I'm embarrassed to admit that I really never gave this "Occupy Wallstreet" movement more than a passing glance in my newspaper. I read about it, filed the information in my brain and continued on about my day. It was always there, but in the back of my clogged up mind. I knew it was a politically charged protest that had to do with corporate greed and economic inequality and that was just about all I needed to know.Then yesterday and this morning, I began reading numerous stories about the power of the people participating in this movement and their plight to make change. I read about Rose Gudiel, a California woman who lost her home to eviction last month. She had been fighting a loosing battle and facing foreclosure for two years against Fannie Mae. When the family tried to pay the money they owed, the bank repeatedly told Rose there was nothing she could do, that her case was closed, and that she was to be evicted on Sept 28. The family notified the bank that they would not go peacefully.
So with the power of Occupy behind them, Rose and her family camped outside their home to protest. They had decided that they were going to fight for what they believed was rightfully theirs and what happened next was nothing short of amazing.
Fannie Mae cancelled the eviction notice and offered Rose and her family a loan modification so that they could afford to keep their home.
Why?
Because maybe this movement is onto something.
Maybe not, but for people like Rose and her family this ia a major victory.
And maybe this is exactly what our country needs right now, a series of small victoires that will add up to major change.
And maybe, just maybe, this movement will Occupy more than a small part of this country's clogged up brain.
4 comments:
The biggest problem I am seeing with OCCUPY is that we have a thousand or so in NYC a couple of hundred in Detroit and such all over the nation and world but with such a convoluted message no one can say why pr what, just that the damn bucket has a rusted out hole in the bottom and we are leaking out.
If that one fight against Fannie Mae and the real estate rep were typical results many places then yes the effort (though one win is great) would be a shining example.
But just to say Wall Street quit buying our politicians or some such is not productive protest. They have not done a good job at moving people to do anything but follow a movement that has among the young become chic.
A few hundred thousand people on Wall Street and a few million people in DC would get the message out that we want some movement from elected officials to clean up the mess using new mops and brooms they allowed the financial institutions to perpetrate on the country. Sadly though both sides are looking to harness this movement for their own political goals.
This is the beginning of the final showdown on the economy for the next generation will a good wage be $35,000 for a middle class life and what will that life include? I could go for that if we had massive deflation in the global economy and forgiveness of debt equal to the amount the CEO's of the big 6 Wall Street banks make.
But that is my desire, you get a hundred people together and guess what yoou have a hundred different grievances and that is one of the major differences between now and the 60/70's.
I am sincerely at a loss for the Occupy Movement. What are they trying to accomplish? Who is being affected by this movement? What is the driving force....guilt?
I just don't get it....
Thanks to the "cigar poking" administration, people who could not possibly afford a mortgage were given one as it was "fair" and they too could "have the american dream." Now years later when they took a balloon mortgage, guess what, it ballooned and they get repossesed when they default. Simple math. Now people want to take it out on the corporations that provide jobs and blame them instead of blaming the idiots on captiol hill. They just need to take their lazy entitlement seeking asses back to work.
Just as bad was all of the decades of "Most Favored Nation Trade Status" we gave to China which gave them huge inroads to our economy for thirty/forty years while they waited to be given the nod to join the global economy all of which started tremendously huge trade deficits and the off shoring of our manufacturing base to other (China, Mexico) countries. which by the by have bot yet OPENED their markets to an American made good.
All which is a huge portion of a continuing trade deficit with China etc. which costs jobs. To say that Clinton era rules on housing caused the housing crisis is fallicious...what the easing of those regulations ope4ned up credit to people who normally would not qualify for it, the banks and lenders still had the responsibility to sell a fair product to consumers who could prove qualification.
But that makes my point 3 people 3 different reasons why there are protests. BUT if you unify the message then you have a way to market that block of voters (ala Tea Party) so it may be better to not have a single issue.
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