Capitalism isn't the problem. It's corporatism...

An unexpected sign of the `Occupy Houston’ protests

Loren Steffy

I dropped by as the Occupy Houston protestors were gathering outside City Hall Thursday morning. The Occupy Wall Street protests have gone global, and when I arrived in Austin later in the day, a similar one was going on there, too. In Houston, the gathering garnered a lot of drum beating and chanting and people holding signs calling for everything from the repeal of Supreme Court decisions to eliminating the Federal Reserve. One sign even said “recycle the rich.”

Christopher Keeble, though, seemed a little out of place. He was wearing a tie and holding a sign that read “I <3 Capitalism.” It caught my attention, since the Occupy movement has been billed as some sort of liberal Tea Party. Yet Keeble wasn’t a counter-protester amid the throng. Keeble, who told me he works in sales, said he came to the protest because he wanted to fight the perception that it was some sort of socialist gathering. In fact, it’s his love of capitalism that caused him to show up. “Capitalism isn’t the problem,” he said. “Capitalism is being destroyed from within.” He argued that capitalism has fallen victim to corporate interests that have undermined the tenets of the very system they purport to uphold. “The playing field is not level any more,” Keeble said. That is the message that he wants to bring to the street, that he wants more Americans to stand up for. The back of his sign called for an end to crony capitalism, for reforming the federal tax code and Wall Street regulations, simplifying compliance standards while beefing up enforcement and overhauling campaign finance laws. Talking to Keeble reminded me of a column I wrote at the end of 2008, when the financial crisis was at its zenith. I argued that capitalism didn’t fail, we did. And we still are. Keeble’s point is that we have done little to address the fundamental causes of the crisis, and now it’s driving people into the streets. “We need to stand up against a system that has been corrupted,” he said.

Link:

http://blog.chron.com/lorensteffy/2011/10/an-unexpected-sign-of-the-occupy-houston-protests/