I Agree With Media Matters; We Do Need A New System

12 Oct, 2011 by John Hawkins

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From Ari Rabin-Havt at Media Matters.

In the Spring of 2000, my friend and former colleague Zack Exley arrived in Washington, DC, to observe the protests that had engulfed the city during the World Bank’s annual meeting. Driving into Washington from the airport, out the window of his taxi he saw “a teenage white girl with long dreadlocks who wore a homemade t-shirt proclaiming: WE NEED A NEW SYSTEM.”

…It turned out Larry Summers had seen the girl too and was eagerly telling his guests about an interaction he had with her:

And so I asked the girl: ‘What is this new system that you want? Tell me about it!’ And the girl had nothing. Nothing! She had no f*cking clue what this magical new system was supposed to be. No one is saying that there aren’t problems with the world economy the way it is today. But these kids out there — they don’t know what they want!

…If those in the media casting aspersions on the protestors had spent a decade covering the underlying problems with our economy, instead of cheerleading the housing bubble; worked to expose the lies that led our country to war, instead of taking an administration at its word; and not allow themselves to be manipulated by political and media figures whose goal was simply to distort our political processes, there might not be a need to Occupy Wall Street. Instead the dreadlocked girl is still right — we need a new system.

We do need a new system in this country.

It’s called the old system.

That’s a system that featured a much smaller, less powerful federal government, much more powerful states, much less regulation, a court system that stuck to the Constitution, and a nation that actually paid its bills and didn’t have to worry about spending so much that we’d default on our debts.

That’s a system that works. That’s a system proven to produce prosperity. So much of it, in fact, that even the dreadlocked girl could cut her dreads and get a job instead of wasting her time making homemade t-shirts advocating “magical systems” that she’s too uneducated to even understand.