The Joy of Hate (17 page)

Those lending practices—making it really easy for high-risk borrowers to buy homes they couldn’t afford—arose from a fear of looking mean and heartless. Seeing a large group of people as a class who need government help, politicians realized they couldn’t simply redistribute wealth—that wouldn’t fly with you and me. So the alternative was redistribution through low-interest-rate loans, getting them on that first rung of the fabled property ladder. Even if it meant that the rung would give way and send the whole thing crashing down.

The banks were encouraged to approve the loans, and for a while everyone was happy, or at least not in foreclosure. But what would happen if some banking dude had said that this practice might be a bad idea: that approving loans to millions of people who can’t afford them spells disaster? That would be discriminatory. Clearly, Mr. Evil Banker (who must look like the mustachioed Monopoly guy) doesn’t want blacks or Hispanics to own homes. Yep, if you don’t approve of that loan, you’re probably a racist, Mr. Moneybags (never mind that whites got nailed, too). This implication removed the sole purpose of a bank: to be the shrewd bad guy when it comes to doling out the money (sort of how my wife sees me). Remember, in old movies, bankers were always denying loans. The poor farmer would trek miles to the city bank, only to be told there is no third mortgage for his roof. Now, gleefully, those vile creatures in suits could be the good guy, handing out homes like they were those tiny red plastic pieces from a Monopoly game.

This is not to absolve the greedy folks who bundled the loans
and sold them—they simply added the whipped cream to this dessert of financial ruin. But imagine how hard it might have been to say no to the process in the beginning, since the process was for the “greater good.” Getting poor people on the property ladder is a nice gesture, as is knitting a “peace quilt”—although that doesn’t mean world peace suddenly breaks out. But it’s inherently destructive if they can’t stay there. It was affirmative action using private property, and over time, those who can’t afford to stay on that rung can only do one thing: jump off. If only someone other than Republicans had had the balls to risk the shrieks of “racism” and “intolerance” to point this out, perhaps we’d be in a better place. One with a roof over our heads that the bank isn’t about to repossess.

The banks and the government weren’t the only guilty parties. Those who bought the homes had a hand in this mess. A friend I’ll call Sven was a highflying executive who spent most of his money on girls, booze, and trips. How the hell he got a loan to buy a condo, with little money in the bank, was beyond me—and him. When his interest rates went crazy, he short sold that property.

We may end up paying for Sven’s default. My other friend (I have two, I swear), a freelance designer who never made much money, was able to purchase a sizable house in an outer burb in California. When it became painfully clear that designing business cards was not the booming industry “Ryan” thought it would be (who needs business cards when everyone is out of business?), he saw a lawyer, who advised him to stop making mortgage payments (but be sure to keep paying him, of course!). Oddly, he was still able to afford a lavish wedding. So why did he choose to pay for that and not put the money into that house? Because he didn’t have to. Buying that house as a high risk made the choice less
substantial. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” he said, and he returned to renting, with seven years of bad credit ahead. Thanks to the friendly bankers, an enabling government, and an ideology that puts tolerance ahead of common sense, he just took the path of least resistance At least he has those wedding pictures. Everybody in America should get a copy. After all, we paid for them.

Meanwhile, it’s idiots like me who are stuck paying the bill. I can’t remember missing a mortgage payment, and I cannot even get refinancing. I am a maker, who is getting taken. But in this backwards equation, I’m not a victim, so I get punished. I would like to buy a bigger place and move, but the down payments required since the meltdown are so huge that I am stuck in an apartment slightly larger than your local Starbucks. Not that I’m complaining. I am a tiny person, so simply by proportion my shoe-box of an apartment is actually a mansion. Bigger if you count the ventilated storage container installed under the living room.

I GUESS THEY WERE THE PEOPLE
we were waiting for. Nancy Pelosi called their actions “spontaneous.” President Obama could empathize with their “frustrations.” Celebrities like Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, and yes, even Penn Badgley (of
Gossip Girl
, and the name of my pet hamster) expressed solidarity with those participating in the occupation of Wall Street.

