OWS ~ NYC October 5, 2011
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Thomas Jefferson, who encouraged the author of the First Amendment, James Madison, to write it, must be spinning in his grave. Listen to what their fellow Virginian, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, had to say last Friday about brave patriots like the WWII veteran pictured above:
Respectfully, Rep. Cantor, that "mob" of which you speak is us. And our mothers and fathers, and many of our children. It includes veterans of WWII and Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes students who don't know how to pay for their tuition and Dads who don't know how to pay their mortgages. It includes grandparents who are working two minimum wage jobs in order to pay for health insurance. It includes Moms who are working a night shift so their kids can eat. And heaven knows it includes the hardworking Americans who have been looking for work anywhere and everywhere for months or years -- and can't find it.
We may not be in a tent in one of the protests across this country, but we are there in spirit.
WE are your "mob."
And, Rep. Cantor, even those of us who are employed and can pay our mortgages are pretty fed up with the takeover of this country by corporations that these brave patriots are addressing. We neither appreciate nor understand why we are paying a higher percentage of our earnings in taxes than are huge corporations. Your bunch says that corporations are people -- if so, why aren't they paying? And why are they able to escape accountability (bankruptcy? prison?) when their decisions result in death, injury or financial ruin for actual people? Are they people or are they not? They should not be able to have it both ways. We sure don't.
Yesterday morning, I got up at 5:45 a.m.
I had a ticket for a special early morning tour of the East Wing, but I got up even earlier than I needed to because before I went to the White House, I wanted to go to Freedom Plaza and see the occupiers and watch the sun come up over this sprout of democracy right here in our nation's capital. I wish I had taken my camera.
It was so moving, so amazingly moving, to see these patriots getting up in the chilly first light, stretching after sleeping on concrete, getting ready to start another day of practicing what our Founding Fathers preached . . . and then to visit the White House, and touch the wood that Jefferson and Madison and Lincoln and FDR touched . . . and to imagine how very proud THEY would have been of those who were just blocks away from the people's house this morning.
There was no "mob."
Tonight, I drove in again. The small tent city of yesterday has expanded, block by block. Whole streets are inaccessible from Constitution Avenue north.
These patriots are not there because "they failed."
"It's a person's fault if they have failed." (Herman Cain)
They are there because they want to succeed and they want this country to succeed and because this country has failed them.