Are the people of the Occupy Movements Americans? Are they people from our communities? I ask because I am curious what you think. Are these people our brothers, sisters, children, friends? Are they Americans. Are they our neighbors, or did they drop in from another country? Can you or I become one them? What if our circumstances become a little different than they are right now? How many paychecks away are most of us from losing everything important to us.
In the sixties when the Vietnam anti-war movement started, people protesting the war were looked upon as anything but Americans expressing their frustrations, angers, and fears. They were labeled as troublemakers, insurgents, foreign nationals, criminal elements whose purpose was to cause rife among the good people of America, and possibly attempt to overthrow the government.
When riots swept through the slums of Detroit, a group of people wanted the same basic rights as other people, they were labeled the same way. They were trouble makers, they were trying to go against the system, they did not understand that was just the way things were.
The picture being painted of the Occupy people is anything but good wholesome American people going after their share of the American Dream. They are portrayed as overly liberal, out of touch with reality, lazy, and trouble makers. Some critics have even gone so far as to say these people want to destroy the American way of life – whatever that may be anymore. Is this the real picture of what they are, or is it the most convenient way to mold apparent public sentiment.
I would not want to be a recent college graduate today. College is becoming something for the wealthy, no longer meant for the poor student with only drive and determination to learn and no money. Who can afford college when they are taking loans for thousands of dollars a year, only to receive job offers after graduation for a salary that will take twenty years to pay off their loans.
I would not want to not be a college graduate either. Forced into working two or more jobs, not having a day off, or any chance of taking time off work for a vacation. Do you think the people who serve you every day are making enough they can live on from their one job? Ask them if they make a living from their job and they are living a life with a future.
If you are old enough, or if not ask your parents, about the fifties and sixties economy. People were paid enough that it was possible to have a successful future with only one person working in the family. Almost any job paid enough for a family not only to survive, but to thrive.
Over the decades pay has been whittled away to the point where it is normal for both parents in a family to work, and still not have a large enough income to live without outside help. Many families have been forced to depend on their schools feeding their children breakfast. The state is helping them with their rent money, food money, and other needs that one paycheck used to cover.
Maybe it is the Greed of Capitalism, the ignorance of the average wage earner, or the banking industry marketing credit as if money grew on trees. Whatever the reason we have become a people living paycheck to paycheck. If many of us were to lose our jobs, we are most likely to end up on the street, or living in a homeless shelter. That is our ugly reality if we dare look at it.
Maybe some of the Occupy Protest Movements are whining, sniveling, lazy, homeless, and crazy. Perhaps some of them protest for a living. So what? Perhaps some of these people see the reality of their future, and the future of others behind them, and the fiscal reality being lived by those ahead of them.
Real change does not happen when times are good. When times are good everyone is happy. Every policy is a good policy because we are all eating steak for dinner. When times are not so good and we do not even have meat on our dinner plate, we start wondering what happened. When life becomes painful, a few people start thinking about changing the system.
Maybe the Occupy groups do not know what to do. Maybe they are unorganized, maybe they have nothing better to do because they are unemployed and can not find work. Maybe they have a valid point. Maybe they are living what will become our way of life if we continue to ignore what we have done and continue to do in our society?
Maybe it is time we start to think about how we can change how we do things to make life better for everyone. In this decade and for foreseeable decades Americans have to compete in a world market.
Americans need to create a lifestyle where almost every job has a wage attached where people can afford to live on only one job. America has to start balancing the cost of education against the average wage. America needs to get housing costs inline with today’s wages instead of selling the ideas of future earnings which have turned into vapor.
We have to accept the party for the near future at least is over, and we have to learn how to thrive and survive in a world that is not the world of forty, thirty, or even twenty years ago. Our throw away economy needs revamping. We need to start creating social change where we live out of our heart and not in our greed. We are all one people on one earth whether we live in America, Japan, China, or Greece.
Contact your Mayor and Councilman and let them know what you think about the protests of the Occupy Movement. Call them or send them an email. If you do not support, let your local government know these protestors should be disbanded and arrested. If you support them, let your Mayor know that you don’t mind they are camping in the park as protest.
Making healthy change is not fun. Healthy change is not easy. We must come to terms with what we are doing to each other, our future, and the future of our children. We need to grow our Ecoheart and create change to do what is right for most of us, and not what is great for a few of us.
