tune-on, turn-in

Last week, the local security apparatchik—well, echo-chamber, redoubled with the various turfs that are the realms of this petty kingdom, the Consulate and the hulking bureau called the Department of Homeland Security did its best to fend off the curious under its protection from the Blockupy rallies being held.
The warning, the issuance read, however, like an open-invitation listing venues and times with a high degree of specificity, even tipping almost towards sympathy for the movement—but still, stay away, move along, nothing to see here. I suppose I was one of those curious ones that the stern warning was intended for—and could rationalize that seeing the spectacle up close was probably another instance of seeking out trouble, since it was not exactly condemned and made Verboten out of hand. The Polizei and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main also in being competently prepared and indulgent of the action that managed to defuse it a bit.

The organizers wanted no violence and the protests were carried out peacefully, without sensationalism that made the public and governments confront some very uncomfortable, impolite truths about the policies of poverty, austerity programmes and corporate welfare, staunch resistance to a clearing-house tax scheme on financial transactions, the spinning of straw into gold that skims money but no wealth out of trade and speculation. The message was delivered and the case pled but whether reforms come out of these rallies is yet to be seen. A little tolerance (which is always a dangerous thing) and some reverse-psychology, I think, coupled with inattentiveness by the press and the show is over make for some deviously powerful opponents.