The ragged movement began, as many pointless things do, on Facebook, where some activists (part of an anarchist Canadian group called Adbusters) announced their intentions to camp out in a park in the heart of the financial district. What made it fun and interesting was their lack of focus. They had no principles, so they offered a poll to choose what to protest. In sum, they had no idea what they were protesting, they only knew that protesting would feel really good. What this illustrated, really, was that it’s hard to protest when you’ve already gotten what you wanted: a very liberal president, one who reengineered health care so even the most bedraggled can get treated for “hackey sack ankle.” They weren’t actually going to speak truth to the man, because, really, they were on the same side as the man. They were liberals, and liberals were in power.

Contrary to Nancy Pelosi, this was not a spontaneous gathering,
for among these sign-carriers were the same old silly souls—anarchists from the WTO days, Code Pink from the antiwar protests, and assorted middle-aged hippies who found out that wearing a Guy Fawkes mask might look really cool with a gray ponytail.

What struck me about this movement was how the media embraced it like an adorable kitten. It was a striking departure from their mocking dismissal of the Tea Partiers.

Remember, the Tea Party were old people in tricorn hats, spouting phrases they picked up from Glenn Beck, all virulent Obama-haters, whose distaste for him was obviously due to his skin color, not his policies. Sure, they talked about the perils of government spending more than it takes in, but that was just code for “we hate black people.” One network, which rhymes with MSNBC, showed footage of a Tea Partier strapped with a gun—filming and editing it in a manner to obscure the fact that he was black (which would have killed the “angry white male” story line). Comedians everywhere embraced the OWS movement, because it beat wondering if the waitress at the Des Moines “Chuckle House” had an STD.

The people who ridiculed the Tea Party now felt, in their hearts and heads, that OWS was the “real” protest movement—one that morphed into an attack on corporations and banks and anyone with money. They were the enemy: people who made money. They weren’t necessarily in power, but it didn’t matter. It was a call for class warfare, and it erupted with hundreds of arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge. These arrests were no surprise.

As they would surely be recorded, instantly romanticizing the movement—giving it more momentum as it demonized the police, who had better things to do. No cop really wants to wrestle or
Mace a snotty protester, because even he or she knows it won’t win sympathy on YouTube. But it’s their job, and they have to do it—knowing full well the second reason for an activist to get arrested is to unleash legal warfare. Just days after the arrests, the lawsuits began.

And another reason for the arrests: so a twenty-four-year-old unemployed doofus can, in twenty years, brag that he was “there,” fighting the man. Even if he still isn’t sure who “the man” is. Still, he could paint himself as a revolutionary. It might get him laid at a poetry reading. Hopefully, one of mine. My haiku chops are really evolving.

During all this, I was reluctant to fall into stereotyping the rabble, for that made me no better than the jerks who did the same to the Tea Partiers.

My reluctance lasted two hours, for their behavior made restraint impossible. From the very beginning they embraced the stereotype: groups of drum-playing men leaving trash and filth everywhere, shrill protesters screaming at children—and the perfect symbol of the protest itself: a man defecating on a police car. That was their “Kent State.”

The First Amendment is delightful. Vital. In many ways, it’s what really separates us from other developed democracies like Vermont. But this romanticization of protest for protest’s sake has really got to stop. The act itself isn’t enough—you’re supposed to actually have a point. But to the media, the process is a romantic end unto itself. As long as you’re “raising awareness,” you’re a hero. If you’re cutting school, blocking traffic, and channeling rage, you’re participating “in the process” and “making your voice heard.” That’s the problem—we have too many friggin voices making themselves heard. I have enough voices in my head already, thank you.

You know one of the real reasons we got OWS? Because there are no more decent rock festivals. Trust me, they’re the same.

Funny how the media wanted this new phenomenon to be
their
Tea Party (after all, the Coffee Party failed miserably). So let’s compare the two movements. It’ll be worth it, trust me.

