Poem of the Day - for Occupy Wall Street -- "Piggies" by George Harrison

I've been following the Occupy Wall Street movement for a while now, including visits to the "ground zero" sites in New York City and Washington DC. Although the goals of the movement can be misinterpreted, both from those on the outside and even misinterpreted by those involved in the movment itself, one thing DOES stand out and must never be diluted or forgotten:

Corporate greed and corruption are both responsible for the situation we are in today (with our economy in general) and by the same token, they must also be stopped - directly and immediately - by drafting laws and prosecuting the "have a lots" who have been caught stealing from those who "don't have a lot". The thievery is happening EVERYWHERE, it is amazing.

I've stumbled upon a 2-inch thick 3-ring binder in a local coffee shop in Bethel, CT (Molten Java by name - a fantastic little hippie place filled with painted guitars, old tables and sofas, colorful and trippy artwork, funny little psychedelic knick-knacks, etc. - whoa, that's another story) whti the title "Unofficial Poetry Anthololgy" on the front cover. Cool. So I quickly opened it to find treasure -- 100's of "Occupy Wall Street" poems in a neatly assemled - I think alphabetically, hand printed anthology of political poems and lyrics. Lot's of poems, lot's of good sentiment, (lot's of bad poems) and lot's of good poetry - more or less focused on the Occupy movement.

I even encountered a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem or two in there.

This brings me to one of the best popular lyrics written specifically to address the establishment and corruption and greed, a classic lyric filled with biting sarcasm, often misinterpreted itself as a "cute little ditty about little pink piggies".

Not the case. Read Harrisons lyrics, and look at 1968 and tell me this poem was not about corporate greed. It was, admittedly a rare political poke by Harrison (remember he was far overshadowed by John Lennon and his political peace activism gone viral).

Enjoy - look around at the next restaurant you're in. Can you pick out the piggies?





Piggies

By George Harrison (recorded by The Beatles)

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all those little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
And they always have clean shirts to play around in.

And in their styes with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
And in their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damm good whacking.

Yeah, everywhere there's lots of piggies
Playing piggy pranks
And you can see them on their trotters
Down at the piggy banks
Paying piggy thanks
To thee pig brother

- Everybody: -
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

Piggies Play Kid Grafitti with Pepper Spray at UC Davis - OWS nightmare

The events of recent weeks have become very ugly and in many cases reprehensible - and the result is that the establishment (I guess I would have to say the 1% and about 5% of their employees, I call them piggies) has resorted, in many cases to violence in dealing with the protesters.

The latest is the incident at UC Davis this week, as described above. Here is the CNN account (in quotes) with some of my own commentary (not in quotes):

"The campus protests were affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

One of the protesters hit by the spray told CNN's Lemon that she was still feeling some after-effects Saturday evening.

"I was shocked," said Sophia Kamran. "When students are sitting on the ground and no way of moving to be violent, being totally peaceful, I don't understand the use of pepper spray against them."

A campus police officer, in a sweeping motion, sprayed protesters point blank on Friday before other officers moved in."

Watch this video and be prepared for my (prosecutable?) commentary:

I love the filtered CNN version of this "A campus police officer, in a sweeping motion, sprayed protesters point blank..." -- How about this (by Thomas Herr):

"a fat, ignorant piggie dramatically waived a high pressure bottle of yellow pepper spray to the world, then dramatically and casually rotated his pot belly, man-breasts and jowls around to face the peaceful kids (your kids) and sprayed them in the faces from a distance of inches - being sure not to miss a single one. Sort of like a game of yellow kid-graffiti for piggies.

More, the official statement (hilarious) My comments are in red:

"UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain told CNN that 25 tents were in place Friday afternoon -- despite fliers explaining the campus prohibits overnight camping. It does so for security and health reasons, Katehi said.

After written and verbal warnings, officers reminded the protesters they would be subject to arrest if they did not move their tents from the quad, Morain said. Many protesters did decide to remove their tents and equipment, officials said.

A group of about a dozen protesters sat on a path with their arms interlocked as police moved in to remove additional tents. Most of the protesters had their heads down oh I see, so it was not really possible, in fact, unlikely - to hit them in the face (soft tissue) with the yellow pepper spray.

At one point, protesters encircled the officers and blocked them from leaving, Morain said. Looking at the actual video, this is not evident. In fact even if it was, looking at the video, all the chubby piggie officers had to do was step over them and if need be, arrest them.

Cut off from backup (dramatic - you've got to be kidding me), the officers determined the situation was not safe LOL, just look at the video and asked people several times to make room, Morain said. One officer used pepper spray when a couple of protesters and some of the 200 bystanders moved in again, the actual video footage of the scene does not support this in any way -- moving in? MOVING IN? look at the video, she added."

Anyway, I'm appalled, and though I do not always agree with the different facets and sometimes disjointed goals of the OWS movement, I am against corporate corruption, corporate greed and piggies -- and the fact is that this incident and many others in recent weeks are proving that this nation, in fact -- the world -- is ready for some sort of social revolutionary change.

Finally, there is a song which has been misconstrued as a "fun, cute little pig song" - but it was NOT. It is an appropriate song for the situation: Piggies, by George Harrison of the Beatles - ref. "starched white shirts" "out to dinner with their piggie wives" "eating their bacon".