I had been infuriated at the end of the Bush Presidency and the beginning of the financial meltdown with the TARP. I saw it as a further effort to, as Jack Abrams called it, “To starve the Beast.” In other words to leave the incoming president Obama no money for Social Programs.
For years I waited for the change that Obama promised to come but instead he stacked his office full of Goldman Sax officials. I watched in gloom as the ‘Tea Baggers’ rose to ascendancy and took back congress for the Republican Party. Is America that stupid as to put the very cause of the problem back in power? Well look at Obama’s treasury secretary! I thought all hope was lost, till I heard of a protest of Wall Street on September 17th. My heart leapt with a thrill as I approached Zuccotti Park to see the person pictured above. He had a protest sign of a rough torn card board box with his message scrawled. He seemed rapt away in the pure joy of the moment.
When I walked inside the park I saw a Protest singer and it reminded my of my early formative days of protest when I played guitar and sang Woody Guthrie songs like ‘This Land is Your Land’ . One of the popular chants of OWS is “Whose Streets? Our Streets!”
Two months later, the day after Bloomberg had closed down the encampment I posted the above picture on Flickr. Someone commented :”I still haven’t heard the idea.”
This ticked me off as willful ignorance. So I made the curt comment: “You haven’t heard the ‘Idea’ because you only listen to Fox news!” FN constantly blast OWS as having no message because they don’t want their listeners to hear the message!
Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle described the protesters as follows: “Its like Woodstock, meets burning man, meets people with absolutely no focus or purpose in life. No wonder they have nothing but free time to be down there. They make up a slogan or a sign as they go along. And they are just looking to, like, go out there and dirty the streets. And they really don’t have any, like, idea about what they are doing there”
The Idea is simple and clear: Remove the influence of big money on politics. We vote a politician from any party into office to address the concerns of the nation but once they are in office they do the bidding of those who paid for their campaign. Bush gave Haliburton many bid free contracts. Obama who got more money from Goldman Sax than anyone put their past officials into high finance jobs and into adviser positions. The result is the banks not only getting bailed out but forgiven while the rest of the nation got sold out. We must remove the influence of money on policy makers so that policy can be formed for the good of the nation and not just for those with money. This is not a new idea. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, said, “To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt politics and corrupt business is the first task of statesmanship of the day.”
The other side of this coin is the gross inequality created by this unholy alliance. Most of the nations wealth is going to 1% of the nation availing them the money to buy influence while the rest of the country is scrambling to make ends meet. The middle class no longer have the leisure to dedicate to the function of the government. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said: “We can have a democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
At present we do not have a government but rather a market place where influence is bought and sold. Bloomberg, the twelfth richest man in the nation, is a perfect icon of this plutocracy having bought three terms in office.
My dream is of a Government for the 100% serving justice and equality for all. The man at the bottom can receive a living wage, universal health-care, and affordable education removing the burden of a welfare state off the back of the man on top and giving him healthy and well educated personnel for his businesses. Thus the government would become the solution for all. The Alchemist say:‘Solve et Coagula’, translated: the Solution is in Coagulation (coming together). “A government of the people, by the people, for the people;” as Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address.
I call this democracy!
PS: Having listened to the State of the Union I find I can now end this on an up beat. The president has announced a commission headed by Eric Schneiderman to investigate Wall Street. Schniederman says, “we will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to home owners and turn a page on an era of recklessness that has hurt so many Americans.” For this investigation we owe thanks to the activist from DK & OWS who pressured the administration to turn around and do that which they had avoided doing in the past. Our voices have been heard!
However the key words: “those who broke the law…”. I predict we will find that due to de-regulation, no laws were broken and nobody will go to jail but we will have good reason before the public's eye to regulate the banks again. Ah the making of sausage is so messy.