Person of the year

It's been a couple of days since I have visited this blog and I'm sorry about that, but I can't write unless I have something to say, I'm funny that way.

That said, I just read where Time Magazine has named the Protester as their person of the year. How could it have been any one else. Since early this year when the Arab Spring began in Egypt and spread like wildfire through the Middle East, we have seen a record number of protest spring up throughout the world.

In New York City last summer a small number of orderly peaceful protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park on Wall Street and called themselves Occupy Wall Street. The media ignored them. Others however were paying attention. Soon Occupy protests were springing up in Cites all across the Country and soon around the world. Obviously a raw nerve had been touched. The media took notice, but they were puzzled. Whats going on? What do they want? Who's leading these people? Who do they answer too? Pundits around the world were asking these questions.

"Somethings happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear" Buffalo Springfield 1968. Sorry my roots are showing. I had to throw that in from my own protest days. Ah to be young again.

I Have spent some time with the Occupy Denver protesters and have learned a little about where they are coming from. I think I know enough to try to give voice to some of their issues, but in no way do I claim to be an expert. These young people are Intelligent, dedicated and determined. they are also very much committed to non violence. That much I know for a fact. I would love to be more involved in their cause but I'm a bit too old and a bit too female to camp out in Civic Center Park.

Lets go to what I perceive to be the root of this movement. Basically it comes down to a broken promise. When FDR signed the New Deal into Law in the 1930s it initiated the development of the largest and most affluent  Middle Class in  the history of this country. Along with this came a implied promise, that became known as the American Dream. It said no matter where you were born, no matter how wealthy or poor your parents were, if you worked hard, studied hard , did good in school and got a good education, you could achieve all your goals. The sky was the limit, anyone no matter how modest your beginnings could grow up to be President of the United States of America. That promise has been broken. Who broke it? That is a good question.

The place to start is the 1980 Election of Ronald Regan, the icon of the GOP, The Republican party has become a cult and Regan is their figurehead. To hear them say it, He single handily won the Cold War, defeated the Soviet Union, and tore down the Berlin Wall. None of these things are true, but one thing he did do is declare war on the Middle Class. How did he conduct this war that continued for the next 30 years. It's complected but the simple explanation is Taxes. deregulation and so called free trade. He started the trend to raise taxes on the Middle class, lower taxes on the rich and deregulate every thing under the control of the big Wall Street bankers. O and to top it all off we got talked into so called free trade polices that sent all our manufacturing jobs overseas.

After 30 years of these polices the Middle Class was decimated, there were no jobs to be had and to top it all off the banksters on Wall Street had crashed the economy by gambling the fortunes of the Middle class on bad loans and making millions by betting against their own gambles. Don't ask me how, I don't know how they did it, I only know that they were able to get away with it because all of the regulations against what they did were removed by a series of Administrations over the last 30 years, both Republican and Democratic.

So now we are here in 2011, Unemployment has been at or above 9% for four years. Foreclosure's are at an all time high and the end is nowhere in sight. If you are a 21 year old collage graduate, you probably are hundreds of thousands of dollars in dept to student loans and the only job you can find has you asking, do you want fries with that. I wonder why they are mad. So why Occupy Wall Street. Because as Baby Face Nelson once said, "That where the money is". In this case the money that is sitting in the coffers of the Wall Street Bankers (two trillion in cash, the most ever) is money that should be circulating in the economy, stimulating jobs and helping the middle class climb out of the current depression.

That is the short version. the why of the situation, in future blogs I will try to go into what they want and how they hope to archive it, I will even try to explore the question of leadership. at least from the perspective of this old activist.