Good news. A few days ago our Pundit wrote a letter to the editor critical of the Occupy Wall Street movement, or more specifically its Occupy Northampton franchise. It appeared in today's Sunday Republican, a centrist daily published out of Springfield. Read it here. As of right now, it even has "Featured Story" status!

Letter-writer: Northampton protesters' shameless "gimme money"-style demands are on the caliber of rap lyrics, the composition of which might be a better occupation of their time.

As Han Solo said, sometimes I amaze even myself. For those interested, Jim Goad and Ann Coulter have also given apt evaluations of the movement in question.

To my great surprise, it stirred up a great response online, and at last check had garnered 82 responses, many if not most positive! As I note on my comment on the site, the editor did make an important typo—a protester's sign read "Love>Greed", from which, as I note, it follows that "when Richie Rich makes a profit, it’s greed, and when the ragged proletarians want to 'redistribute' his wealth to themselves, it’s love!", was made to meaninglessly read "LoveGreed"—but his added title, "Some protesters doth protest too much", is just marvelous, and captures my irascibly old-fashioned, Medieval mind.

Some remarks are necessary. While, as my faithful readers know, I often criticize capitalism on this weblog, this letter, while actually silent on capitalism itself, freely chastises its OWS antagonists. This doesn't represent a change of opinion on my part. Truth be told, conservatives like me should boycott Bank of America too, since it goes out of its way to cater to illegal immigrants. I bank locally. I am constantly aggrieved by the banality of capitalistic pop culture (except anime), architecture, trade deficits, and collusion with government to gain unfair advantages over small business, among other things. In a small way, I am glad that, now, both the Right and the Left are being overtaken by populist movements that demand with one voice, "End the Fed!", hopefully in favor of sound money.

What I absolutely cannot stand, and will not humor with claims of common cause, is the Marxist language of "We are the 99%!" As my commenters point out, the arrogance of any movement claiming to represent 99% of Americans without asking them first is astounding. It also reflects the dialectical-materialist mindset, according to which men are gathered together or opposed not by ties blood or belief, but by now much money they have, and which no thinking man ought entertain. That mass movements today still perpetuate this simple speak, which left tens of millions dead in 20th Century communist regimes, is offensive in the extreme.

Another thing. Much as the protest Left's drumming has not improved in fifty years, today's anticapitalist youth are on an even lower level than the original hippies. I sometimes think that, whereas Muslims are sometimes unfairly called "ragheads" (logically, the ladies of traditional Catholicism would be "laceheads"), it would be just to call these activists marked by particularly poor hygiene "ragshirts". And I say to you, wealthy Tom Monaghan is much closer to us traditional Catholics like myself, and Protestant Americans, than the Occupy Wall Street ragshirts!

The feedback thread from my letter is a heartening read. Highlights here:

Dear Leslie, Thank you for expressing the sentiments that I think most american s feel. This is all about a failed presidency, a failed economic policy and the extreme left's way of trying to get this guy another 4 years.—Itcf

Patriotism does not mean following blindly [he replies to a leftist], not knowing who the OW leaders are nor their goals, while calling for the destruction of the American system as a whole. OW leaders have called for Americans to

1. default on their student loans

2. default on their mortgages

3. default on the credit card payments...

You think this is "patriotic?" You and all the OW others should study some history... As an American, it's your right to follow anyone - just know WHO you are following so you don't hurt America. That's being patriotic.—suncatcher1

What do you expect for Northampton... the moonbat capital of Mass. Most of these "protesters" just like dancing around beating drums because they keep blaming "the man" for their life. Went up Main St. last night and thought that the circus was in town!—T-Ball

OWS (et al) demonstrations is nothing but a temper tantrum staged by societies losers and other mental misfits and anti-Semites from the socialist, communist and anarchist camps.

...

Senator McCarthy [he notes before I did] may have been and out of control drunken jerk, but that doesn't mean he was mistaken about there being communists in both the government and film industry. Kremlin records revealed in the 90s just how correct he happened to be about that fact.

To dismiss as McCarthyism someone making an observation that Marxists are involved or supporting this or that is nothing but a lazy cop out. Don't expect anyone to take your seriously if that's all you have to offer.—buddystone

Most of these protesters have no idea what they are doing or what they are protesting for. They are being led into a tunnel of Government controlled everything. I wouldn't call them communist, I would call the people putting this together communist sympathizers, and the zombie like followers will follow them into the cesspool.—obamaisdone

I also love the arrogance that they feel they speak for 99% of all Americans. They hardly speak for me and I am definately not what you call rich. I simply work my two jobs, pay my bills and try to have some fun every now and then. These OWS people are idiots.—01020ishome

I'm so sick and tired of those protesters! They couldn't give a reason why they're protesting other than being jealous of those who have jobs and making money. They want everything NOW without working for it. When I was young like those protesters, I had no money - worked 2 jobs and going to school. School paid off big time and I now have a respectable job, a respectable income, 2 cars, 2 great kids, and traveling quite a bit (ski trips to Colorado and California). They need to put their noses to the grindstones and earn their way up!—george7

And my personal favorite— communists protest in Northampton=the real american dream.—sickofthegames

Whether taken seriously or in jest, the comment reflects the decline of American culture since the end of World War II. Young Americans dream of a home, a car, and a two-child family, and blame the wealthy for their failure to succeed.

Since Atobe and I no longer go to school together, he has abandoned this blogspot and has left it to me, though he may contribute columns on a lark in the future. Therefore, is shall not any longer be A Blog from Atobe after the still much to be recommended film A Gift from Atobe. Not wanting to return to The Young and Once Good Pundit, the older, high school age relic of a name, yet unable to think of a good new one, I have decided, here and now, on The E'er Good Pundit. E'er, that poetic & arrogantly archaic contraction of ever, serves as a quirky expression of my character, as well as a guarantee of the weblog's consistent quality.

Happily, I have a nice new sonnet for you. Truly, my rate of production of these fourteen lined poems has dropped in recent years, down from almost fifty a year when I began college, though this is mainly because I have spent more time on an epic poem; under a burst of inspiration, I wrote no less than 250 lines last week. I ask you, then, to enjoy

Sonnet CLIV- The Bookshelf

The shelf stored titles by a TV host
To magnify and stud his own career,
A statesman's monographs retelling near
Salvations tabled and good fights to boast.
It held hyperboles by misanthropes
Accredited as nuanced novelists,
Hardboiled ethicists whose logic twists
As Smith and Jones enact unlikely tropes.
Although romancers stowed their heartful tales
With sage men's lives of sought enlightenment,
Their place of pride become a banishment
Did not contain the owner's choicest pearls.
His favorite books he kept not as most read,
But as a certainty beside his bed.

Those unfamiliar with the genre mentioned in lines 7-8 may consider themselves lucky. In one college philosophy course on biomedical ethics, we read several utilitarians and neo-Kantians. They tended to argue by means of ever more complex and harebrained thought experiments, especially on the subjects of abortion (the most famous being Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist problem) and "killng and letting die." The experiments may have a point, but after reading a particularly breathless question about whether it was worse for Smith to shoot Jones than to not tell Jones he was standing next to a bomb, my low estimation of their literary ability was sealed. Assumption being a good school, we also read several worthy followers of natural law; I particularly recall studying Hadley Arkes, a recent convert to the Faith from Judaism.

The practice of keeping the best books by one's bed, most notably the Bible, is common enough, but in writing this I actually remember the example of a former SGA President at Assumption. Though a solid partyer initiated in the ways of FiveMen, he was something of a philosopher king, and always kept copies of the Bible and the Republic on his desk.