Saying A Lot With A Little: Occupy Wall Street Signs, Part 1

The Occupy Wall Street movement is still going strong all over the country, and people are showing their solidarity and distilling the complex ideas about why they’re protesting with pithy and creative signs. Some of them have been jokey (“I didn’t realize I’d be holding this sign all day”) to more serious (and some would say disturbing) signs that I won’t cover here. But here are some solid signs that the Occupy Wall Street protestors in New York have been carrying that convey some powerful messages:

The Corporate American Flag: While not so much a sign per se, it’s a very powerful message about the role that corporations have played not just for consumers, but their influence on American politics. It’s literally saying that America is sponsored by mega corporations that have replaced the 50 stars that represent the 50 states in the U.S. The corporations have spent millions lobbying politicians in Washington to bend laws to their will.

The Mortgage/Security Crisis In A Nutshell: “It’s wrong to create a mortgage-backed security filled with loans you know are going to fail so that you can sell it to a client who isn’t aware that you sabotaged it by intentionally picking the misleadingly rated loans most likely to be defaulted upon.” It’s a quote from an article in The Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf that was actually criticizing the OWS movement – but actually sums up, in Wall Street jargon, what the big banks were up to in the mortgage crisis. (The woman holding the sign in the picture, Caitlan Curran, was fired from a New York radio station the next day over the picture.)

“Human Need, Not Corporate Greed”: We talk a lot at Postconsumers about what you need as opposed to what you want, and how corporations have used the media to make you feel like you don’t have enough. What do you need to feel satisfied? Take a minute to think about that!

“Wall Street: America’s Largest Casino Since 1914”: The history of Wall Street has been a rocky one at best. Major crashes, protests, shadowy dealings and conspiracy theories have all been high and low points. When you trade on Wall Street, it’s all a big crap shoot, and basically, the house always wins.

“I’m A Human Being, Not A Commodity”: A lot of American people feel like they’re stuck in the rat race, just destined to be a number in a vast monetary system where they don’t really matter. When was the last time you took some time out to be true to yourself? People often forget that it takes just a minute to get some “You Time.”