We've seen the Tea Party "take back the country" in the U.S. Congress for the last year or so. That was certainly a howling success. Now we have the Occupy Wall Street folks occupying parks throughout the nation and, to some extent, the world. What's the deal?
In the tradition of the early 1930s "Hoover-villes," the OWS folks are protesting a financial system that they perceive (not altogether incorrectly) takes the profits and the high salaries, but leaves the losses of a huge fraudulent mess, the September 2008 credit freeze and its fallout, to be paid for by ordinary U.S. citizen-taxpayers in the name of bailing out companies that are "too big to fail."
As a result of the fall 2008 "festivities," the country's economy is a mess and will probably continue to be for several years, regardless of who is in control. No one went to jail. Hardly anyone is even being investigated. The American public is awakening to the fact that they've been had, and not only just recently, but for the last 30 years, by a federal government that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of private organizations who, through lobbyists and revolving doors, buy the government with the huge piles of money needed by the politicians for election campaigns and the use the government for their own narrow purposes.
The reaction to this in its less-educated form is the Tea Party. A more-educated, but still jobless, incarnation can be seen in the OWS folks. There's a rage afoot in the country, and heaven help anyone who becomes its target, whether the rage comes from the right, the left, or just out in left field.
People don't talk to each other much these days, much less listen, but it would be wise for each of us to find some ordinary Joes to talk to. Many of these ordinary folks aren't buying anything that's being sold to them by either major political party, and a revolt is on its way. Whether anyone can break the strangle hold that monied interests have on the legislative branch of the U.S. government remains to be seen, but hide and watch. Stranger things have happened.
_________________________________
Note to *all* current political office holders, Democrat, Republican, Independent, liberal, conservative, genius and idiot: pack your bags; there's a really good chance you're headed home after the next election. To paraphrase the old movie line, "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more."
