Letter to the Bank #75 (Voices-even the confused ones-must be heard)

Letter to the Bank (Occupying Wall Street)

Dear Bank Manager—if you can call it managing because really all you’ve managed to do is get all of us (sigh)—this is why it is hard to remain polite—you know, in a great, big ol’ mess,

Where were we? Oh yes. As one who has made a specialty of politely being rude to banks and bankers these past few years but who also expends much time and energy in the earnest effort to keep channels of communication open it is with pleasure that I can report back from Zuccotti Park and tell you they’re on the same page! They don’t plan to insult but to engage! By setting up camp they ask for and establish their right to do so. I’m down with their talk, their agendas, their hopes and desires, and above all I’m down with the fact that they are out there trying to speak their minds. The voiceless are finding their voice and what a powerful voice it promises to be. I’m waiting to hear those voices rise up in London, in the City, in Paris, France. Go Global. Don’t remain a Western voice or a white voice or a male voice become universal. This is about bigger things than banker bonuses. Those are just the shame of the old order.

Winter will come and those camping out will be stubborn. They can’t stop now. This has become inevitable. They are on a roll. People will bring hot soup and tarps, tents and socks. Doctors will bring mobile flu-shots and medicine (though some at Occupy Wall Street will balk at the idea of a shot in the arm administered without questioning the effectiveness of flu-shots, and good for them). Question all authority because for all too long we’ve hung our heads and done as we were told and that in a country where we should feel free enough to loudly debate everything. We've listened to the refined arguments and explanations of the 1% for oh so long and have heard oh so little of substance. Now it is time to listen to the daft and the silly, the extreme and the difficult, the messy and the clumsy and even the barely legible. That is where graffiti and poetry come from, the soil of art is the almost inexpressible and only if that soil is tended with loving care can those voices emerge. Nurture them and encourage them and show them the whole complexity. It takes a special talent to role the whole big ball into something we can all grapple with and maybe right now that is what is in the works.

Dear BM, I have to highlight one of their demands in light of what, despite your resistance, I’ve been insisting all along:

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

I’m personally delighted to see the protesters out their articulating (however inarticulately) their/our numerous grievances. Did I ever send you a Delete All Debt mug? I know it is absurd. I know it is preposterous! What? One day everyone at the stroke of an agreed upon clock will push a button and kill all debt? Too big to do? Bit tired of the “too big” argument. Very tired of the “too little to succeed” actuality.

I’ve been banging out these absurd letters to a bank manager who does not even exist who goes by the preposterous name of Bullrider, or Banks, or BM, for the past four years or so and honestly it may do a lot for the soul, my soul, get it off my chest at least, but it doesn’t really go much further. You know I’m not even sure it gets it off my chest. I think all this time I have been hoping my rage (I call it rage but is the simmering kind, the kind that is no doubt familiar...the fuel to the 99%) would form into cogent arguments for change. Once they did I’d get out there and share my thoughts loudly in the Public Square. My mistake? Waiting for these arguments to clarify. I should've been out there long ago. We all should've with are simmering fury at the state of the world and its sad attempt at economy. Well now we know you don’t need ghee. You just need butter. Fact is I get so caught up in nuance and language I forget to forge my thoughts through with threads of...there I go again...I forget to speak clearly. And actually that is okay. Speak up! Write me back! Argue me down! Put me back in the enveloping folds of my ragged armchair in front of my dismal TV with my potato chips and beer.

Sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay on behalf of the Bruxist Collective. 

Thanks to Hyperallergic for this image.