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!
