Iconic photo
I wanted to pass along this image, which, for me, is representative of the entire “redirect populist anger” purpose of the protest:
What it captures for me, in this woman’s “crest fallen” version of an anti-tax/anti-Obama/anti-Government/anti-bailout/anti-(fill in the blank) Lady Liberty, is that Americans truly are hurting, angry and depressed … and thus ripe for such cheap exploitation.
The woman looks sad and ridiculous in the plastic cap, but there’s no doubt that she sincerely believes in what she’s protesting for.
But does she know about all the corporate money being poured into these protests to get anyone at all to show up? Where were these folks, with all their signs about the Constitution, when our rights were being picked apart by the Bush administration these last 8 years? Where were these folks, who are upset about spending, before the war or while Wall Street was destroying the global financial system?
The thing is, I can see how someone would end up at a protest like that. Liberals and other people who make sense don’t make enough of an effort to explain their politics to people who don’t agree with them, and there is a very noisy conservative machine that makes no sense if you think about it for longer than two seconds, but that many people don’t think too critically about.
Instead, a person who may actually be suffering from materially tough times, puts on a silly hat and drapes herself with American flags to attack the enemy du jour, this time increased taxes on the rich.
Her kind is in the minority now, but it wasn’t too long ago when they controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House.
