Mark Schatzker, a Canadian satirist, told The Lede on Wednesday that it was “a huge surprise” to him to learn that opponents of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States, including Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, have been using this quote, from a 38-year-old protester named Jeremy puzzled by the habits of bankers on Bay Street, in Toronto’s financial district, as evidence that that the protesters are lazy:
“It’s weird protesting on Bay Street. You get there at 9 a.m. and the rich bankers who you want to hurl insults at and change their worldview have been at work for two hours already. And then when it’s time to go, they’re still there. I guess that’s why they call them the one per cent. I mean, who wants to work those kinds of hours? That’s the power of greed.” - Jeremy, 38
Mr. Schatzker was surprised because Jeremy is a fictional character he invented recently for his weekly humor column published in Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
As the Web site Mediate reported this week, opponents of the protest movement were apparently so pleased to read the quote Mr. Schatzker attributed to Jeremy — a 38-year-old protester puzzled by the habits of bankers on Bay Street, in Toronto’s financial district — that they failed to notice that the column was clearly labelled “Satire” at the very top before copying the text and sharing it by on Facebook, in e-mails, on blogs and even in outraged YouTube videos.
The fake quote was so widely cited that it even ended up being repeated on Tuesday by Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, at a campaign event.
The New York Times, “Satirist Surprised His ‘Occupy’ Fiction Was Cited as Fact.”
LOL Republicans.
Alternative headline: “People With Common Sense Not Surprised Conservatives Cited ‘Occupy’ Fiction As Fact.”
(via inothernews)
Have you read “Jeremy’s” response to Perry?
Someone tuned in to Rick Perry’s speech at The Barley House in New Hampshire and everyone started booing. But then Rick Perry said, “I guess greed makes you work hard.”
I jeered, too. But something about his message stuck with me. I started to look around at my fellow protesters. For two weeks, I thought of them as comrades, brothers-in-arms. I started to do the protester math.
Here I was chanting four, maybe five hours a day, when everyone else is putting in one hour, max. Here I am doing drum circles—which requires a sense of rhythm and the ability to make split-second decisions—when other people think it’s enough just to hold up a homemade sign. And there they are taking credit for Occupy Toronto. It made me sick.
That got me thinking, and soon I realized why I didn’t have a job. It wasn’t for lack of hard work, and it wasn’t because some rich capitalist wasn’t willing to pay me.
It was because I was disincentivized by Canada’s high taxes.
(via abcsoupdot)
WOW. JUST….WOW.
