Occupy Wall Street

Over on Red State Erick Erickson has a picture of himself holding a piece of paper saying “I have 3 jobs, I have a house I can’t sell, My family insurance costs are outrageous, I’m paying massive student loans, But I don’t blame Wall Street, Suck it up you whiners, I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain. Get a job hippies.”

Occupy Wall Street has finally caught the media’s attention and that of right wing blogs that have been hammering on the “jobless hippies” that are showing up to lend their support. The issue is complicated at best.

As they are wont to do conservatives have lumped those protesting into the “dirty hippie” category to demean them and turn conservative followers away from considering what has really galvanized them to come out and protest. The fact that the protestors are a mixed bag of people from all income levels, races, working and not working…rich and poor seems to escape them.

Concealing the fact that it is a mixed bag of people is paramount. Those controlling the purse strings and the media do not want you to ever consider that these are normal people who are fed up with the status quo.

What is lost in the above screed of Erick’s is that the protest concerns the out of proportion influence corporate money has in government. It’s about the slow decimation of the middle class and Erick is a prime example.  He has put up a picture of himself, in his tee shirt, with his screed to prove his ideology is working when it isn’t. He’s working 3 jobs and is still not comfortable. Why isn’t he comfortable? Why isn’t he able to make a decent living on one job? He can’t blame anyone because it would trash his world view.

In April of this year McDonalds held a job fair. They wanted to hire 50,000 people but ended up hiring 62,000. Sounds great right, all these people got jobs even if it was part time, but the sad part is that ONE MILLION applied. Percentage wise it would be easier to get into Yale than to get a job at McDonalds. The admit rate at Yale is over 7% this percentage is 6.2%.

Maybe if Erick the poster boy gave up two of his jobs other people would have some work. But then he'd really be in a fix, not able to pay his mortgage or student loans. How many are out there working two, three maybe even four jobs and still aren’t “comfortable?” Where is the American Dream if even one of its staunchest supporters hasn’t found it?

The issues are complex and not simple. Why aren’t companies CEO’s that didn’t fund pensions in jail? Why are banks that were bailed out by all of us still awarding huge bonuses? Why hasn’t anyone been prosecuted for bundling sub prime mortgage securities and selling them on the open market? But those are just my questions not necessarily the picketers. There is a lot of discontent on both sides. The Tea Partiers are upset with government control and the Occupy Wall Streeters have had it with profit over people.

In my mind there is only one solution and that is to sever the connection between Wall Street and Washington. Outlaw corporate campaign donations and corporate funding of political parties.

Somewhere in the middle we should be able to find some common ground that we as a whole nation can consent to. Trickle down doesn’t work, it’s been trickle up for three decades and the middle class is feeling the heat, Erick Erickson is a prime example…go look at his picture, he is totally stressed. These people occupying Wall Street are tired of shoving our problems under the carpet; they want to have a national discussion about where we are going. The time is now and this will spread as more and more middle class wake up. 

See ya next week