Are you in the upper 1% of the nation’s income earners who pay proportionally less taxes and garner disproportionally higher incomes than all of your employees? The top 1% take home 25% of the nation’s income, and control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. The top 1% have enjoyed an income rise of 18% in the last 10 years, while the middle class has watched their income fall year to year. It must make you gag that some of those in the top 1% got bonuses “to fix” the economy that they broke in the first place.
It is remarkable that some of us in the 99% category of income earners are fighting for the right of the wealthiest 1% to exploit us. Some seek to shore up the security of the wealthy at the risk of our security. They want to put at risk the public services that we receive in order to lighten the public responsibility of the wealthiest. This is irrational particularly since the enlightened wealthiest agree that they should pay their fair share – and admit that they aren’t.
Wall Street “wants to be let alone” – like Greta Garbo in “Grand Hotel” – but they want to be let alone to work their ill will, like what they did before Enron and since the mortgage scandal. Some have drunk the Kool-Aid and argue that, if we just let the wealthy alone, they will create jobs for us. But when the wealthy on Wall Street got the stimulus funds, they invested in government securities, not in human capital.
Wall Street demands greedy multiples of everyone else’s yearly income and the greatest share of this nation’s income. They want to do nothing in return. Their selfish appetite is not reason for us to surrender the education of our young, and for citizens to suffer unemployment, to go hungry, to be homeless, to be disabled without assistance, to go without health care, to surrender public services for gun wars in the middle east where the wealthiest don’t serve (although they do profit), or to suffer the uncertainty and insecurity of retirement and old age.
Some claim that they are puzzled why citizens would occupy Wall Street. Simple! Because the financial gimmicks, prompted by greed, and an inhumane indifference to the nation’s welfare originated with Wall Street. Others ask, “why don’t those protesters go to Washington?” Because the protesters are focusing on the creators of this national scandal, on those who hi-jacked the square deal from the middle class. They know not to expect much from legislators after Wall Street has tirelessly lobbied its elected lackeys. Charles Keating paid $1.5 million among several elected officials for what he wanted in the 1980s. Not much has changed. Indeed, it’s worse since the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United relaxed any constraint on what corporations may spend to elect compliant representatives.
There have also been comparisons to the Tea Party. After hearing its presidential aspirants, plainly the Tea Party would have been more aptly named the Me Party because it was never about “us” as a nation. It seemingly objects to the government having anything to do with service to its citizens.
We recently celebrated without restraint that the citizens in the Middle East protested but now, close at home, we have our own citizens protesting austerity, corruption and our own government’s unaccountable disregard for what its citizens want and need. And we think it’s something different. First of all, these demonstrations are not some Machiavellian plot serving some concealed scandalous Ism. Second and lastly, this is the public’s outcry for the government to be fair and to fulfill its constitutional promise.
So, what side are you on? Plainly, this is no time to be indifferent.
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