Proving a Point

I was perusing Google+ today and saw a link by The Cheerleader to this video.



It is a short video of the Peter Schiff, CEO of a major investing firm, going out to talk to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.  In the video Schiff looks like a smart guy and the protesters look a bit foolish and inarticulate.  There are plenty of videos on Youtube about this event of course and the great majority have a major slant one way or the other.  The ones generally linked off of boingboing show the 1% looking foolish and the ones linked off of right wing sites and new sources generally show the 99% looking foolish.  Neither of those things is particularly convincing since you can find a nervous, ill informed advocate of any point of view and demolish them on video and it proves nothing about the fundamental issues being discussed.

More than posting 'my side wins!' videos on Youtube we actually need to look at the underlying issues that are causing this discontent and see how best to address them.  There is a major increase in wealth disparity going on in the US and the combination of that, a major economic slump, inflating debt levels and the recent meltdown are making a lot of people angry.  You can't get rid of their anger or the real concerns they have with the way government is handling the issue by trivializing them.  You also can't get real action on the issues by chucking things at police either; extremist action on both sides is counterproductive.