Don’t Say You Don’t Get It
As a lifelong lower-middle class (or impoverished, depending upon the year) girl surrounded by working class relatives and friends, most of the people I know either support the Occupy Wall Street cause or get it. Most of the people I know are either completely uninsured or under-insured (with so-called health care but no eye or dental, for example), unemployed or working multiple part-time jobs to try to get by, or even reluctantly using food stamps or the food pantry to feed their families. This is not the American Dream.
For most of the people I know, the American Dream is nowhere in sight.
But I also know a few people who are against the Occupy movement. Most of these people are working class folks who are stuck on the whole “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and are simply against anyone helping anyone else obtaining anything, and would likely even support closing public schools and Medicare. Some of them may even believe that they will someday attain the American Dream. I find both of these views highly flawed, but I understand them.
What I don’t understand, however, are the few outraged people—mostly the few very rich folks that I know—who claim to not get the movement at all. “But I don’t understand!” they whine as they pay people to wash their multiple vehicles or feed their children or clean their multiple homes. All you have to do is look at any middle class to impoverished neighborhood (start out at the trailer park I grew up in with two full-time working parents, lords and ladies), anyone who has to choose between medicine or food, gas or electricity, and you’ll know why.
In the United States, the average CEO makes more than 400 times the amount of money of his or her average employee—an obscenely huge amount compared to the rest of the developed world. Many corporations pay no taxes, while the tax man is ready to garnish my pay when I can’t afford to pay a $200 state tax bill. I had to make monthly payments while 30 Fortune 500 companies paid no taxes whatsoever. You really don’t see an injustice here?
And how about the fact that these people with so much money control the politicians with their donations and PACs, effectively casting hundreds of votes compared to the single vote we have on election day. This inequality is grotesque as the rich control who gets to run and who votes for what in Congress.
We don’t want YOUR money. We want a fairer playing field with adequate pay and health care, and a world where each vote is equal. We want your money out of politics. All we want to do is feed our families and be able to make a living without stressing over finances and multiple jobs every day of our lives. It really isn’t much to ask for—and it’s long overdue.