it provides a valuable service, because it reveals to us all who the Ringers are Wall Street's Three-card
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1:59 - 2:00Monte table.
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2:00 - 2:03Back in the 80s I bought all my vinyl at a place called The Music Factor
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2:03 - 2:09in Time Square. So I used to hang out on that block and study how the Three-card Monte games worked.
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2:09 - 2:13And as you probably know, every Three-card Monte setup has a Ringer. The Ringer's job is
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2:13 - 2:17to pretend they're an objective, outside observer commenting on the game,
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2:17 - 2:21when they're actually a part of the hustle who's there to help bamboozle
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2:21 - 2:26the public into thinking this game is legitimate. So naturally if we stand next
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2:26 - 2:30to the game and start telling everyone that the game is rigged, the Ringer is going
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2:30 - 2:33to flip on us and start doing everything they can to make sure nobody
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2:33 - 2:37listens to us. They're going to tell everyone that we're a bunch of losers who are just
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2:37 - 2:40hatin' because we don't know how to play the game. We're a bunch of
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2:40 - 2:43cardgame-hating socialists. They're going to try everything they can
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2:43 - 2:47to discredit us so they can protect that game that they're so invested in.
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2:47 - 2:51And it feels like that's what we've been seeing all month with Occupy Wall Street.
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2:51 - 2:54And you might be thinking to yourself my analogy is incomplete because
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2:54 - 2:58those card games also have a lookout, who's there to make sure the cops aren't
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2:58 - 3:01coming to shut the game down. And they usually have some muscle,
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3:01 - 3:03who's there to intimidate us from messing up the game.
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3:03 - 3:07And you'd be right, but that's how this version of the game is different.
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3:07 - 3:11In this version of the game, the hustler's don't need lookouts because the cops
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3:11 - 3:15don't want to shut down the game. In this version of the game, the cops are the muscle
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3:15 - 3:18to intimidate us from shutting down the game.
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3:18 - 3:22And that's not to say I think every police officer is a bad-guy, I suspect that many
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3:22 - 3:25rank-and-file officers are sympathic to this cause.
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3:25 - 3:29But the police, as an instititution, their function in this game has been to
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3:29 - 3:33step in and quiet us down whenever we shout, at the top of our lungs,
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3:33 - 3:35that we think this whole game is rigged.
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3:35 - 3:39So like I said at the beginning, I think there is a lot of work yet to be done,
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3:39 - 3:43and a lot of cards still left to fall just the right way for this to become everything that
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3:43 - 3:47it could be, but I do think it has incredibly potential. I think it's already
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3:47 - 3:51accomplishing big things. And if it doesn't accomplish anything else, I think Occupy
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3:51 - 3:56Wall Street has provided a vital service, simply by making it clear who the Ringers are,
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3:56 - 4:01and who the muscle is, at Wall Street and Washington's Three-card Monte
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4:01 - 4:05table. And I just hope the movement is sharp enough to survive this next stage of the game.
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4:05 - 4:10Where they realize they can't shut us down, so they start trying to co-opting us instead,
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4:10 - 4:12and make us a part of the game.
- Title:
- Occupy Wall Street: Outing the Ringers
- Description:
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http://twitter.com/jsmooth995
A few thoughts on Occupy Wall Street, I've been watching it and going down there for a while now but hadn't had a chance to speak on it.
By the way when I say some news media people are "ringers," I don't necessarily mean that they deliberately obfuscate, or get orders from some shadowy figure to do so. I think they'll often just have a personal investment in the system and status quo that's being critiqued/threatened, so they'll naturally--without any need to conspire--have their perception skewed by an instinct to protect the status quo they're invested in. So though it's quite possibly not their intention to play the ringer, it's the function they wind up serving nonetheless.
"Rainbow in the Dark" instrumental provided by Das Racist:
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 04:19
ghastlygrotto edited English subtitles for Occupy Wall Street: Outing the Ringers | ||
Anne Jonas added a translation |