jonnystripes:

My view on Occupy Wall Street:

Although this may come as a surprise, I really think that the movement has a good thing going.  Although I may not agree with their conduct, they are standing on solid ground.  This battle is about much more than Wall Street, it’s about the American Dream.  Start out with nothing -> make something of yourself -> work your ass off -> get somewhere in life -> keep working your ass off -> move up in the world.  The trouble is the people who have done that forgot how they got there and now are making it impossible for anyone to come from nothing.  All they are concerned with is profits for their shareholders.

What they don’t seem to care about is how much volatility they are invoking in the market.  What may be nothing to them is everything that people have worked for so that they can retire and be able to live without working.

Here is the other side, and I will fight this concept to the death: Capitalism.  For the past for the past 230 years that is the principal this country has stood on.  Although people may not like it, some of the greatest developments the world have ever seen came from people trying to make a buck.

We must find a way to make both ideas work in harmony or we are digging our own grave as a nation.  Although I don’t believe in big government, I don’t know if there is another way to handle it.

Capitalism is the purest sense of human nature in the market place, but it doesn’t have to be the end all be all. But because of how powerful it is, its really difficult to fundamentally change it and find a harmony because of the institution. But capitalism does create a numbness that makes us constantly feel a void to want more stuff. Advertising tells us if we can’t have real connections with others then at least we can have connections through our possessions. Which basically means accumulation of crap becomes the substitute for community.

Occupy (insert whatever) is about community too, not just inequality. Its about people who want the government to represent the people’s opinion (which they are supposed to do in the first place) in a national and subnational community. Its about standing up to the richest few people who got their lucky connections and refuse to make changes. Poverty or just poorness is political and social inequality issue that isn’t just a phenomenon in the United States. 

The relationship between the government and big business is so bad in the U.S. that our GiNi index is lower than China & Iran.

I see #occupy as a culmination of what people want: fairness & equality in system where they feel represented.