Thursday, October 06, 2011

#OccupyWallStreet

I've been loosely following the Occupy Wall Street that is currently underway in New York and now spreading to Los Angeles, Washington and just about every other large city in the country. I agree with what their doing. Corporations and the wealthy have had a stranglehold on our politicians and our country for decades and it is time for that to stop. I know that there are people in the "1%" who are decent, caring people but those people need to stand up as well and call out their wealthy brethren who work the system and aim to keep the "99%" exactly where they are.

I don't understand how all of our politicians can say "corporations are people" and everybody just seems okay with it. Corporations are not people, they are run by people. Corporations should not be able to donate money to a politician. How can no one see the harm in that? I'm hoping the majority of Americans agree with me but either don't speak up or have their voices drowned out.

Via Michael Moore's Twitter
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been likened to the Tea Party Movement but one glaring difference I'm seeing is that very few news organizations and even fewer politicians are backing this one. Unlike the Tea Party, which Republicans glomed onto to combat newly elected President Barack Obama, the OWSers have been largely ignored and I'm finding few Democratic politicians standing with them. I'm sure they are there but a quick search gave me no results. Another difference is that Tea Party was founded based on hatred and ignorance. It existed solely to call President Obama names and to bring America back to the times of our Founding Fathers (because the 1790s were such good times). While OWS seems to be founded on everyday Americans getting fed up with the corruption running rampant in our politics. Again, I don't see how anyone can be against that but I know those people exist and it is sad, and a little scary, that they do.


Brutus, like most Americans, probably never even notice when they get a tax increase or a tax cut. Taxes actually went down when Obama came into office but no one noticed because it was parsed out in our paychecks and such. When President Bush did the tax cuts, he sent the American citizens a check. Obama just gave you a few extra cents or dollars in your check each week or so instead of giving you one lump sum.* It's like that saying on "Futurama": If you do something right, people won't know you've done anything at all.




*Ironically, when Bush announced the checks, people were ecstatic that they were getting "free money." When it was hinted that Obama may send out checks, it was labeled "welfare."