Thoughts on the Occupy Movement

My job involves driving the cars of a wide variety of people. Often those people will leave their radios on in the car, and I get a peek at the type of music they like, where they get their news, and their tastes in humor and religious programming. One night I heard Bill O'Reilly on FOX Radio talking about the Occupy movement, and it was pretty obvous that he was completely clueless.

At that time I had just finished reading Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera's book "All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis", so I had a decent understanding of how the whole financial crisis happened. Also, in the blogs I read, the wonkish economists have a lot to say about the perils of the current income disparity. It's not hard for me to understand why people are out protesting in the parks.

I have a good friend who is a left-of-left liberal. His Facebook page is filled with Occupy messages, some on the mark, some not so much, and I was inspired to write a blog post about my own impressions of the movement. But I never actually started anything until one of my friends from the other side of the spectrum posted a link to a story about Wall Street execs showering the OWS in New York with McDonald's employment applications. In the ensuing discussion he said this:
"I think whatever the Occupy movement tried to represent, it was co-opted long ago by anarchists, union thugs, etc. This movement won't help me pay my student loans. And, frankly, wanting a "free ride" is not what most Americans want. Hand-outs don't work. Never have, not long term. And that seems to be what the Occupy movement's underlying message is: 'You have something, and I want it. I'll have the government take it from you by force and give it to me.'" It was pretty much exactly what Bill O'Reilly had said that night on the radio.

So I started collecting notes from my various reading sources online, and collecting newspaper articles, just to have references to construct a meaningful blog post. But I didn't yet have the core piece that would bring it all together.

Then I found this. It's a comment on a post on the Frum Forum, a Republican blog with a centrist-to-right point of view. To me it summed up the whole thing and made all the rest of what I had collected unnecessary.

"Ray_Harwick // Dec 12, 2011 at 12:56 am
My sister is an RN at a non-union hosital where the Job Creators run the cartel. This year **all** of the staff, with the exception of the doctors and executive staff, were forced to take a pay cut; thereby widening the gap between the highest earners and even college-educated nurses and technical staff. For my sister, it meant she picked the wrong place to live because the amount of her pay cut was equal to the amount of money she spends on gasoline monthly to commute to work. Or it means about half of her mortgage payment for a two bedroom farm house of 1,200 sq. ft. that she had to save money for the downpayment for until so was 40 years old.
I get your point. Somebody has to win, right? And you want to continue the status quo of the top earners not only staying at the top, but holding the power of determining prosperity over everyone else. Win-win for the highest wage earners.
Gannett Publishing, owner of a couple dozen newspapers around the country, boasted about how they’d held down expenses for their stock holder’s benefit. Yes. They did. They layed off some 3,000 workers nationwide, mainly those on the news side, then rewarded their 57 year-old retiring CEO who “met Gannett’s challenges of the 21th century” with $39 MILLION good-bye present. I’m gonna say you’re beaming with pride over that, Mr. Foster, since it meets you ideal of keeping the living wage power in the hands of the Job Creators. Give yourself a pat on the back.
This is why I love to see the other extreme flaunt its power. I proudly point to the NBA Players Association which represent a couple thousand near, or actual millionaires who are the actual BACKBONE of the NBA. You know, the talent? Sort of like what the nurses who do all the work at hospitals are? Anyway, the NBAPA is equal in the argument for their sport. Too bad pro baseball is forbidden by law to do what the NBA players can do. But I suppose that’s why we can have minor leaguers playing for peanuts and holding down jobs at car washes in the off season.
The best question that came from last night’s GOP debate, in my opinion, was the one from a Yahoo commenter who asked “When was the last time you had to cut back on *necessities* in order to survive?” Did you notice that *none* of the candidates gave a direct answer and, of course, when Mitt Romney can bet $10,000.00 (or about 0.0055% of his net worth) on a *trivial* political point, it stands to reason why he’d have to admit that he *never* in his life had to cut back on *anything* in order to survive. He had to reach back into papa’s early days. Bachmann still clips coupons with her net worth in the millions! Poor girl. Rick Perry had to bath in a #3 wash tub, just like I did, and gee, what a great real estate oracle he turned out to be. So this millionaires club running for the nomination couldn’t even answer the question. Makes you feel cozy, don’t it. You’re working for them and as soon as you’re used up, the Job Creator cartel will dump you without so much as a going away party at the Motel 6 Hospitality Room."

The point of the Occupy movement is simply this: The system has been rigged, through a variety of methods, to send the wealth of the nation to a few at the top in such a way that the many at the bottom are deprived of the very opportunity to succeed, to advance, sometimes to even survive. It has nothing to do with a free ride, hand-outs or taking from rich to give to the poor. It has only to do with the removal of the artificial obstacles that keep people of good character and great potential at the bottom of the pile.