Occupy Wall Street? …Um, Look Again.

Commercial edifice on an urban street; entrance to a gilded space (see wider view below); angry young people and working-class types framed in direct confrontation with disgusted guy in a suit; posters drawing upon the latest memes, including “the 99%”; also, photographer’s close-up emphasizing class conflict — it only takes an instant to absorb the basic elements of this picture for you to think, “Oh, one more #OccupyWallStreet photo, right?

Except it’s not.

Here’s the caption:

Demonstrators protest Dick Cheney appearing at the Vancouver Club to promote his controversial personal and political memoir, “In My Time,” on Monday, Sept. 26, 2011. Protestors, calling for the former U.S. vice-president to be barred from Canada for his stance on interrogation tactics such as waterboarding during the Iraq War, tried to block access to the event. Police responded with pushing and shoving.

If you assumed and got the venue wrong, however, it’s no surprising — given the parallels. And that’s not to say there is anything formal or organized between the stirring in Lower Manhattan and these goings-on in Vancouver, except that a more collective push back from “the 99%” against “the club” — at least, here in North America — is mostly a surprise in how long its been in coming.

More on Cheney protest.

(photos: Steve Bosch/Vancouver Sun)