The Occupy (fill in the blank) Movement: What is it?
I can’t help it. It’s cliché, but I’m going to say it anyway, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” That infamous line from the 1976 movie, “Network,” says it all.
Well, not really, but it does express a strong sentiment, representing the increasingly noisy American anger about the cruddy economy, the federal government, and the eyebrow raising actions of certain corporations.
One of the strongest voices of late is the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. From reading headlines, I’ve seen the protest movement trek from city to city, including my own, Boston, and even spreading to Europe.
Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what the movement is about and what their goals are, but I admit that I haven’t conducted intense research either. However, Occupy has my attention because I’m tired of government shenanigans and “don’t want to take it anymore” either.
I want to share with you some posts from my Facebook profile’s wall. Reading the comments from a smattering of Americans may give some insight to those peeking into to see what the hubbub is all about.
(To put it in proper context, many of my “Facebook friends” are people I’ve never met in person. Moreover, it’s not a running tally of people who have a close personal connection to me, but rather a random sampling of the American public.)
My original post about Occupy said, “… I have mixed feelings: I believe in capitalism, but hate corporate greed. Also, many large corps [corporations] have regular people like me invested in them, with hopes that I will have a nest egg one day ….”
The ongoing thread of responses has zigged and zagged, somewhat mirroring Occupy’s meandering messages and suggested solutions. Frankly, I was relieved that my Facebook friends provided some definitive answers, or opinions, to explain what Occupy is about. It “keeps it real,” instead of canned sound bytes or quotes that some questionable news outlets supply.
“This movement is against the Fed. The people of the nation — especially the millions who were bamboozled into signing for worthless mortgages, laid off from their jobs, and had their 401k’s cut in half — are fueling this movement,” wrote Vincent Hearne, who has worked in finance as a licensed broker and trader on the NYSE. “The banks are getting trillions of government assistance while the hard working men and women of this nation are being foreclosed on.”
Another fed up New Yorker, Barbara Holtzman, wrote, “This is more a civil rebellion based on class, and hence a social movement … the top two percent have anywhere from 24 to 65 percent of the assets, while the remaining 98 percent have to somehow get by with the remainder. [It’s] A rebellion, not a revolution.”
Currently, Holtzman says she is “self-employed” because she cannot find a job, despite her holding a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university and a few other degrees in tow.
A self-described “redneck” from Texas, Don Warren, wrote, “The big ‘occupy’ movement, as I understand it, is [a response] in frustration to the corporate bailouts. But those companies really WANT to stimulate our economy again and fix things … If we tie the hands of those who hold the money [the top 1 to 2 percent], they can’t get us back to a time of positive economical growth.”
Warren added that he owned a new home construction and land development company for 11 years, “until the market crashed.” He found new employment as an industrial safety inspector.
Another Texan, John Poole, a retirement consultant for nonprofit organizations and institutions, remains critical of the Occupy outcry. “Some of us in the working world, and financial services industry, see these protests as a way to skip philosophy class and hit on hippies with impaired judgment,” Poole wrote. “Currently I am protesting my bills by going to work and not having a weeklong vacation.”
Poole said he was laid off from Merrill Lynch in ’08 and later worked manual labor construction on the Mexican border in Eagle Pass, Texas, for a year. He rejoined the “white collar” world last year.
Brandon Sims, who is self-employed and working with small business information systems and networks, wrote: “The protests are the inevitable result of the declining standard of living and unemployment. It is truly amazing that the protests are not far more violent. In parts of the world, and in recent history, people would be dying every day, buildings and homes would be burning to the ground and entire cities would be paralyzed.”
The Occupy protest doesn’t impress Sims. “Instead, the net effect of protest is the generation of more ‘infotainment’ to pacify the masses,” he added.
A realtor in Houston, Texas, Rob Rule, wrote, “The quick and dirty on this is that it’s too soon for a person to reasonably form an opinion about the Occupy movement … Until they [the protesters] can conceptualize exactly what they stand for, anyone having an opinion on what it is, comprehensively, is like having an opinion on an amoeba.”
A Scandinavian man chimed in with his outsider-looking-in perspective. “It looks like the [Occupy] movement doesn’t know what it wants to achieve with the protests. The only thing that unites them is their anger toward the Wall Street corporations,” wrote the Nordic.
“And part of the U.S.’s problems is a result of the average American’s habit of spending more money than they have by getting loans and credits.”
“And when the [expletive] hit the fan and people lost their houses –,” the Scandinavian wrote, “It must be frustrating to see that the people [creditors], who fooled them to believe that the economical growth was a tree growing to heaven, did not cut off the branch they where sitting on, but [instead] the branches of the other 99 percent.”
Most Americans agree that we do have a problem with our deep economic recession, our tax system, our funding to political campaigns, and perhaps on the top of the list, the Fed’s spending habits.
I’d love to hear solutions, not just a laundry list of American ills. But, I suppose the first step of any rehabilitation program is admitting there is a problem. In that case, we are on the right track to recovery.