Occupy

I spend a lot of time being frustrated with all those things that seem to be too big to care, like the government, my state senators and representatives, even the city managers. Yes, we all know the economy is utter crap right now. I have several friends that are unemployed and have been that way for quite some time, despite their best efforts to find work. I feel very fortunate to have a job these days. But nothing pisses me off quite like stories like this, about corporate executives that damn near destroy a company but still end up with millions. How does that happen? WHY does that happen? If all these businesses are so poor they can’t even hire enough people to run it, where is all this money coming from? And how come nobody is doing anything about it?

We’ve been told repeatedly that taxes can’t be raised on corporations because they need that money to create jobs. So create them already! What’s the hold-up? If you’re looking for a specific skilled person, guess what? There are a whole lot of young people out there, fresh out of college, with no job prospects who would love an opportunity to change the disastrous condition of our country right now. How do I know that? Because of this – Occupywallst.org.

Admittedly, there is not a lot of coverage for this event (and many others that are taking place across the country), and the mainstream media has done a lot to make them look like a bunch of clueless kids with no idea what they’re doing there. That is unfortunate. On the plus side, the longer these movements are ignored, the bigger they grow. Being ignored is exactly the problem – because those with the money and power think that the average person can be marginalized and pushed aside. These people are tired of feeling their voices don’t matter. We elect officials into office to speak for us, not to line their own pockets and help out their buddies, and yet that’s what we see every day. They use hot-button topics to get into office (anti-abortion! morality! keep Jeeeezus in the schools!), then proceed to gut their entire platform and do what they can to “get theirs.” And it turns out, a lot of their buddies have these big businesses that manage to garner these huge tax breaks and skirt around the most basic of safety rules. Seriously – how did the cigarette companies manage to rock along for as long as they have?

People are pissed. Quite frankly, I think it’s about time. I honestly believe we have been systematically lied to for years in order for the rich and powerful to maintain their status quo. History points to many moments in the past when this has gone on: in the Middle Ages, the average person was uneducated and was not even allowed to learn to read or write. Much easier for a very wealthy church and/or king to control the masses if you tell them everything they should know and believe. Nazi Germany was a crown jewel in the last century for learning how to spread propaganda. Whether the Reichstag fire was set by Hitler’s people or not, he was quick to use it as a way to strip away civil liberties and establish control over all information received by the entire country.

And if we don’t think anything like that could happen in the United States, we’re fooling ourselves.

It’s long past time for a change. I don’t care how it happened, the fact is we are all in trouble. We need to fix it. If those we’ve elected into office won’t do anything about corruption, greed, lack of accountability and their own constituents starving to death, then WE need to make the changes for them.

OccupyWallSt.org
OccupyTogether.org
Occupytogether.org/events/midwest/missouri/