Making Hay

I remember sitting in my apartment, back in my college days, listening to the campus radio station and hearing the DJ bristling with discontent about USA for Africa's recording, "We Are The World." "Feed the world. Great," he snarled, "I know one thing: Somebody's getting rich." Well, as it turns out, it was a rare example of true altruism, with ninety percent of the money raised going to famine in Africa, and the other ten percent being used to feed the hungry here in America. Who would have guessed that such a thing was possible? Certainly not the cynic behind the microphone way back then.
And this mild sense of hope is what I confronted when I read the story of a local Oakland merchant who was having himself a bonanza as a result of the Occupy Movement. Our local Army Surplus store can't keep gas masks on the shelves. "They (the protesters) want to take precautionary measures," said store owner Moiz Raniji, pleased by the uptick in sales at his East Oakland outlet. He had sold at least fifty in the past ten days. At forty bucks a pop, that's a pretty nice bump in your autumn sales.
And it's not just here in Oakland where there is money to be made in Occupation. There are plenty of online opportunities to stock up on t-shirts and tote bags in all colors and styles for the well-dressed activist. While it is true that no one will probably hop tax brackets based on the profits they are making, it has opened the door for a more contentious point: Who owns the rights to "occupy" and "99%?" If you want to get in on the ground floor of the new world order, you had better have a good lawyer, and you had better move fast.