Via iStock Photo/mathieukor
The Occupy Wall Street movement has gained considerable traction in the four weeks since it started. Moreover, it’s gained the attention of the media and the general public. Reactions to the fiery determination of the so-called 99% to be heard is causing either head-scratching bewilderment, vehement cheering or scathing vitriol. The Occupiers have been compared to the tea party, civil rights protesters, and the populist uprisings of the Arab world.
For those who don’t know, Occupy Wall Street is an ad hoc group of dissatisfied citizens who are protesting the actions of big Wall Street firms by staging an on-going protest. There are sister protests taking place in other cities. The message they’re sending is that corporate greed and profit-mongering have enhanced the wealth of the few and caused the downfall of the many. Taking the uprisings in the Arab world as a model, the protesters mean to stand there until something changes.
I don’t think anything will change. Not this way anyhow.
I could go on at length about how to organize a grassroots effort to maximize media opportunities and how to craft universal talking points that convey clearly the goals of the movement. But that’s not what the Occupiers are about. They are a show of mass, an attempt to put faces to the statistics. They are the spiritual children of other peaceable movements to evoke change and their goals are good ones. The playing field today is not even and that is entirely because wealth has been aggregated by corporations and the very wealthy, leaving not enough for the rest of America. The message the Occupiers are sending is “Something needs to change” and that message is 100% true.
But answer me this: who has the power to evoke the necessary changes? And what incentive do they have to do so?
We are at the mercy of two groups, corporations and legislators. They are in bed with each other and until they get out of that bed and move into separate rooms, nothing will change.
You see, corporations have no social conscience and exist to make money. They will do everything in their power to make money and will only change if there is more money to be made by doing so or if they are forced to do so by the law. The investment firms the Occupiers object to will not lose money over this protest. The Occupiers are not their customers. So they lose nothing in this, no mater how many people march on lower Manhattan. Unless the marchers are major stockholders or clients. And they aren’t.
Legislators should have a social conscience and be willing to create rules that force the distribution of wealth by corporations in times such as these but they won’t. Because the corporations give generously to legislator’s re-election campaigns and those donations buy access to legislators. Legislators meet with their biggest donors and listen to their concerns. The may not always act in a donor’s best interest, but they know what the donor’s best interest is because they take the time to sit with them. Make no mistake, campaign contributions buy access and they buy favorable treatment.
And those contributions are vital to getting elected. You cannot be elected to office in America without money. Gobs and gobs and gobs of money. The kind of money that only the institutions that the Occupiers are protesting have.
Corporations will not change. They will keep paying for access and keep gaining favors. Legislators will not force change because they need they money to stay in their seats.
What’s the solution then? Campaign reform. We need to remove all private money from political campaigns. All of it. Every cent, from the $50 that my grandfather gave Obama’s 2012 campaign to the millions corporate Political Action Committees are allowed to throw around since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. If private money is removed from the process, then votes will be the only form of influence left and citizens, like the Occupiers, will have a louder voice. In my opinion, that would level the playing field for individuals. It would disenfranchise corporations from the electoral process, but corporations, despite what some may say, are not people. And the government is supposed to be for the people and of the people.
I wish the Occupy Wall Street movement the best. I hope that I’m wrong and that a show of determination, of people in the streets will bring the change we need. I think that the problem is onion-like in its layers and Occupy Wall Street has only begun to peel them back. But they’ve made a start and the longest journey begins with one step.
Rebekah is the author of the blog Mom-in-a-Million, the column So Here’s The Thing at the Washington Times Communities and a contributor to The DC Moms.
This post originally appeared on her blog Mom-in-a-Million.
I’m pretty convinced that Occupy Wall Street was a huge motivating force in at least 2 of the President’s major economic moves as of late: offering mortgage holders the chance to refinance mortgages that might be over 6% to 4.1% and the Student Loan Reform that he moved up to “next year.”
I don’t exactly know what I think about Occupy Wall Street, but they appear to have accomplished more than Congress has in 3 years in the last 3 months.
Also, Obama’s staff has been pretty clear that it will follow the lead of Occupy Wall Street in the coming election, even attempting to hijack the movement for its own reelection benefit, which means Occupy Wall Street is already redefining election issues and will continue to do so.
Keep it up 99%, I’m digging the results.