Dear Occupiers:
 |
| Occupy Rochester |
First, I want to say that in general, I am a fan of your
movement. Protest movements in general are interesting to me, as I posted in my
Labor Day post. And as I understand it, your message in general is to stop
Corporate Greed. Or to try to convince the wealthy 1% of the country to try to
help take care of the remaining 99%, especially the ones in need. Either way, I
am a fan of that general message. I am sympathetic to the cause, being raised
in an extended family that started out with little and was directly affected by
racist agendas of the past generation; and being raised on a blue-collar old
steel mill town like the one in Billy Joel’s song “Allentown”.
So, I am behind
you in general.
And as I said, protest movements in general interest me;
enough to have taken an elective course in college studying the protest
movements of the twentieth century. One of the underlying similarities of
the larger protest movements of that time period was that they all started as
several smaller, disconnected movements, and over several months and even a
couple of years, they grew large enough and influential enough to affect change.
So, even though the media is reporting that your movement is disorganized,
history proves that that’s to be expected. When the media then states that your
movement is therefore ineffective, well, that’s conveniently self serving in my
opinion. Hmmm…isn’t the media part of Corporate America?
See, protest movements offer a great opportunity for dialog,
and dialog translates into learning. I have been highly anti-Corporate America,
and as I am reading opinion pieces and having conversations with people I
respect, I am finding myself softening my stance against Corporate America. Are
there greedy corporations? Absolutely. Or maybe we should be more specific…are
there Corporate Executives that are greedy? I don’t think anyone could disagree
with that. The examples of banks and financial institutions which received
government (a/k/a taxpayer) bailout money, which then turned around and
literally put that in the pocket of their executives in the form of increased
bonuses, well, I can’t find any justification for that. Nor, in my opinion, should
companies pay increased bonuses when they have laid-off a significant number of
employees. But guess what? It’s legal. So how much can I blame someone or group
of people for taking advantage of something that is perfectly legal?
And there are some Corporate Executives that do make
sizeable charitable contributions, or create and fund foundations that to good
and important work. When Steve Jobs passed away, we as a society heaped praise
about the positive impact he had - isn’t Apple part of Corporate America? Bill
Gates is often lauded for the work he does as well – isn’t he a Corporate
Executive? So, I can’t make a wide-reaching blanket statement blaming Corporate
America for the problems of the 99%, though I can agree that in many cases,
they are part of the problem.
In my opinion, you’re occupying the wrong cities, the wrong
places. Wall Street isn’t the root cause of the problem. You need to head 300
miles or so southbound on I-95 to your new grounds: Occupy the Capitol. Congress is your problem!
IF the 99% are all in agreement that things need to change, by the way
democracy is supposed to work, those elected by the majority (the 99%) to
represent the majority (the 99%) should be putting forth the agenda of the
majority (the 99%). Of the people, by the people, for the people, right? But
I’m not naïve…I know that the whole 99% isn’t on the same page, but even if
slightly more than half of the 99% are in agreement on some of these issues,
then that is the direction that Congress should be headed. Is it? Not even
close. And why? Because our Senators and Representatives are part of the 1%! And
again, they are passing convenient self-serving laws and allowing some of the
things we complain about to happen (ex, the bailout scandals).
So, it’s a long battle…to fight the 1%. The government is
run by the 1%, the ways we get our information (the media) is controlled by the
1%, and guess what? That is the way it’s always been. As George Carlin once said, “this country was
founded by a bunch of white slave owners who wanted to be free.” So you’re also
fighting 250 years of history. And more than ever, we’re in a society which
likes to point a single finger of blame, point that finger of blame at someone
other than ourselves, and then move right along to the next thing. We have no
patience, we think we have no time, and really, we can’t be bothered too much. We
like our news and opinions in short snippets on a computer screen. Or, we’ll
take our news from good looking people in made up faces using made-up accents
sitting at desks with fake backgrounds holding fake papers. We like our reality
scripted and controlled and entertaining.
And make no mistake; it’s Congress that controls the
direction of the country. Congress creates the laws and programs, which include
the tax laws and the HealthCare law; laws that govern insurance companies and
Accounting standards and so on. Let’s go back to grade school for our lesson of
government: the check-and-balance system
of our democracy. The separation of powers still exists between the
legislative, judicial, and executive branches of our government. This is not solely
the President’s fault – the executive branch; not the current President, not
the prior President, or Presidents before them. They have a hand in this – yes,
all of them. But again, we like to try to place singular blame and we’ve always
put the President on a pedestal. At most he is one-third of the problem. But
the branch of government that affects us directly is the legislative branch –
Congress. They need to be Occupied by the masses.
I wish you luck. Historically, the biggest changes have
happened because of only three things: a
major economic collapse (The Great Depression), a major war, or after years of
widespread organized protests in Washington DC. And unfortunately, the
recession we’re in doesn’t seem to be major enough, and the War on Terrorism
isn’t major enough either. (Major war in this context is an actual conflict,
not an ideological war). So I am hoping, for the sake of those who are truly
suffering financially through no fault of their own, that your protests
eventually initiate real change. And I’m not using the word “truly” lightly
above. There are people out there who are in financial bind through their own
fault, and your movement needs to be careful enough to separate those issues
from your viewpoint. And your movement needs to be careful enough to not
trivialize the definition of financial bind. Not being able to afford a 61”
flat screen TV and the latest iPod is not the definition of financial
bind.
I wish you luck. Get organized and head to DC. Fight for
democracy. Control your message. Specify your message. Be careful and
deliberate. Be PR savvy. Be patient and persistent. You’re our best hope. I
don’t want to depend on a major war or major economic collapse to force
change.
Sincerely,
John
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