Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party

The people that run the world, the people that set the direction for societies are scared. Unfortunately for them, they are making the same mistakes that have been made in the past when confronted by a population that is fed up and has nothing to hope for. The lies have been too many for too long and all legitimacy is being lost.

We have 30 million people without jobs in the United States, most houses are upside down, the people's retirements and pensions have been raided in order to give money to thieves on Wall Street and the government and internet are destroying and idea of privacy. All the spin in the world cannot keep people from seeing this and that is the problem for the media and those who support the status quo.

In Boston and Denver police have used force to break up peaceful demonstrations. This type of response will only have one effect and that is to further separate the police from the people and that is when things get worse for a society. People really need to learn from history.

We no longer live in the 1930's and people will not willingly go into permanent poverty, we have learned how to work together to protest, we learned that in the 60's and the kids of today are even better at it. People today are also much more willing to use violence.

When both the "Occupy Wall Street" and "Tea Party" began the media's first effort was to ridicule them. That is an indication of just how much the media is controlled by the status quo, by the powers that be. Next the media attempted to limit the change being sought, they spouted off about how these movements are vague and don't have clear points. They said that the movements needed to focus on a couple of specifics in order to be effective. They still don't get it, these movements are not about a couple of things, these are about people who no longer have any faith in how our society is run.

You can attempt to pit people against one another, divide and conquer; but, that doesn't work when all sides are against the system. This is not about left or right or conservative or liberal, this is a lack of confidence in all of them. While the wealthy complain that this is about class warfare they are correct, that is exactly what it is and it doesn't get better.

The issues are really simple in the end. The Tea Party movement wants what we had back again. The Tea Party wants this country to play by the rules; but, they see how the rules only apply to us and not to the wealthy or well connected. Arnold Schwarzenegger demonstrated this the most clearly when he paroled a murderer because he was the son of a political ally, Arnold said that is what you do for friends. That shows a complete contempt for the rules that apply to the rest of us. The Tea Party knows that it us against them.

The problem is that there are now two distinct societies, that is what happens when you destroy the middle class. There are the rich and the poor. The currently popular attempt by the media is to say that the protestors should really blame the baby boomers for their problems. Anything other than what it is really about, it is about the distribution or wealth and the distribution of rights.

When all else fails the media attempts to make people see things in terms of religion (think about the needless argument over whether or not Mormons are Christians, why would any politician even bother bringing it up) or race or age, they question the motives of people, they question their logic, they eventually promote the use of force and when that happens the government loses any ability to communicate with the protestors because they will no longer believe anything they are told and we are just about there.

Revolutions happen in stages, they grow into revolution when the government fails to give in to the population. 1% of the population owns 99% of everything, how could this possibly be fair? Is it fair that the rules don't apply to some of us? Is it fair that the educational system ensures that most people will never even get a chance to compete? The game is rigged and everybody knows it, the response to the protestors only exposes it more. If the police begin really being abusive to our children then they will no longer be respected.

I do not promote revolution, I remember history. It was so obvious to everyone when the protests in Egypt occurred or when they occurred in Libya, it is no different here except there haven't been any deaths yet. The protests are not going away, they are only growing and they are growing internationally. Some of the wealthy and powerful get this, Warren Buffet gets it and always has. Bloomberg does not get it, Cain does not get it. This will be a seminal moment in history, this decade will. The internet has allowed people to see just how rigged the game is and more importantly that the people in power don't care about them or fairness.

Societies need a strong middle class to survive and thrive, to grow. When you eliminate the middle class, you eliminate incentives and condone corruption at all levels. When the people in power do not follow the rules, their rules have no power.

We now have the forum for a real leader to emerge, he will be the one who is able to take the aspirations of both the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street crowds and combine them into a new vision of government and how we distribute wealth. People do not have a problem with people becoming successful because of hard work or being smarter, they have a problem with people becoming wealthy because the government gave them different rules than the rest of us. People have a problem with you stealing their pensions and then blaming them for your theft. The police in New York would be well advised to remember that a man who had lost tens of millions of their pension funds and then said that their pensions were too generous.

"Things fall apart, the center will not hold". Without a middle class, there is no center, there is nothing holding people together other than shared outrage. There is nobody to support because it is all just a show and the audience knows it. Let us say that we manage to avoid a revolution, what will these people teach their children? They will teach them that the system is rigged, they don't have a chance and to not trust the police. They will teach them to hate the wealthy and ignore the laws. That would be a slow death for the country.

Is there a way to correct this situation? Yes, there is; but, it requires fairness and it requires justice. One of the protestors thought that college should be free. People in the media accused him of being a socialist and crazy. Well, this country became strong because of the public education system. There is no reason for a kid to spend $150,000 to get a degree just so he can be poor. There is no incentive.

The protesters believe in private property, they believe in consumerism, they like the cookies of this world. They are mad because they no longer believe they can share in having them and that is what they are being told by the media and the government. They are being told that they will have to work till they die, not have a pension, not have adequate medical care, never own a home, go for long periods without any work and that their lot in life will not get any better. At the same time they are being told that the connected ones will have whatever they like and not have to live by the same rules.

This is not a political post, this is a post on societies and how they collapse. This is a social post. What is amusing is that the powers in the United States don't even understand why Saudi Arabia escaped a revolution, the rich began giving people more, they started sharing more of the wealth. This is not about wealth, this is about the fair distribution of wealth, this is about putting an end to rewarding people for stealing your money. This is about not wanting to reward people for bad behaviour anymore.

In some cities they have attempted to remove the protesters, as if that would somehow cause the protests to end. Activity just goes underground and our institutions get compromised and weakened. The media hopes to pit the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street crowds against each other, to misdirect them; but, the reasons are all too obvious and it will not work except in the theater of the absurd that we call politics and this goes beyond politics because both groups know that the middle class has been destroyed and they don't have a chance for a decent life.

Who could honestly look their child in the eye and tell them that if they work hard, educate themselves and act with integrity that they will have a decent life? That is the problem, no honest parent would say that anymore. Worse yet, who would believe them if they did tell them such a thing?

In all things act in love and in all things be peaceful.