In October 1967, the jokester-activist Abbie Hoffman led a group of anti-war protesters to the Pentagon, where they planned to publicly exorcize its demons. They sang and demonstrated, purportedly doing so till the building would levitate and turn orange, which would bring an end to the Vietnam War. As with other Hoffman events, it was good theater, guaranteed to draw press coverage. Unlike other somber events where political effigies are hung or burned, Hoffman injected absurdist humor to make his very serious points.

We need similar events now.

Wall Street doesn’t get it. They rely on time-worn cliches, calling attempts to limit their bonuses ’socialism’. Yet the bailout funds - as socialist as it gets - they condone without similar concern. That’s absurdism to the extreme.

Capitol Republicans also don’t get it. They still pander to industry lobbyists and choose total partisan obstructionism. There’s an economic wildfire raging across most of the nation and they simply don’t give a damn that 95% of their constituents are getting burned. They serve only to defend the interests of the other 5%.

That’s not absurdist theater and it’s sure not representative democracy. It’s impure and excessive greed.

The people in those positions don’t understand the definition of commonwealth. Or of a national belt-tightening. They’ve yet to be introduced to the reality of ’shared sacrifice.’

Weaned on the tech revolution, the daytrading boom and the cowboy econopolitik of Reaganized Friedmanism, they’re the predictable outcome of Objectivism Gone Wild. It’s all about their net worth, and America be damned.

The concepts of a Spaceship Earth or global warming do not enter their consciousness. They work hard to get rich and deserve to because - in their peabrains - others don’t work as hard or as brilliantly. The only thing bigger than the bottom line is their narcissism. They are khazers and schmendricks for their unflagging convictions about their superior self worth.

And how do we get them to ‘get it’? Well, we might start by descending on Wall Street to ‘de-levitate’ their egos. We could mock them as the bailout babies that they are while they live off the fat of the biggest wefare program in US history.

They’re not going to change, even if they feel threatened. They’ll redouble their efforts at that.

So frankly, I’m baffled how to get through to such sociopathy. Which is why I don’t buy into the ‘too big to fail’ dynamic. If the captains of industry sink their ships by overweighting them with greed and corruption, let ‘em go to, Davy Jones’ locker. But since that’s not an option, it’s time to compel them to wake up to reality.

Throw a pair of shoes at Wall Street and the GOP caucus? Perhaps. But I’d like to see the rise of humorous interventions to cure what ails them. Something that’ll make the rest of us yell “Yippie!”