Today, I have a “thought” from a reader. When I received it, I was forced to consider the reality behind his thought, to face the lack of thought I had about his topic, the Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS), a phenomenon that appears to be getting stronger as the weeks roll on.
A thought on the “occupy” business. Some local and national coverage has it as a failure, saying it didn’t accomplish anything I disagree! It is successful as people are talking about it! The seed has been planted.
Many decades have passed since folks in the U.S. gathered in these numbers in so many places. Back then, the target of protest was an ugly war delivered via TV into American homes every night. At the end of every week, the media tabulated and delivered to us the number of dead and wounded. When they stopped counting, the number of dead topped 50,000, and the number of wounded in all shapes and forms climbed into an uncountable sphere. Given this mass protest context, I considered the protests going on now across the country, no, sorry, around the world.
The worldwide protests are all about the same thing – economic disparity. In the Middle East, the brave folks in the streets are there because they want more from life. They want cheaper food, better housing, and, yes, jobs. To get that, they have to throw off the yoke of despotism, just economic disparity in another form. As the mighty few, despots take as much as they can from the less mighty many, while leaving just enough for the masses to muddle through.
Although in Europe and China, despotism is not the issue, the underlying issue is the same as it in the Middle East, as it is in the OWS movement in the U.S. – people are tired of economic disparity. Given the depth and breadth of the worldwide protests, it occurs to me that those who call the protests a failure, or who dismiss the protestors as a bunch of dirty, lazy, shiftless druggies bent on criminal behavior are on the wrong side of the argument. There is economic disparity here in the wealthiest nation the world has ever known, and you know what, people of all ages, backgrounds, and manner are mad about it.
In the last 30 years, tremendous wealth redistribution has occurred, the greatest redistribution of wealth to the top tier since the 1920s and 30s. Although no particular despot is behind this, it is still real, particularly since the shift is not abating. In the last ten years, the disparity has worsened with no letup in 2010. The trend is not changing and, yes, people are mad at the people who create nothing, who gamble trillions trading paper, the same paper, by the way, that brought this nation the worst economic collapse since the 1930s. People are mad at the unregulated environment in which these gamblers thrive, and they should be – the six largest banks in our economy now have total assets in excess of 63 percent of GDP. Folks, that means they control some $9 trillion of our combined $15 trillion in wealth. Too big to fail You bet!
The OWS protestors are on to something. Although no weekly body count tells us who is winning and who is losing, the growing number of people who every day join the movements around the world tells us, indeed, the “seed has been planted.”
The OWS folks are not protesting what is happening to others in jungles far, far away. No, this time, people are mad because of what is happening to them right here in America. Corporations are reporting record profits, Wall St. is paying out hundreds of billions in pay and bonuses, while some 15 million people are just looking for a job, while many tens of millions more are just trying to get by on what they earn, just trying to do what is right – feed, clothe, house, and educate their families. The folks in the streets here in America and around the world are fighting back against the “mighty few” who are excessively taking from the “less mighty many.”
Where it will all end up I don’t know, but if we could ask one infamous “in the know” historical figure this question, she might answer, “One thing you don’t want to do is say, ‘Let them eat cake.”
Trade in the day – Invest in your life …
