Occupy Wall Street protests have now spread to some 800 cities. It's spreading like a fire on a strong wind over a dry field. The heat is likely to keep on building.
Conservatives have fallen over themselves rushing to side with the top one percent against the rest. Eric Cantor, House majority leader, denounces "mobs" and "the pitting of Americans against Americans." Herman Cain dismisses the demonstrators as "anti-American." Mitt Romney accuses them of waging "class warfare."
But class warfare is the reason Occupy Wall Street has sounded such a chord. Sure there's class warfare, one of America's richest men, Warren Buffett, concluded, "and my class is winning."
Last week just before I left for Europe, I joined the Chicago "wing" of the Occupy Wall Street movement last week. I spoke to students who dropped out of school because they couldn't afford tuition; now they are left with guaranteed student loan debt.
Students graduate with average student loan debts of over $20,000, and the bankers lobby passes a law that forces payment of those debts, even after bankruptcy. Now students are graduating from college laden with debts and without a job. Any wonder they are protesting.
I spoke with professors and teachers who have lost their jobs, as state's face declining revenues -- driven in part by the foreclosure/housing crisis and resulting loss of property tax revenues.
These protests pose a clear indictment to an economy that has been working for the few and not the many. The richest one percent of Americans now makes as much income as the bottom 60 percent. They control as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. With that wealth comes political power, as they can afford the campaign contributions and the high priced lobbyists needed to rig the rules in Washington. They have had their way.
The results are unconscionable. Hedge fund billionaires carve out a "carried interest" tax dodge that enables them to pay a lower tax rate on their earnings than teachers pay.
Wall Street bankers pocket millions in bonuses inflating a housing bubble, marked as the FBI warned by "an epidemic of fraud" Then when the bubble explodes, they get bailed out -- and go back to paying themselves million dollar bonuses - and hiking charges on credit cards and bank accounts. And while the banks are saved, 25 million people remain in need of fulltime work.
Similarly, homeowners get no relief. When workers are laid off and can't sustain their mortgage payments, they lose their homes. When their homes are underwater, worth less than the mortgage, they can't get banks to return to their phone calls, can't refinance to get some relief from lower interest rates. Instead, the bankers lobby passes a law that allows the rich to readjust the mortgages of vacation homes in bankruptcy courts, but does prohibits homeowners from doing the same.
The obscene decision of the Supreme Court's conservative gang of five in Citizen's United adds insult. They declare corporations are persons, with the same right to free speech as American citizens. Since they think money is speech, they open the floodgates to corporate purchase of our elections.
Movements grow not because of the specifics of their agenda, but because of the truth of their protest. Occupy Wall Street protests outrages that all of us see. Their protest is too valid to be ignored; too pressing to be suppressed.
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition has been on this case for nearly years now: we protested the attempt of the banks to privatize social security and to abolish the Glass-Steagull Act. We challenged the corruption of the "overseers" responsible for regulating the financial services industry, many of whom were raising money from Wall Street for their campaigns, or working for Wall Street upon leaving Congress.
Rainbow PUSH joined with Attorney General Lisa Madigan to expose the targeting and steering of Blacks and people of color into sub-prime loans, and to demand appropriate remedies from Countrywide and other banks that engaged in discriminatory lending practices. We've marched and protested with homeowners facing foreclosure, and rallied with a broad coalition of conscience at the annual shareholder meetings of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and others -- decrying their policies and practices that led to the global economic crisis. Most recently Rainbow PUSH testified to oppose the merger of the Capitol One merger.
The protests will spread; others are already joining, because there is a need for economic security. Too few own and control too much, while too many are left out of the economic equation. This week, the AFL-CIO, the international labor federation, will spark protests demanding "jobs, not cuts," across the country. On November 17th, a range of groups under the banner of the American Dream Movement is planning the largest mobilizations since the mass movement that opposed the War in Iraq.
This citizen protest will face increasing opposition. Local officials will try to shut demonstrations down. Fox News and conservative talk radio will slander and decry. Politicians will deplore.
We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King's memorial this week in Washington. But when the Civil Rights Movement was building, Dr. King was reviled as an outside agitator, slandered as a "communist." The FBI wiretapped him and tried to drive him to suicide. Non-violent demonstrators were arrested, beaten, and murdered. Nixon developed a Southern strategy based on race-bait politics to consolidate Republican strength in the South.
Entrenched privilege does not surrender its privilege easily. Occupy Wall Street is taking on the most powerful interests. But nothing, as Victor Hugo wrote, is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. As Dr. King urged, "Don't sleep through the revolution." It is time to take a stand. So 99'ers, maintain your disciplined focus, your peaceful nonviolent approach to protest and demand change. In the end we will win.
Follow Rev. Jesse Jackson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revjjackson
Paul Brandeis Raushenbush: What Does Wall Street Really Want?
Occupy Wall Street | World news | The Guardian
Occupy Wall Street movement has grown quickly - Los Angeles Times
Occupy Wall Street Protest: 12 Days and Little Sign of Slowing Down ...
I asked a coworker why pay $75,000 for a car or truck that wayws 4000lbs when you could buy another car or truck that weighs the same for $15,000 ? are you paying for status and style or paying for conveniance of conveyance?
I was appalled by the John Lewis snub in Atlanta, and the weird chants produced by the protestors. That will not get you the soccer mom, African Americans and the out of work construction worker on your side.
And where is the word to get out the vote, and start registration drives? The people who are ruining this country are not going to leave office, because you are camping out in a park, we must vote them out.
See how they run.
"In the end we will win."
Since to lose might as well be the end
Why aren't WE ALL upset by this?
It really makes me mad to hear about a 96 year old woman prevented from voting, and so many other stories. Where is our Federal Election Law protection? I mean, do they have cable and the internet access? And, if the government isn't doing something, how can citizens do something when the laws are passed, the whole system swings into action and our government sees it and can do nothing about that Law? How about the replacement of an entirely elected city council due to 'economic crisis' when there's no emergency to raise taxes or fix payroll to save SS.
I think the whole point is that not one person is going to do it for us, we have to start being accountable too. Now, who do we call about that election issue?
Not everyone is sleeping overnight, nor does everyone have the same ability to articulate their opinions, nor is there only one opinion. But there is a sense of committment to the greater good, idealism tempered by practical, technical and media savvy, and a resolve to be heard.
Check "them" out at occupysd.org and many thanks to all of "them."
Strangely enough, it appears that the revolution is on its way to being televised, tweeted, livestreamed and blogged right before our very eyes because enough of "us" have decided to turn it into a sleepover, rather than something "we" sleep through.
So, what! We have to make some changes, correct the course, so what! We are alive and We are the United States of America! Since our banks appear to have exported their games, looks like We are the World!
Keep playing the "us" and "them", we are all pawns in the political games either left or right.
Otherwise please don't forget that "we" borrowed way too much over our heads from the banks and that "we" bought homes that we shouldn't have from the banks and because of it "we" are going through a recession.
Instead these students are protesting and spending the rest of their time in Mom and Dad's basement playing video games.
They are protesting for you.
They are nothing but a bunch of excuse makers for their own failures in life.
Listen you can make excuses all day long if you want. Just take some personal responsibility and have some initiative and good things will happen.
Brides and threats were the order of the day giving Millions and creating a ruling class while the Corporations stole the Oil, Copper, and other Resources making Billions.
Leaving posioned water, posioned land and economic destoruction in their path ?
Or maybe having Oliver North fund Terrorist to overthrow the Democratically Elceted Government so a Banana Company can take the land.