Occupy Wall Street Harms Working Americans

Occupy Wall Street began as the alleged American version of the “Arab Spring,” that movement in the Middle East that so far has toppled dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and which has embroiled Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria in civil conflict.  Over the past three months, the Occupy Wall Street movement has metastasized into protests in multiple U.S. cities, and engendered Occupy clones in Occupy Seattle, Occupy Oakland, and so forth.

Occupy Wall Street Protester Verbally Abusing the Police

While the Occupy Wall Street movement has targeted the large financial institutions (many based, of course, on Wall Street), and has publicized the fact that much of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of the top 1% of the nation’s population, the movement’s physical tactics (occupying city parks, public spaces, marching in streets and causing traffic jams), really has not affected America’s rich elite by even one iota.  No, instead, the physical results of this movement’s protest tactics has been to inconvenience working Americans, those people who get up, leave the house they don’t really own (the bank owns a large percentage of the house), get into a car which they hope to pay off soon (again, the car really belongs to a large financial institution), go to work for less than their labor is really worth, and then get into the borrowed-money car to once again go home to the house they hope to truly own one day.  When Occupy Seattle protesters decided to sock it to Wall Street and the rich fat cats, they took the logical next step and decided to march from the University of Washington, and according to the Seattle P-I, “ At 4:30 p.m. there was a two-mile traffic backup in the University District, and on Capitol Hill there were backups on 10th Avenue East to Volunteer Park. Traffic overflowed to nearby bridges and created snarls around the University of Washington Medical Center.”  Now, if you are familiar with Seattle traffic, it is never very good, even on a good day.  As I live in the Seattle area, (and no, I was not in the traffic jam), I watched the mess on the local news, and heard callers to the next-morning’s call-in radio show discussing their experience as drivers in the mess. The point being, I doubt Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, local multi-billionaires were overly stressed by the woes of working-class Americans getting home to dinner late because of these protesters.

Another group of union-dues paying working class Americans who are thrust into the maw of the Occupy Wall Street protests are the police.  Defending the actions of the police during moments of civil unrest is never popular, but there are fewer jobs in this country with the high level of stress, danger, and injury for the workers than police work.  The lower-rank police officers take orders from their superiors.  The Chief of Police takes orders from the mayor of the city, or some other elected official.  The protesters, in the act of protesting, usually are breaking the law by occupying some space they don’t have a permit to be in, and are interfering with the movement of fellow citizens who are trying to go about their business (such as going home after “working for The Man,” and getting stuck protest-fueled traffic).  The police are called in to clear the way, and therein, some type of physical conflict occurs.  In Egypt or Libya, the authorities started shooting and beating people.  In America, non-lethal means are preferably used, such as picking people up and arresting them, or by the use of chemical agents such as tear gas or pepper spray.  You break the law, you should expect consequences.  You want to protest the fat cats on Wall Street and their lackeys in political power,  of course, the logical thing to do is occupy a college campus, a vital street in the city, or a small park no one ever heard of before in Manhattan.  If the Occupy Wall Street movement really had any guts, why not actually try to occupy the New York Stock Exchange, or, better yet, the offices of political leaders in Congress, or the Congress itself?  Gee, maybe that would actually upset the politicians who mouth nice comments about the “spontaneous” protest movement, and actually cause something to be done about the whole problem. 

The protesters have the constitutional and, perhaps a moral right to be upset about the unequal distribution of wealth in this country.  They have the right to let their voices be heard, but they do not have the right to significantly interfere with the lives of working-class Americans and they certainly do not have the right to engage in illegal acts that put innocent bystanders and the police at harm.  If this movement were serious and truly wanted to send a message to the 1% and their political lap dogs, (who, by the way, belong to both the Republican AND Democratic parties), then interfere with the congressmen and Senators going to and from work; interfere with the commute of those who work in the White House.  That is where the political power lies, and that is where true legislative change can occur.  Don’t take it out on regular Americans.  Remember, the folks in those traffic jams and in the police uniforms are all part of the 99% also.

Tags: economic policy, money in politics, occupy wall street, protests, seattle traffic, wall street, washington state