Originally Posted by
Joe Walther
For starters, you could have gone the positive route by explaining what you’re trying to accomplish; more shirtsleeve Americans are confused about this than aren’t. Then you could have listed some of the movement’s accomplishments; there are several positive ones.
For example, the Occupy Movement began as a local protest and spread to the national scene faster than any I’ve witnessed since the ‘60s. And, in a relatively short span, the movement has:
Brought the notion of an unbalanced economic playing field to the forefront for the first time in over 4-decades. Whether or not people wish to admit it, that playing fireld is skewed to the wealthy side of the equation.
Called attention to how stifling the impact of student loan debt is on young college, professional and trade school graduates, especially an equally crippling whammy of a purely stagnant job market.
Inspired a wide variety of actions in trying to prevent foreclosures and evictions for many beleaguered home owners and tenants.
The list is much longer than this and most certainly is not something we’re going to hear about on Fox News and MSNBC. As well, we’re not going to hear about this stuff on many other broadcast outlets simply because it doesn’t rise to a level of emotional controversy that increases ratings to the PROPER level.
Instead, your movement comes off like a group social antagonists in silly looking costumes, speaking to the media in endless strings of dysfluency-laden grammatical expressions—not to mention the fact that some of you smell like you haven’t been near soap and water for weeks on end.
When so many working class people appear completely confused as to Occupy’s leadership and mission, it should behoove the GROUP to be more explicit.
Speaking ONLY for myself, I find a few glaringly illogical flaws in Occupy’s standard rhetoric.
First, you seem intent (ad nauseum) on repealing tax cuts for the rich. The problem is that it makes YOUR cause seem irrelevant in that the Democrats have been harping on this for decades. And, the fact is that we’re not going to balance the economic playing field with tax cuts; we’ll get there by redefining the terms “investment” income versus “ordinary” income and applying the tax code across the board for everyone—not just the rich.
Second, I’m unaware of any successful progressive movement that failed to arrive at its pinnacle of moral authority from a sincere effort to elevate legitimately marginalized people. Instead, you seem to be echoing the call to tear down the rich, including those who have earned their riches honestly.
You fail to realize that capitalism in combination with the right mixture of legitimate government regulation has never been a venue that guarantees economic Camelot for ANYONE.
Whenever it’s properly applied in combination with government regulation aimed a balancing the playing field, no other system can touch it relative to it ability to guarantee everyone an equal CHANCE at economic Camelot. THIS should be your rallying cry, but it isn’t; or at least it hasn’t been so far.
Whether you realize it or not, you’re advocating socialism, which is not a sharing of the wealth but merely a sharing of the misery. It’s why its exclusive use has NEVER worked.
Third, Occupy’s implication—and often using direct quotes of his—that the movement is echoing Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People Campaign is disingenuous at best and an outright fraud at worst.
You cannot include in your 99% legitimately poor people throughout the country who can’t get enough to eat along with some 6-$figure professionals wailing over the fact that their mortgages are under water.
Anyway, you could have chosen the positive route but you didn’t; you chose the asshole route, which on Talk Delaware will get you delivered to digital oblivion as well as being permanently emblazoned on myriad ignore lists.
And, as for your admonitions relative to “attitude,” they neither incite anyone to action nor do they worry anyone. Attitude alone has never accomplished anything worth accomplishing. It amounts to nothing more than empty, cheap talk. Had our Forefathers used attitude alone, we’d all be speaking with British accents and hailing the Queen.
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