Occupy Wall Street

It is time for me to discuss a number of political ideas that I have had that could solve many of the current problems with the economy and the distribution of wealth issues that plague our nation and much of the world. First though I would like to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement and the obvious implications of not fixing these problems.

Occupy Wall Street is the child of oppression. Much like the communist revolutions in Russia, Vietnam, Korea, and China, this movement is a response to the continued oppression of the poor and middle classes by the rich. As with the communist movement, I believe that if these problems are not fixed in a timely manner, this will end in a bloody revolution and the utter destruction of the US government. Thomas Jefferson once said that he believed that every government needs a good revolution at least every 200 years. The US government has gone far over that, and really has not done too badly. If the US government wants to survive though, it must bend to the will of the people that it was designed to serve. The American people have a strong sense of entitlement (which I do not necessarily agree with, but which exists nonetheless). This sense of entitlement is evolving into the sense of freedom that our founding fathers had and people are beginning to realize that the people of the US are no longer a truly free people. As the Occupy Wall Street movement points out, 99% of the US population are enslaved to 1%.

We may not see this as slavery, because we have the freedom to quit our jobs whenever we want. No one is applying physical force to cause us to provide them with labor. Further, the labor that we provide is compensated. It is easy to miss the fact that we are indeed slaves. Maybe I can make it more obvious. The 1% of the population that are the slavers require that we work for them. They force us to do so by taking away opportunities for us to work for ourselves. Small businesses have an extremely high failure rate. Obviously, some of the problem is that not everyone has the skills to effectively run a small business. However, a larger part is that small businesses have to pay full taxes, while large businesses get many tax cuts. Also, the monopolistic practices of large businesses make it impossible for small businesses to be profitable in a vast majority of markets. Occasionally slaves do escape, but often only to join the 1% that are enslaving the rest of us. Furthermore, the black slaves of the South were also compensated for their work. They were given room and board. Likewise, most modern jobs provide only enough pay for room and board, and many do not even provide that. A majority of Americans are literally being paid like slaves were in the South and a good portion of those are getting paid less than that. Evidence of this is that so many people have to rely on the welfare system to survive. Like slaves, most Americans are being forced to work for wages that are far less than fair.

The people of the US have finally begun to protest against the slavers and against the corrupt government that is supporting the slavers. Occupy Wall Street is the organized embodiment of a literal slave uprising. It is growing at an ever increasing rate as the slaves are recognizing the truth it is preaching. Thankfully, unlike historical slave or peasant uprisings, the people of Occupy Wall Street have chosen to begin the uprising in a civilized manner, with peaceful protests. Now it is the government's turn to act. It can either decide to eliminate corruption from within its ranks and reform our entire economical system, or it can do what it has become accustomed to and take bribes in return for keeping the slavers on top. This time though, that could be a fatal mistake. If peaceful revolution fails, our government will eventually be destroyed.

Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for choosing not to make any formal demands. Attacks have been made claiming that the movement must be disorganized and without focus. I agree with the assessment that an organized protest does not need to make specific demands. Occupy Wall Street is demanding reform that will correct a number of problems, problems which they have stated loudly and clearly. They are not required to provide the solutions; that is the job of the government. Frankly, most of the people of the Occupy Wall Street movement are not qualified to suggest solutions and they obviously realize this. Given this I find great wisdom in their choice to not make demands. The goal of the movement is not to correct problems. The goal of the movement is to identify problems and then demand that those problems be corrected by those with the responsibility to protect the 99% of the population that they have been neglecting.

We need an economy that allows us to escape slavery without becoming the slavers. We do not want wealth at the expense of everyone else and we do not want others to be wealthy at our expense. We have a government that we have hired through elections to protect us. It is their responsibility to provide us that. Instead of criticizing Occupy Wall Street for not offering solutions, our government needs to step up and earn their pay. It is their responsibility to enforce fairness, not that of a group of regular citizens that have no training in policy making. It is our job to tell our government what we want. It is their moral obligation to figure out how to do it. All we want is an honest government and our fair share of what we have worked so hard to create. Occupy Wall Street is not making demands because it is only asking for honesty and fairness. If the people of a nation must demand honesty and fairness from their government, it is time for that government to be overthrown and replaced.

Occupy Wall Street is an uprising of the oppressed peasant and slave classes that have been oppressed since the middle of the last century (and some would even argue much earlier). This is the US equivalent of the communist revolutions that spread across the Eastern Hemisphere at the beginning of the last century. If our government ignores this movement, we could end up in the same situation as many communist countries did, when their governments were overthrown and replaced with governments that eventually became tyrannical dictatorships. I support the Occupy Wall Street movement and I hope that our government has sense to act before it is too late.

Lord Rybec