History has proven time and again that policy makers will only consider alternative solutions to existing policy when the people demonstrate en masse. From the Labor movements of the early 20th century, to women’s suffrage, to the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam and Gay and Lesbian marches of recent memory, all great change starts with people practicing their inherent rights to dissent.
I don’t wish to demonize the honest brokers of Wall St. Most of them are hard working, not excessively wealthy, and truly working in the best interests of their clients, and to the best of their ability. But when the crisis took hold, policy makers also made a choice. They put all their effort and expenditure into helping the financial industry in this country, while all along it was a crisis of Main St. It was as if they were making an oil change on a car which was also out of gas, and they didn’t realize the tank was empty.
Much of the debate in this country is obscured by dissonance and half-truths. The mainstream media, economists and politicians want us to believe there is no alternative. ”We are out of money,” they say, while military operations are launched on a whim, with no congressional approval and at great expense. ”We can’t pay our debts,” we are told, as if I was so foolish as to believe that. I know better. I know that there is a policy agenda which can lead us back to prosperity in short order, and with little collateral damage, either for the upper or lower classes. For Wall St. and Main St. What we are doing now is no solution. It is allowing entrenched unemployment, poverty and mental illness take hold of our country on an unprecedented scale.
That is why I support Occupy Wall St. and hope to see it prosper and grow. So that policy makers will see an alternative and act on it, for their sake, and for their country.