By Bill Woodruff —
OK, I confess. I”ve never texted before and I still don”t have a cellphone either.
I like my peace and quiet and find the phone to be life”s most annoying intrusion. I admit it”s also a blessing, but it reminds me of Homer Simpson”s toast: “Here”s to alcohol, the cause of, and the solution to, all life”s problems.” Just substitute the phone for alcohol. Or better yet, how about a trade?
So anyway, what is that gibberish? No, it”s not a Sanskrit chant, although it does sound like one. Oh my God, it”s d?j? vu all over again.
I went to U.C. Berkeley in the 1960s, never graduated but lived there for five years before immigrating to the real world.
One day during that time, my girlfriend and I were at a craft fair on Telegraph Avenue when some anarchists set the street barricade on fire. We went up to the new People”s Park when the trouble started, just to get out of there, and ran right into the riot squad coming right at us. I have the unfortunate distinction of being the first one hit by tear gas at the riot. Governor Reagan declared martial law and we had the National Guard on our corner for quite awhile.
I met political activists who were Marxists or anarchists. This same element has surfaced again in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Even if most of the protesters do not fall into these groups, it unfortunately becomes guilt by association.
I worked a block away from the Oakland draft board where they had the anti-war demonstrations and I had to park my car near there. By that time I was opposed to the Vietnam War and sympathized with the protesters, but I didn”t agree with their methods that turned people off. The OWS mess is now even worse. I expect a backlash.
In the 1930s the communist and Nazi movements had large memberships. Whenever the economy is bad, the anti-capitalists pop up and want to throw out the baby with the bath water.
While I was conservative when I started at Cal, joining a fraternity and NROTC, I admit I got swayed by some of the ideas of the times. I grew up in a conservative Republican family and in the end those values brought me back to finding my center, so to speak. In my 20s I started a contact lens company and bought stocks and real estate.
My brother warned me that when I owned property and started paying taxes I would become more conservative. Bulls-eye.
I identify a lot more with the Tea Party than the OWS crowd. It”s the government meddling in the free enterprise system that usually starts the trouble. The housing crisis started when some pinheads in Congress thought more people should own homes. Why, so we could eliminate landlords? So banks could start lending money to people who wouldn”t qualify for a loan from a bank that had to pay for its own mistakes? Why aren”t the people camped in front of Congress instead of Wall Street?
If you loaned someone a huge amount of money, wouldn”t you have enough sense to have a lawyer put in a safety clause or two?
When Congress gave all this money to Wall Street, it would have been simple enough to require that a company that lost money and got a bailout would not be allowed to pay bonuses to anyone, period. If you handed someone a pile of cash and he ran off with it, who is to blame? Both. He has no scruples and you have no sense. This is not really a chicken and egg conundrum. Congress just plain laid an egg.
The problems stem from those who think that the government has to manage the economy, instead of just regulating it as the Constitution says.
Our system was designed to move slowly so that reactionary mob rule would not take over. Democracy is a bad form of government. Unfortunately all the others are worse.
It”s time for the OWS crowd to go home and Occupy the Library. I would be happy to offer a list of books. I”m sure most of them are well-intentioned and motivated by poor economic conditions, but the movement is a misguided missile. In the 1960s, the demonstrations that got out-of-hand did a lot to elect Richard Nixon. Oops.
Please hear this: OM GIDVA OA.
Bill Woodruff is a longtime Lake County resident and former business owner.
