To the Occupy Wall Street Movement:
Cartoon by Abby Gross
Dear Occupiers:
I have to give you credit. It’s been two months, and the movement hasn’t dissolved, hasn’t been written off as some fringe deal that goes discredited or hasn’t lost the public relations war that political movements often do once the newness wears off.
In fact, getting pepper-sprayed may have been the best thing that could have happened to the California protestors as a means of getting support/sympathy for the cause. For no matter what reason the police might have had, the video speaks for itself.
With all that being said, I have to ask: why is it you have protested in every major city, but I have read nothing among your website’s news blurbs about going to D.C., specifically the West Front?
Your mission, according to the About Us page, is to combat the role corporations played in the downfall of the American economy, and their greed. I have to throw a thought out there. Does greed necessarily involve bringing in the dough? We can agree that the companies such as AIG, GM, Citigroup and Bank of America were greedy and incredibly stupid in their means of raking up profits and/or spending.
Insurance giant AIG was giving out bad loans to people who could not afford them. General Motors was spending too much on the United Auto Workers getting raises and benefits. Citigroup and Bank of America, in the CliffNotes version, gave loans to people to live in McMansions when they should have been in Cracker Jack boxes.
If these were small businesses that were going bankrupt, then they would have fallen and the doors closed, plain and simple. The aforementioned companies should have been left to collapse. Their size, which we often heard as justification, was no need for three federal bailouts. When the news broke about AIG giving its employees raises, as was dictated in their contracts, taxpayers and Capitol Hill were livid. Are we really shocked, like when we see a well-meaning parent reward a satanic, screaming adolescent by making excuses for the ill behavior? In essence, that’s what the bailouts did for these companies.
I mentioned the bailout because it is damning. Assuming these too-big-to-fail companies did collapse, it would directly affect the investors, employees and whoever else did business with them. There would be a chance for others who were not involved to be spared the aftermath. Not now. These bailouts are coming from taxpayers, and no one escapes taxes.
We can agree that, yes, Wall Street did play a significant role in the recession. But it was Congress that authorized the bailouts. The costs in order: $180 billion to AIG; $25 billion to the auto industry; $280 billion to Citigroup; and $142.2 billion to Bank of America. This comes from the taxes we pay. If Wall Street was the cut that started the economic collapse, Congress threw salt on the wound.
Going back to the question I asked about greed, consider this: we are heavily taxed as a country. Taxes are to help support the government. But look at what else taxes, also known as money those on Main Street could be keeping in their pockets, goes to support. This is all covered by the economic stimulus plan passed in 2009 that was supposed to grow the economy: $15,000 to get mice drunk, $500,000 towards teapot museums, $1.8 million to get pigs to stop being so stinky and, my personal favorite, $211,509 to study olive fruit flies… in Paris, France.
Most of us know what earmarks, or pork barrel spending is, and I don’t think I need to explain how pandering works. Remember when I asked whether greed necessarily involves bringing in the dough? It also applies to sending out money to such long-term, useless projects.
So, dear Occupiers, do not get offended. You mean well, your anger is reasonable, but personally I do not see protesting as being the most effective means. Anyone can sit or stand with a sign in Times Square. What good is that when the most effective means is at your disposal, yet for some reason people do not use it as often as they should? My solution: voting out of power the politicians who worsen the cut. Get rid of ‘em, and see if any progress is made. I bet it will be.
