It is about time that we took control of exploding executive pay. It is not just that the sums involved are unfair, and as history has shown, will only become more obscene. These executives control the allocation of resources that represent the well-being of the 99 percent.
Clearly, the current iteration of America doesn't want us to be seen or heard. What would our Founding Fathers who fought so fervently to ensure protection against tyranny say?
Will America continue to be a "good guy" nation in our own eyes and the eyes of the world? Or will some businesses lead us into a downward spiral and will average Americans allow ourselves to be swept up in it?
Raising corporate taxes -- or closing all the loopholes -- is a first step if we want to create a sustainable recovery, rather than more busted bubbles.
When we look outward instead of inward, it is easy to become disconnected from a deep sense of the relevance of our being and our connection to one another.
While the environment does play a central role in Seuss' tale, an underlying tension in the book, which links directly to our current economic woes, is the tension between short-term profit seeking activities, and long-term value creation and sustainability.
Now that it's officially halftime in America, perhaps we will see some changes soon. In the meantime, those of us who are struggling through, battling against or just doing our best still need to spread the love on the most romantic holiday of the year.
Amending our Constitution is not easy, but the ability of corporations and the super wealthy to drown out the will of the people is the defining struggle of our time.
Bankers are today's Jay Gatsbys. They're shady figures who have adopted a veneer of respectability, yet remain relentlessly, ruthlessly, and sometimes illegally self-interested.
The new American business model is not to reward success, but to rob the successful as quickly as possible or somebody else will. Excessive executive pay and bonuses derive from this mentality.
Companies that refuse to take heed are killing themselves, and the harder they fight the Shift, the faster they will go down. There is no need to fight them, as an opponent anyway.
It is both greedy and irresponsible for American corporations to allow untaxed cash to pile up on their balance sheets while American infrastructure crumbles, public education suffers, the unemployed struggle to survive and shareholders lose their investments.
Ron Paul's every-individual-for-themselves rhetoric appeals to young, radical libertarians with simplistic viewpoints of authority, and an ignorance of why government exists in the first place.
Undeniably, military might and corporate cachet will be front and center in the Just Imagine Rose Parade. But, immediately following the might and money march comes the occupiers' march -- the people's march.
Like every liberal activist and preacher's son, I have arch-conservative family members who don't agree with my philosophies, whom I see every year on the holidays. This year, Occupiers have nothing to worry about.
With the encampments folding or forcibly shut down -- for reasons of public health or winter weather -- and with eulogies already appearing, what next for the earthquake known as Occupy Wall Street?
Perhaps the greatest gift that Occupy Wall Street and the other movements of 2011 have given us is a sharpening of our perceptions -- and our conflicts. One thing couldn't be clearer: compassion is our new currency.
I'm not so sure that the reality of Christ has a Return On Investment that would be attractive to the big banks. They are two very different ideas of what's "priceless."
The following excerpt is from the newly released book: "Conversations with Wall Street: The Inside Story of the Financial Armageddon and How to Preven...
Yes, we can demonstrate. We can march. We can write and sign petitions to our representatives. We can occupy. But the truth is, other than the value of venting, we're wasting our time.