Cookie Monster's Occupy Explanation

This is an item I enjoyed on the web today. Very astute.

Occupy
"Cookie Monster" Offers Best Explanation Yet for Occupy Wall Street
By Alan Scherstuhl Fri., Oct. 21 2011 at 2:05 PM
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Categories: Occupy
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"C is for Corporate Malfeasance"
​A guy calling himself Cookie Monster has written what looks to us like the most clear and persuasive explanation for the Occupy movement we've seen anywhere, a copy-and-pastable screed that everyone should send to their crazy aunts and skeptical grandfolks.

Admittedly, we don't know for sure that the following bit of Cookie Monster/#OWS brilliance was penned by a guy. But it turned up in an Onion AV Club comment thread on an article about how some "Muppet insiders" are feeling squeamish about that upcoming new Muppet movie, and to argue the fundamentals of the American economy in such a forum seems awfully boyish, so the evidence is good enough for us.

(The Av Club, remember, is the not made-up Onion site that lavishes serious attention on everything that matters in pop culture, especially Community. And Cookie Monster, remember, is these days a reformed glutton, so who better to school the world on the ways of the 1 percent?)

Anyway, this "Cookie Monster" -- who writes in full-on, dead-perfect, no-article Cookie-ese -- has long been one of the AV Club's best gimmick commenters, but also one of the Internet's most astute and thoughtful writers, period. The AV Club should sign him (?) up immediately, because, seriously, he ranks right up there with Sean O'Neal and Steven Hyden -- the site's sharpest writers.

Anyway, here's a burst of Cookie truth that should be copy-and-pasted everywhere all across the Internet. Today, we are all Cookie Monsters!

(Note: We cleaned up one typo.)

Yes, there always going to be rich and poor. But we used to live in country where rich owned factory and make 30 times what factory worker make. Now we live in country where rich make money by lying about value of derivative bonds and make 3000 times what factory worker would make if factories hadn't all moved to China.

Capitalism great system. We won Cold War because people behind Iron Curtain look over wall, and see how much more plentiful and delicious cookies are in West, and how we have choice of different bakeries, not just state-owned one. It great system. It got us out of Depression, won WWII, built middle class, built country's infrastructure from highways to Hoover Dam to Oreo factory to electrifying rural South. It system that reward hard work and fair play, and everyone do fair share and everyone benefit. Rich get richer, poor get richer, everyone happy. It great system.

Then after Reagan, Republicans decide to make number one priority destroying that system. Now we have system where richest Americans ones who find ways to game system -- your friends on Wall Street -- and poorest Americans ones who thought working hard would get them American dream, when in fact it get them pink slip when job outsourced to 10-year-old in Mumbai slum. And corporations have more influence over government than people (or monsters).

It not about rich people having more money. It about how they got money. It about how they take opportunity away from rest of us, for sake of having more money. It how they willing to take risks that destroy economy -- knowing full well what could and would happen -- putting millions out of work, while creating nothing of value, and all the while crowing that they John Galt, creating wealth for everyone.

That what the soul-searching about. When Liberals run country for 30 years following New Deal, American economy double in size, and wages double along with it. That fair. When Conservatives run country for 30 years following Reagan, American economy double again, and wages stay flat. What happen to our share of money? All of it go to richest 1%. That not "there always going to be rich people". That unfair system. That why we upset. That what Occupy Sesame Street about.

See the original comment here.

(There's also a great Cookie Monster follow up, in which he says "In theory, this country a democracy, where everyone who share resources also have say in how resources used. In practice, ordinary monster have very little say, and super-rich basically do whatever they want and make government do whatever they want.")

And Sean O'Neal's piece on the Muppet movie is pretty hilarious.

And, hey, did you know that on November 17 Ann Coulter was talking about OWS on the radio and said "Remember the lesson from my book: It just took a few shootings at Kent State to shut that down for good."

Here's that and six other awful things she said.
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Follow Alan Scherstuhl on Twitter at @studiesincrap, and SF Weekly's The Snitch blog @TheSnitchSF