During the Tea Party, they actually got permits, not parasites. Yep, they organized orderly and calmly—and with a few odd exceptions, seemed affable. With lawn chairs, fanny packs, visors, and flags, it was like a yearlong Fourth of July picnic, minus the fistfights between cousins. Yeah, it was corny, but it was also calm.

As far as I could tell, there were few arrests made during the Tea Party events. At the Brooklyn Bridge rally alone, there were between six hundred and seven hundred. Probably the worst thing that happened at a Tea Party rally was a grass stain on Marge’s diaper bag. Or a really unfortunate singalong featuring a greeter from Walmart dressed as a Founding Father.

The cleanup after a Tea Party rally was minimal. Yep, they took their lawn chairs home and picked up after themselves—they didn’t leave stained mattresses and filthy cardboard rafts in the street. The Occupiers were different, leaving a mess for everyone else to clean up. I guess they were giving it to the man—if the man picked up garbage for a living. Here they were, “occupying” Zuccotti Park, getting catered food shipped in, and complaining about their foam mattresses. I know a few hundred thousand fellow occupiers who would kill for those conditions. But they’re occupying Afghanistan at present.

During the Tea Parties, there were no riot police, no nudity, no shirtless bums using a business’s bathrooms without paying for even a cup of coffee. No property was damaged, no traffic was blocked, no lives were disturbed, no attempt was made to lure the police to commit an “atrocity” to be uploaded on YouTube.

Meanwhile, a cop who Maced a protester at a Wall Street rally had his personal info released on the Web, and haters were encouraged to harass him and his family. And because every “occupation” culminated in a disgusting mess, the surrounding businesses that were initially sympathetic with them turned sour. These people sucked, they concluded.

Which leads me to a bigger distinction: the Tea Partiers were united by a few central singular principles: a return to limited government, personal responsibility, and creamier macaroni salads (other than obsessive Atkins dieters, who can argue with these things?). There were no uniting principles for the OWS. So it became a grab bag of the same old progressive platitudes—railing against everything from corrupt banks, to the death penalty, to degradation of the environment (which did not stop them from littering). The only thing they refused to condemn was their own boorish, dangerous, and deviant behavior. And there were loads of examples. The only thing thicker than the OWS rap sheet was the health care bill. When the tourists showed up, it was like a commie theme park.

Which makes the media response so beguiling. Their tolerance for the shrill and bedraggled Wall Streeters seemed boundless; their mockery for the more peaceful Tea Partiers equally endless. Why is that? Because their naive romanticism, tied to their own failed dreams, made it so. The media loved OWS because it’s easy to love and tolerate those you secretly want to be.

President Obama endorsed the sentiment of the OWS protesters because they were no different from him when he was a college kid, and later a community organizer. In his twenties and thirties, he would have been there, locking arms, sitting on the grass, perhaps in a cool fedora, a cig dangling from his lips (a frightened dog nearby).

Still, I tolerate both movements—they are equally valuable, for different reasons. The Tea Party was a peaceful plea for some kind of correction: let’s spend less and avoid turning into another piss-poor European country. The Wall Street protest illustrated the mess that is our education system. None of these angry agitators knew how an economy works. They railed against corporations, while wearing Nikes. They bemoaned the billions made by Apple, while pecking their manifestos on iPads. (It should be noted that “pecking” a manifesto significantly diminishes its impact.) But by tolerating them, and shining a light on them, we will hopefully teach a lesson to rest of America: it is better to make something than try to take something. And a college education is worth about as much today as a driftwood sculpture made by a Santa Cruz hippie.

Still, the second weekend of October 2011 was a great one for people bearing rattails, crappy tattoos, and head lice. Yep, the owners of Zuccotti Park—where the protesters were camping—caved. This happened, according to Mayor Bloomberg, after some New York pols made “threatening” calls to the property company, vowing to make their lives difficult if they evicted the unsavory mass of angry chanters.

So thanks to repressive tolerance, the park owner must do nothing about those camping on
his
property; instead he must let them do so, or he will appear intolerant. Intolerance is a public relations nightmare, so it’s best to huddle back in your rich man’s cave and pray for snow.