This Business on Wall Street

Can I Be Serious A Minute?

I'm not very often... I know you know that. And while I am actually a fairly political being, I don't think that really has much place in my writing life. My reason is I feel like by now I know the vast majority of you come to your beliefs sincerely, and while I disagree with some portion of you, I don't think that makes ANY of us bad people. We are all products of the things we've been exposed to.

This was Friday. But Shhhhh... nobody knows...

But there is something big going on.

It is something that will play all the way through, one way or another.

The chant? “We are the ninety-nine percent.”

Now most of you know what that means, and I don't mean to treat you like you're stupid, but let me spell this out really clearly... They are pointing out that the current economy is working REALLY WELL for the top 1%. And the rest of us are slowly dying.

[What the top 1% who is fighting so hard for the status quo doesn't get is if we all die, whether literally or figuratively, they die too]




A couple things caught my interest this weekend though.

First was a variation on this sign:

At the moment, our peaceful revolution is being met with police arrests of children, macing of innocent bystanders, and police brutality. Why would the police of New York City side with Wall street over peaceful protesters? Well... the macing incident (an MSNBC clip) looked to me like it was the OFFICERS misbehaving—like the rank in file were doing what they were supposed to to ensure the protest remained peaceful.

Where do they get their orders? Who does that come down through? (I don't have these answers, but I don't think any thinking person has the freedom to not ask these questions.)

There are some questions I think we really all ought to be thinking about. Frankly, I never want to make negative assumptions about public servants, and police are as far in that line as they can get—I think only firefighters deserve more commendation, for the most part. But firefighters don't have the same lines to cross—the same decision to make in a dispute. It's not like they are suddenly going to side with the fire. Police need to make a decision about right and wrong, and these protesters ARE making their job harder.

But the protesters are protected by the US Constitution in their right to gather and protest. THIS is what we value—that the people have a right to speak and be heard (this was what the REAL tea party was about--remember?). This is how those of us WITHOUT the money to take a senator to lunch (which costs more than just lunch, I promise) are heard... we need to gather in a large group and speak en masse.


I asked my husband about this last night. He never goes online. He gets his news from CNN, Fox (he claims to like the local team, and really DOES usually only watch the local stuff) the Detroit Free Press (the more liberal of Detroit's two papers)... he'd heard about the protests but didn't think they were a big deal.

Do you know where he DOES NOT get his news? NPR. BBC. The Internet. Even though 2 of 3 of his sources are theoretically liberal leaning, he has no independent sources... NO source free of corporate influence. THIS is why he doesn't see that it IS a big deal. And it's going to be a BIGGER deal, and frankly, I think it might be a little bit frightening for a while.

At the same time, more power to them.


Because the media has squashed so much, a lot of people aren't clear what the message is, so I thought I'd share the objective as I understand it.

1)  Corporations in America currently have more power and fewer obligations than PEOPLE.
2)  Corporations have undue influence in CONGRESS, even though theoretically, they should not have any rights toward legislation. Only PEOPLE should have rights to be heard by congress.
3)  Money in government has corrupted our system so the system is no longer interested in protecting the individuals in this country.
4)  They want serious lobby reform
5)  They want financial contribution reform
6)  And they want to ensure corporate rights never supercede individual rights.


Does any of that sound insane to you? Does any of it sound like you want to fight it? Is there any thinking person who believes corporations should have a higher standing in a democracy than people?

The ONLY people against this are people worried the money will fall out of their golden parachute. Those are the people trying to squash this message.

I just fear that if they succeed... if these protesters are not heard and taken seriously, that the violent revolution is the only option left, and there are plenty of people right now who have lost too much, while the people with power have gotten too fat and had too much say in how things go... we need to level the field. A lot.

Any of you have fears, predictions, arguments?