Occupy Wall Street is just getting started

Posted on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 09:31 AM

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The global revolution that keeps making the headlines looks like it's just getting started.

Let me clarify something at the outset: I don't like it. It's human nature to resist profound upheaval, particularly when it's international. Change of this magnitude - even positive change - can be scary.

But dramatic change, and the growing desire for it, is now the defining characteristic of our era because we find ourselves living in an age where our government - both sides - seems increasingly incapable of governing well, where our faceless corporations have been ruled 'people' by our Supreme Court, where those same corporations seem to have more power than elected officials, where social inequality is off the charts and where special interests apparently hold more sway than the voting public.

Our democratic institutions look increasingly bought and paid for, or merely unresponsive when they're not paralyzed.

President Barack Obama was elected with a historic mandate to reform our political culture and has already scored some historic victories but his mandate has been constrained by one half of a contemptuous Congress and by the deliberate misuse of the Senate filibuster.

Observe how Obama's unremarkable plans to cut spending in defense and entitlement programs - coupled with modest tax increases on the rich - have been stonewalled by Republicans, who have clearly demonstrated they would rather damage our international credit rating that concede an inch on taxes for the richest one percent.

What's that if not an admission of how deeply unequal our society has become?
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Protecting shareholders profits means that employees and consequently the local community have to take the hit. When big corporations cut or make health care unaffordable they force many of their employees into the public health-care system. But why should taxpayers foot the health care bill for sores like Wal-Mart's employees while this company takes in the most revenue in the world?

The squeeze is on, everywhere you look, except at the top. Republicans have apparently made it their sacred mission to defend billionaires from the burdens of citizenship. Don't touch our 'wealth creators' they cry, but that defense is threadbare when the only wealth they've created in over a decade has lined their own pockets.

Do the math: since 1970 the American working and middle classes have seen a bare 5 percent rise in their incomes; but between 1979 and 2007, the top one percent saw their incomes soar by 281 percent.

If you don't have a problem with disparity that then you don't understand what an attack it is on the basic building blocks of democratic our society. Banana republic levels of inequality are now putting us closer toy Honduras than Sweden.

There are 20 somethings who have reached maturity who don't remember a time when America was not at war. They have graduated college anchored with debt. Most of them can't find a decent job that will help them repay it. It's far from an American Dream.

Somethings going to give. Soon.

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mhichil | Oct 26, 2011, 05:30 PM EDT

if the banks make profit selling YOUR loan in partitions and betting insurance scams, Should not YOU be entitled to the profits from their activities? they certainly burden YOU with their losses... just an observation. OCCUPY the world before they evict all of you

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eiriamach | Oct 26, 2011, 10:29 AM EDT

"Bias"? Nope! The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office gathered data for Dem Senator Baucus and GOP Senator Grassley. The CBO found that "The most affluent fifth of the population received 53 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, up from 43 percent in 1979. In other words, the after-tax income of the most affluent fifth exceeded the income of the other four-fifths of the population. ¶ People in the lowest fifth of the population received about 5 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, down from 7 percent in 1979. ¶ People in the middle three-fifths of the population saw their shares of after-tax income decline by 2 to 3 percentage points from 1979 to 2007" (NY Times, 26.10.11). According to the poll included in the NY Times article, 70% of us think that GOP policies "favor the rich." Nearly 90% of Democrats but only about 33% of Republicans agree with the OWS protestors that income distribution in the US must become more fair. For 2/3 the GOP, the situation seems to be the triumph of greed over a sense of reality. I don't have a problem with the type of income disparity that allows some to accumulate great wealth. But when that wealth derives from unfair tax policies, deregulation of businesses that unleash havoc on the environment and consumers, union-busting and other unfair labor practices, corporations lobbying Congress. buying elections, and aggressively marketing unethical financial instruments, it's clear that the "success" of the few has impoverished the many. As one of the many, I'm patching up my marching shoes.

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rpmschevy | Oct 25, 2011, 08:40 PM EDT

Another blog, rather than journalistic endeavor from Cahir, no surprise as his bias comes through again. I read the first couple of paragraphs and had to do a double take thinking that Cahir finally was getting it right "special interests apparently hold more sway than the voting public" (like his sexual preference friends, friends of ILLEGAL Immigrants, etc), but then he went with his usual tired refrain that it is always Republicans and that Obama cares a ratsass about anyone besides his anti-American cronies. As wjb posted, it is nearly everyone in DC that just does not get it. Dems and Repubs. All of them. They do not listen to us, they listen to the illegal lobbyists. And hey seagreen, I have more education than nearly all of these current graduates, per averages listed more educational debt clear back in 1988 than the current crop, and also was working for less than you posted numbers (side note if they are working minimum wage jobs at 50 a week then they are getting OT), but you know what sea, I continue to work harder than my co-workers, excelled and now I am making a nicer wage. Not rich by any means, especially since I take care of family and friends when I can. Too many people think they should be making 6 figures right out of college, with no experience, just a piece of paper.

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Gearoid4 | Oct 25, 2011, 06:04 PM EDT

Cahir's analysis is spot on concerning the disparity between incomes at the very top and bottom of the socio-economic edifice in the US. It is starting to resemble situations that one would expect to find more in developing nations, where a few landowners possess the vast bulk of the means of production in terms of property and land and are as rich as the legendary king Croesus. Once the acceptable threshold concerning the differential in income between super-rich and moderately well-off/poor is passed, then we have the conditions for social moral self-examination and possible communal unrest. These comments are not to disparage wealth-creation as it is the life-blood of local economies. But once the wealth gap grows out of kilter between those at the top and bottom, then a society needs to question the values which are the foundation for socio-political relationships.

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hollabackgurl | Oct 25, 2011, 01:43 PM EDT

The president is trying to save the country from utter despair and all the GOP do is place roadblock after roadblock in his way. To hell with the unemployed, the ill and the future.

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cillowen | Oct 25, 2011, 10:25 AM EDT

i fear that if this occupy plan really took off blood would flow freely from beaten heads. The powers that be, allow folks to humor themselves for a time. The democracy manipulaters will have their way, as like always.

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seagreen | Oct 25, 2011, 09:37 AM EDT

I do believe Occupy Wallstreet is just the beginning. Those in the street are obviously carrying the flag at the moment, but unlike some other protests the support for those in the street encampments this time is coming from people working everyday jobs. More than once at this point I have listened to employed CDL drivers voicing that they would be in the street with them if they could ! People from other occupations feel the same . The alarming part is to listen to college students with meaningful degrees that are working fifty hours a week for $9.25 an hour. No benefits, no nothing ! Their feelings were sommewhat more than protest, more along the line of being dangerous ! I do believe they will runcandidates in the upcoming elections. They will lose this time, however down the road the results may be quite different...

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wjb1tex | Oct 25, 2011, 09:22 AM EDT

Once again you write about one subject but can't resist cheerleading for Obama and bashing the Republicans.I suggest Washington D.C. is the place and Congress along with the Administration should be the targets. They are the ones who set the rules and the agenda that created the mess. Don't expect Wall Street to do anything except play within the rules. When they break the rules then prosecute. But that has to come from D.C. and not the streets of NYC.

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