“As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires cooperation of its members of that system…that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by the economic power.”
This quote is straight from the Occupy Wall Street manifesto written by the protestors, and defines the beat that has driven these protestors from day one on September 17, 2011. They are tired of and angry at the fact that large corporations have controlled the way countries are run, and how the government no longer works as a democracy, which is supposed to care for the majority of the people and not just the privileged 1%.
It’s obvious why the Republicans receive 1% of the vote in America when elections roll around, but you will have to explain the vote of the other 99%. In the past decades, the United States has become a country for the rich, by the rich, where every single day our laws cater more and more to the rich and less to the real person, with tax breaks for the rich, deregulation, and much more.
These laws and leaders which we vote for constantly coddle the mega-rich, while they cut programs such as Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Protection Agency, college education, Social Security and health care, yet people continue to vote against their common interest and for the interest of the mega rich.
Recently though, it seems as if our leaders have failed to lead and are watching the moneyed elite of America kill the middle and lower classes, and what is worse they are getting away with it. It is about time that the 99% of America started to voice their opinion over the injustice and corruption of the system. From 1982 until today, 80% of the income generated went to the richest 1%, and their average income rose 271%, making the top 400 families in America have more money than the bottom 150 million combined.
In the past decade, the lives of the moneyed elite have been too comfortable, while the lives of the average American have rapidly unraveled. While most Americans are struggling to pay their mortgage or basic bills, the top 1% are enjoying the lowest tax rates in the last 50 years.
The leaders of the country ask for “shared sacrifice,” yet if you were to ask the top 400 households in America what exactly they have had to sacrifice, I doubt they would be able to come up with a single thing. But if you were to ask the average middle class American struggling just to get by, what they have had to sacrifice, they wouldn’t even know where to begin.
The Americans who belong in the 99% and are on Wall Street right now, in the rain, cold, and even snow, know exactly what they are protesting and know exactly what they want.
It is time for the richest 1% who control the government to stop being coddled, and it is time for the rights of the real Americans to be acknowledged and addressed.
The people are real, as are their struggles, and it is time to revert to the way government used to be run, and should be run: of the people, by the people and for the people of the United States of America.
SOURCES
http://occupywallst.org/
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/
http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/news/economy/cbo_income/index