Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The occupy movement issues...

I was recently in a discussion about the occupy wall street movement that is somewhat sweeping our nation at the moment. Now I know this movement has been going on for over a month because I am a regular user of twitter and follow many progressives who passed the information along. Now don't get me wrong I think it's great that people are in the streets like they were back in March here in Wisconsin. But as I mentioned in my class, no matter who WE vote for they are not going to bite off the hand that feeds them, politician's survive on wall street and corporations money. Any politician who would cut that off would be cutting short his own career, and these people who are power hungry are not going to give up that lively hood for democracy to flourish. Capitalism and the version we have become accustomed to in this county is just too damn powerful and too damn enticing.

Here's the problem....it is US! We are consumers we buy products from corporations who in turn have shares on wall street, so while you maybe out in the streets with thousands of other protesters filming police brutality, you are most likely filming it with a product that you purchased from a company that has its hands in other business or government projects. Now I'm not saying we should jump into total chaos but if you really want to shock the American system, stop buying products. Sure it will most likely tank the economy even more but it will quickly get politician's attentions. We as Americans are too naive, we believe the mainstream media at every turn, we fail to understand that the spending of two wars has severely hurt this nation.

Change always comes at a price, but like in Millennium People, we fail to understand the consequences of our actions, if you truly wanted to dive into these protests our actions would make our lives less comfortable than they currently are. An example is the Iraq War, I'm sure if you asked the nation if the Iraq War was mistake, illegal and pointless more than half of the 300 million people would agree. But if that's the case how come we have been there for nearly 10 years? Protesting and free speech are great but if there is no sacrifice and no ambition to end the war from the people, why would the government change? And another example is Daniel Ellsberg, sure people protested the Vietnam War, but his Pentagon Papers which were an eye opening view to the war, took nearly 5 years for someone in our government to listen and end the war.

Sure the people can enact change, but short of a revolution and overturn of our economic policies the government and big business is happy with the status quo. Sure the people in the poor and middle class suffer but big money walks and talks! While WE the people have no real say in our elections, big money is even hitting the local levels, the crushing of unions has business licking its lips and relentlessly hoping for the 19th century again.

This maybe a negative blog and bit off my normal topic about the wars and my military experiences, but I suppose we will see how motivated these protesters really are once the cold sets in on the east coast. If this survives the winter we may have a movement that gains steam and actual power with the political community but for now every conservative, republican and teabagger are writing these people off because they like the status quo even those most of them are not rich, or ever will be. We love the fantasy of being rich, but we fail to understand that we can never be a nation of rich people, and until we grasp that as a Nation we will continue down this path of greed.

Cheers!