Occupy Wall Street

For weeks I have reluctant to comment about the “99%” or Occupy Wall Street movement. The main reason of that is because I did not want to sound that I was jumping on the bandwagon. I have supported this ideology because I have said time and time over that the right thing to do as a nation is tax the people who have the money, just we did until 1981.
Recently a chart has been shown about the income disparity between the 1% of income earners or like the Republican Party calls “Job Creators”. What a crock. They may be creating jobs but not in this country, maybe in China, Mexico or other country that has no regulations against pollution or child labor exploitation, like many countries out there.
Isn’t it just a coincidence that the disparity starting growing since 1981, this is in my book the beginning of running this country into ground, and it starts with Ronald Reagan and his policy of government destruction, except for the wasteful Department of Defense, and the reform of taxation favoring the wealthiest at the expense of the rest of the country.
Now let’s look at what O.W.S. (Occupy Wall Street) stand for compared to the Tea Party. The OWS believes that Wall Street and the wealthy should start paying their fair share of taxes, not what they are paying now, they believe in a function of government, by loaning or pardoning loans to students, fairness in society. They represent different walks of life, different backgrounds, different income levels, different age levels. This movement has spread across the country to many cities including L.A., Denver, Boston, Chicago, Oakland, Kansas City. They were small business owners, students, retired people. There were no guns at any of the Occupy rallies across the country. They were funded by donations by people who supported the people who were camping in these cities. The OWS say they are unhappy with both parties because both of them have sold themselves to Corporate America.
Now let us look at the Tea Party. They cannot say that they represent the vast majority of the population as they only represent the fringe of the Republican Party. They are in their vast majority white people. That in itself tells me that there are not representative of the country. The Tea Party was funded by groups such as Americans for Prosperity who is funded by the Koch Brothers, the oil barons of the country, and by Karl Rove’s American Crossroads that is funded by 3 billionaires. They showed up at events with hand and machine guns, because they said that the 2nd Amendment protected them.
This group believes that the wealthy should pay less in taxes, even if it means bankrupting the nation, and that we should “flatten” the tax code, so that the 46% who don’t pay federal income tax, because their income is not high enough start paying more, that only the few have options with education, that we should spend limitless amounts of money for the Department of Defense, that we should cut benefits for seniors and the poor by cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The Republican Party and its spokesperson Fox News have started name calling the people who have been demonstrating now for two months, by calling them bums, drug addicts, criminals, while there is no proof of any of this. This shows a total lack of sensitivity for what the middle class and poor are going through as the OWS is Middle America. Those same republicans we saying in 2010 that America was taking back the country from the socialist measures of Obama. I guess that the 99% does not suit the needs of the Republican Party and its radical agenda.
The OWS has its work cut out for itself as rough days lay ahead because as we have seen lately cities across the country are using brutal force by the police to disband them. Many of these mayors have received campaign funds from Corporate America, so they cannot allow the middle class and the poor to rebel against the status quo.
Pundits such as Bill O’Reilly are saying that the Occupy Wall Street group is finished. I disagree with that opinion, not only because I believe in their agenda but also because I believe that you cannot kill an ideology, even if you beat up or get rid of their leaders. If that would have been the case the Civil Rights movement would have died, the demonstrations against the Vietnam War would have faded with no results, Gandhi’s non-violent movement would have failed and Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would not have been beheaded.
We will need to see if this grass movement will use its message and energy to put their ideas into action next November elections.