Wall Street is Occupied

It's happening!  The revolution we've needed, the one I've felt brewing under the surface of our society, has finally begun!  There are thousands of people filling Wall Street in New York City, speaking for the millions of Americans who are finally fed up.  We're tired of struggling, of outrageous student debt, jobs that don't pay enough to live, being scammed out of our savings...  We're tired of the top 1% holding so much wealth while their special interest groups lobby with their almighty dollars to make changes to our system that hurt the other 99%.  Our schools are horrible, taxes are all out of proportion, the cost of living has increased much more quickly than wages, and our government is doing nothing to protect us.  They're totally fed by and beholden to these big corporations who are running our country into the ground. 

I've never paid a lot of attention to politics or finance.  Over the past few years I've tried to learn more about what's going on and it's completely crazy.  I understand why I didn't want to know.  We've been conditioned to look the other way.  We're mollified by T.V. and movies, video games and various other distractions.  We're pitted against one another  by "issues" that don't interfere with the corporate agenda.  I feel this fresh air blowing across the country.  We've finally woken up.  There are finally enough of us who don't want to look away anymore.  We want things to be better. 

The fact that this is happening in America is very important.  I have no crazy ideas that America is still the most "powerful" country, and certainly not the most wealthy, but we are the most watched.  I wish it wasn't that way but even if you look at the entertainment industry, someone can be wildly famous elsewhere and utterly unknown here, while most big American names are known in many other countries.  Who in America had heard of Alanis Morissette before "Jagged Little Pill"?  And she had two huge albums just north of the border.  Unfortunately, for a long time, we've also been one of the least politically active societies.

We're supposed to be the leaders of democracy.  I feel we, the people of the United States, have an obligation to the rest of the world to hold our government accountable.  We have freedoms that others don't.  So many people have risked so much the world over to rise up against corrupt systems.  We have it easy here, in a lot of ways, and that's been one of the problems.  We're finally outraged at ourselves.  We realize we have the power to change things and we're done being complacent.  Our forefathers sent us a lovely statement about what to do in times such as these.  :

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

(We should say why we're pissed.)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

(We all know that part, right?) 

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

(We, the People, are in charge.)

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their further security."

(People will put up with a lot of shit but at a certain point, enough is enough.)

My new favorite document is the Declaration of Independence.

  It's time.  Enough is certainly enough.  There are a lot of things wrong with this country and with the world.  People everywhere are taking steps, brave steps, to create change.  I'm buoyed by this.  Those people down on Wall Street, and the others all over the country in support, and all over the world in similar battles, they're hope incarnate.  These people are heros, they're our voices and our outrage, they're pursuing justice for millions.  God and Goddess bless them and protect them!