Some seem confused about what the Occupy Wall Street protests are about, protesters have been called un-American, free-loaders, uninformed, and worse. Many in politics and the media claim that they don't know what the protesters even want and question whether the protesters even know what they're protesting about.
The point of the protest is fairly simple and I assumed readily apparent and I think it's best illustrated by a failed Senate resolution that was highlighted on MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" tonight. While Mr. O'Donnell didn't make a correlation between the failed resolution and the protest I feel that it demonstrates what folks are upset about.
Senate Resolution 1323 is a simple one-page document that highlights a few facts and makes a statement about fairness. The resolution notes who has been winning over the past few decades and who has been losing over those same decades. All the resolution asks is that those who have been winning for so long contribute some to our debt reduction effort, it doesn't even go so far as to give an amount, all it does is say that it would be fair that those who have not been asked to contribute anything to our debt contribute something. Unfortunately this resolution failed and did not garner a single Republican vote.
Those who made up the top 1% of income earners in this country prior to the recession have been doing even better over the past couple of years than they were prior to the recession. Most in the top 1% pay a lower tax rate than the average American in the form of capital gains. And some of those in the top 1% were the very ones who caused our current financial predicament, and they still have their jobs and they haven't been asked to contribute anything to our recovery.
Those participating in Occupy Wall Street are representing the other 99% of the Americans, many of them prior to the recession had good paying jobs, paid their bills, and weren't drowning in their mortgage. They were doing exactly what was expected of them and were model citizens. Then suddenly in 2008 or 2009 they found themselves jobless due to the greed and illegal dealings of others and even though many of those business have since recovered they've now found they can make more money with less and are not hiring all of those jobs back. All debt reduction plans that have passed and those that actually have a chance of passing Congress only ask that those from the 99% who have already been wronged and are already struggling be the ones to give up more in the name of debt reduction. All the protesters want is for the top 1% to have to contribute just a little bit to our recovery (as do many of the 1%) and that maybe, just maybe, those who broke laws and caused our current economic situation actually face justice for their actions instead of collecting their record bonuses.
Is that really so hard to understand? I encourage you to read the Senate resolution, it's only one page and the statistics given couldn't be clearer. You can read it here.
