Occupied With A Rigged System

I’ve spent a lot of time with the “Occupy Fort Wayne” group during the past couple of weeks. I’ve had a chance to have individual conversations with many of them as well as seeing how they are portrayed in the local media. Obviously, some of these sources have such strong biases that they have no intention of looking for the truth. Others who are more sincere face what is admittedly a daunting task of writing about people who at times actually seem to not want to be understood.

If you’re going to ask me what the group is all about, I would still be hard pressed to come up with a concise answer. But to help give some degree of understanding to those who truly are trying to understand, I have picked two recent news stories to focus upon. My analysis here might help to provide some insight into the similarities and differences between OFW and YOU!

The first story is about how Indiana’s Attorney General Greg Zoeller is trying to convince Congress to not allow telemarketers to start using our cell phones as their garbage cans. I think, overwhelmingly, the members of OFW that I have met would support Zoeller’s position on this. I also think that the citizens of Indiana would overwhelmingly support this position. And I think that OFW would overwhelmingly not care whether the man who is defending their right to privacy and to be free from harassment is a Republican or a Democrat before declaring their support for him. But I think many others would.

The second story is about how President Obama is ‘threatening’ to do something that should have been done decades ago. He wants to give the public access to a list of every request for spending by a federal agency that is being made by any member of Congress. Seems like a pretty simple concept “It’s our money, and you work for us, so tell us exactly what it is you propose to do with the trillions of dollars you are borrowing and spending.” I believe this kind of transparency would be supported by most Americans and overwhelmingly by OFW.

In fact, the only ones opposed to it would be the campaign donors who use these hidden channels as a means of gaining returns for their investments (bribes!) And while the vast majority of OFW members would not care whether it was a Democrat or Republican who was trying to give them what they need and deserve, most Americans still would. The Democrats see this as transparency, while the Republicans see it as a ‘threat’. And you can be assured that if it was a Republican president doing this same thing, the partisan hacks on both sides would immediately switch places.

If I had more time I’d dig up more stories, but just these two are enough to give a general idea of the point I am trying to make. The majority of Americans don’t want the government to give corporations the right to harass them, and the majority will also not be surprised when the government most likely listens to the corporations who pay them rather than the people who elect them. On these two points the majority of Americans think exactly like the majority of OFW protestors do.

And while the majority of Americans want transparency - to know how the government spends and proposes to spend their money, they will not be too surprised when the corporations pay the politicians enough to convince them this is a bad idea. And on these two points OFW is on the same page as the majority.

So here’s the real difference between most Americans and those involved in OFW. Most Americans continue to filter their entire world view through the two-party mirage that convinces them that there is a real difference between the two choices on most issues, while most occupiers have awakened to the fact that this is not true. Most Americans will greatly subdue the rage the feel inside when it is perpetrated by their party of choice, under the mistaken assumption that their support will make a difference. The occupiers know that neither the Democrats or the Republicans give a damn about you, me, or 99% of the population of this country.

So the difference on policy is nil, because we all want transparency and to be free from unwarranted harassment. But the difference on action is great. Because so many Americans are still convinced that if they play just one more hand at the table they will finally be able to walk away with the big win, and the occupiers have finally figured out the tables are rigged so that (no matter how many pennies the individual players might trade among themselves) the big dollars always end up going to the House.


http://www.indystar.com/article/20111102/NEWS/111102012/Attorney-General-Greg-Zoeller-testify-before-Congress-against-bill-gutting-do-not-call-law

http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/name-and-shame-obama-may-go-public-with-lawmakers-funding-requests-20111105