Why We Should “Occupy”

Why We Should “Occupy”                

Tony E. Hansen

12 June 2012

The recent protests, called “Occupy”, or the 99%, have echoed a chord with people in this country.  Occupy needs to go beyond the protest into a viable reform movement. For decades, powers have been able to sidestep issues and pacify people into believing marketing campaigns and rhetorical nonsense. Some are all too willing to accept the rhetoric and deceptions as part of a “gospel” of capitalism being good for all Americans. Remember capitalism is essentially justification to exploit resources and inequalities in society. Something needs to change or our democracy faces potential unraveling on a grand scale because all boats do not, in fact, raise when more water is given only to the 1%.

Due, in part, to the supposed gospel of capitalism, we have seen the rapid disintegration of faith in government and public sector institutions while corporations have become multi-national, “too-big-to-fail” behemoths with a corollary increase in power and influence upon public policy.  The only recourse that the public has against these powers is through the public institutions, but, with the deregulation, as well as revolving doors between government and Wall Street, we can see why so many people have lost faith in the public institutions that were created to protect the little guy from those big guys. Yet, Americans are willing to allow private firms, beholden only to their shareholders, manage public institutions with a belief that these private firms will do a better job. Further, these corporations want the public taxpayers to pick up the tab to build supporting infrastructure or insist upon tax breaks because they are “job creators.” If government is made of people and private companies are made of people, where do we see improvement?  Perpetuation of economic inequality and gross over glorification of corporate power is central grief raised by the Occupy movement.

With the pervasive influence of corporations upon public policy, Americans feel excluded from the process that is supposed to include them.  This coincides with research I did with my dissertation.  Regulations and the tax code are rigged so that only corporations can take advantage of capitalism rather than the individual entrepreneurs. Both political parties are willing to give corporations and the wealthy bailouts and tax breaks, but they balk at the idea of helping people forgive student loan debt or stay in houses. People may have made “poor decisions” to get the loans and houses, but the wealthy made money from accepting those decisions. Yet, they do not want to be responsible for their part in those decisions. I guess you have to be a millionaire before you “deserve” government assistance.

Education is supposed to be a means to achieve social status: a social power equalizer. A simple high school education is no longer enough to sustain a person into the working world.  Increasingly, employers are looking for people with expensive college degrees, and with that requirement, many Americans also build up substantial debt when they cannot pay for school costs up front.  Thus, people want to get high paying jobs with “stable” companies and banks, but we have to rack up large amounts of debt to get the credentials that may get a job (let alone a well-paying one). This is one of the big issues being echoed in the Occupy protests: that of the crippling costs of education loans.

Debt obligates people to creditors; in this case, the creditors are the banks. The banks barely service the loan but instead just shuffle papers with a guarantee by the federal government.  One should wonder how we can allow young adults to rack up education loan debt without a job and with no way to discharge, and yet, no bank will loan the same people money for a mortgage without jobs or resources. Banks should not even be involved. Increasing debt levels will not help stimulate the economy.

There is an increasing unwillingness of people to compromise, especially from the TEA Party. There is increasing unwillingness to allow alternative opinions, and there is even growing willingness to profess complete falsehoods in the name of policy positions that service only the most able in this country (e.g. supply-side economics, military build-ups, defund public schools, unregulated health care and financial systems). Ironically, there is a complete disregard for the concept of frugality (a core conservative value) with a perpetuation of gluttonous appetites for all things material through a vain, and an adolescent, boastful, selfish claim “It’s mine”. This is incivility at its core, and is a primary objection raised by many of the Occupy.

There is an ugly and heavy hand of religion being deployed into public policy. Respect for religion has morphed into an idolatry of religion, specifically Evangelical-Protestant sects, as a framework for public policy. There is little room for alternative ideas about religion in the media or public arena with the heavy pronouncement by the various religious zealots despite the Constitutional limitations upon American government with respect to religion. Religious fundamentalists are among the worst with respect to compromise since they consider their “marvelous superior” position, or cause, as a calling rather than a simple viewpoint. All other opinions cannot possibly matter because the apparent “will of God” is on their side, and thus a forgone conclusion of other opinions being inferior, regardless of just nature or destruction that the zealots’ opinion may justify. 

The late author Ray Bradbury stated, “we insure the future by doing it”. Thus, if we do not want to see the rollback of programs and services that protect Americans, we should occupy. If we want civility in government rather than adolescence, we should occupy!  If we want respect for religion rather than religious law, we should occupy! If we want to restore faith in the society as an aggregation of the individual goods, we should occupy! If we want government for the 99% instead of the 1%, we should demand accountability from lawmakers, occupy and VOTE!