I was waiting for word on my car at a tire store on Central. And then I saw a cop car block off the side street adjacent to the store's parking lot. Further down the road, more cops popped up. Like they were barricading the neighborhood. Like, possibly, there was something very bad going down. So I walked out to Central and looked down the street. There was a group of people with yellow protest signs walking in my direction. I chucked a bit, wondered why there were so many cops...and then the police helicopter buzzed us.

About thirty people were protesting everything from the bank bailouts to the wars. From billionaires paying more taxes (which they were for) and oil pipelines (which they were against). The girl with the megaphone was actually saying, "Hey hey, ho ho..." before whatever it was she was against. Or for. I was a little confused.

But, for the most part, these are sentiments I generally agree with, I wasn't angry at their protests, it was just that the litany was a bit broad and unfocused. In Nob Hill on any given Saturday, there are protests. Sometimes it's only a couple of people. Sometimes it's more. The paper today said there were over a hundred, and one was arrested for running in and out of stores and harassing customers. I only saw about thirty, and no one harassed me. 

Why don't I ever get harassed?

But there were at least fifteen cop cars blocking off side streets and a helicopter circling the neighborhood. You see that many cops, and you think we're under siege or something. 

So I think the only thing that was actually accomplished on Saturday was giving these cops a bunch more overtime.

The Wall Street protesters have gone from being almost completely ignored for a few weeks, to being called the beginnings of a "left-leaning" tea-party like organization, to (after a couple of articles musing about what they might become) the reason the economy is in the pits. Demonize anyone lately?

The banks have declared war on us "freeloaders" who use our debit cards to buy stuff. Y'know, like the banks advertised we should (and never never use that dirty nasty completely inconvenient cash stuff) for the last fifteen years. But now we're gonna get charged (nailed) for using our debit cards and the actual money we have in our checking accounts. Nope, the banks are pushing back with credit cards and killing off (as best they can) debit cards. Because, as they actually said out loud, they have a right to make money. A "right" to make money. Is that in, like, the Bill of Rights of Fat Cat CEOs?

Netflix, which began as a great game changer in the realm of home video rental, has now decided that the customers are the enemy. Their success is totally our fault. And we're not paying enough for its services. And having everything available on one website is just too easy. We've been coddled too long. So they are charging us more for a service that will be harder to use. Genius.

I think I understand what all the people running the biggest companies and banks and governments in the world are saying.

It's our fault. We got soft and used to the "good" life under their lax policies. We killed the world's economic structure. And now it's time for us to pay.

You know, those 99% of us who don't make enough in a day to pay for a family for a year. We're the ones to blame. And punish. And demonize.

Even though we've never been in charge of any of this. We're just at their mercy. Which is, of course, why we're gonna have to take it.

Matt Worley is a customer of all of these services. Which means he's gonna have to pick up more lube.