Occupy Wall Street

I try to stay clear of politics, mostly because I get so angry at it. But I was recently cornered by a guy discounting the Occupy Wall Street Movement as the lunatic left that don’t know what they are doing, or even what they stand for. They simply want to protest. This guy, IMHO, was a conservative shill (read: GOP and/or the nitwits supporting them), bought and paid for by corporate interests spinning a viewpoint that has a tiny kernel of truth upon which to divide public opinion.

He zeroed in on students complaining of having to pay back student loans, building a spiel around this specific group upon which to label, demean and discount the whole of those participating in OWS. He tried to convince me that the whole OWS protesters are ungrateful brats unable to fend for themselves. He's broadly painting the protesters as an entitled generation with discretionary income, expensive high tech toys, lolling around sipping their upscale coffees, all the while complaining and whining.

But there is another, much larger face to the protesters, those working class people struggling to build a career or who have already retired. He didn’t acknowledge that many of those protesters are the laborers employed, or laid off, by the corporations. He didn’t acknowledge that there are people protesting the foreclosure on their homes by the banks (like my sister), nor those angry that their retirement funds have been ripped off by the investment bankers.

There are many, like me, who are angry over the bailouts for Wall Street's fraud and deceit, and Congress's kowtowing to corporate power. The whole truth of the OWS protest is they all feel fear, frustration and anger about the corporate malfeasance and political corruption that has plundered the country's wealth and saddled it with debt.

The corporate interests will say and do all they can to dilute the power of the 99%. I commend the protesters for their courage and it saddens me that our country does not practice what it preaches and chooses to resort to force to stifle dissent.

I pray that this movement grows and grows in power and influence, and leads this country back to a more just way of dealing with the middle class, which is what made this country great in the first place.