A Tsunami does not crash upon the shore in one great wall of water, chaos and destruction. It comes ashore in waves. The first wave is small, barely noticeable and easily ignored. The Occupy movement now taking place in hundreds of locations across this country is that first small wave. These gatherings are a symptom of our dysfunctional American family. These are Americans who have been shut out, locked out, disenfranchised and left to the vicissitudes of the free market.
I spent a week with both "Stop the Machine" and Occupy D.C. in McPherson Park in Washington. I had a chance to get to know these people and I have listened to their stories, stories of unemployment. A 26 year old man named Kevin who lost his job and his home after his IT job was outsourced to India. I listened to a mother who lost her son in Afghanistan and another mother who lost her son through a lack of health insurance. Their list is endless, their grievances are multiple.
President Barack Obama said of the Occupy Wall Street protests, "In some ways, they're not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party," at the recent dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial. President Obama said that the Occupy movement was blaming the wrong people. It is truly amazing, that a man once considered so astute could be so dumb. The complete misunderstanding of this movement, what it is and what it is all about is almost frightening. Barack Obama is supposed to be the good guy here and yet, he's clueless. Republican Eric Cantor called Occupy Wall Street protestors, "a mob"; Herman Cain told an audience that the occupiers should all blame themselves for not being rich to thunderous partisan applause.
What these politicos fail to comprehend is that the Occupy movement is about the breakdown and political failure which is occurring today in the United States. The American political process has broken down and has become as a dead armadillo along the side of the highway. Posing, posturing and promising are no longer are enough to placate a pressured and pushed-to-the-edge populace. Barack Obama was presented to that populace in 2008 as a stealth Democratic messiah, offering hope and change to a population beleaguered after eight long years of the Bush Administration.
Obama capitalized on the electorate's desire for a government which actually listened and paid attention to their concerns and here is the great disconnect between candidate Obama and Obama the President. The voters voted for a Democrat and elected a Republican, the outsider who promised change has delivered a near perfect continuity with the Bush administration.
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