Why I support the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the 99%

Neither Social injustice in America, nor inequality in opportunity began with the Occupy movement. Many of us have felt the impact of social injustice, declining income levels, eroding workers rights, and unemployment many months before people began camping out in tents to protest the power of the wealthiest 1 % over the rest of us. What the Occupy movement did do was provide us with the knowledge that we were not alone in our frustration over becoming slaves to large corporations and the intent of big business to increase profit at any cost, regardless of its impact on humanity.

My Story

During over a year of underemployment working for minimum wage while holding a Masters Degree, I blogged about my fear that most of us were becoming nothing more than serfs who serve large corporations in the interest of big business. Sometimes It seemed I was way out in left field, and seldom heard by anybody else. The 2009 budget cuts on social services left me without an income large enough to support myself, and often feeling looked down upon and misunderstood, because it took over a year to find work in my field that again allowed me to carry my own weight.

My life improved somewhat when I found counseling work, but my job came with a commute of an hour and a half to work and back daily, and less money than I earned ten years ago in the face of today's much higher cost of living. Due to the reduction in funds for social services, my agency is understaffed, we often work overtime, and skip our lunch hours to get the work done. It is my sad understanding that I am not alone, and in the business sector today this is more the rule than the exception.

Workers rights and the 1 %

Everybody; however, is not suffering from the present economic recession we hear so much about that is reducing many of us to little more than serfdom. In fact, the wealthiest 1 %, and some others, are earning huge profits by working those who have jobs longer hours and paying them less than they earned ten years ago. While the wealthiest 1 % are doing so, they are also paying less taxes in proportion to their incomes than the other 99 % of us, thanks to many loopholes in the tax laws and the Bush Tax cuts that only apply to the wealthiest Americans. While many are unemployed, employers prefer to work a few people long hours, meaning that workers earn less money for their time, and employers earn more, while many Americans have no work at all. Fear of unemployment and the belief that there is not enough to go around allows the 1 %, and some others, to take unfair advantage of those who have jobs, and make larger profits by not hiring those who need them.

The 1% and Credit Card debt

Credit cards are a bad practice for people who do not have enough money to pay in cash what they charge on them. In my case, I had credit cards with very low credit limits, and paid them in full every month. Unfortunately, I was unable to pay my creditors during the year and a half I worked for minimum wage. While I was allowed to close the accounts, I was informed the late charges and over the limit fees would continue. I ended up with balances of over $1800 on cards that had originally had $300 credit limits.

I began settling with creditors, and paying debts off pretty soon after going to work; however, my long commute requires that over a fourth of my income be spent on transportation, and my income is lower than it was ten years ago. My low income and long commute made it difficult for me to satisfy all of my creditors at once, and I ended up with a judgement against me that would have required my employer to pay a particularly aggressive creditor a fourth of my income for a duration of four months until the balance was paid in full. Actually, such a garnishment would have cost me my job since it would not have left me with enough money to support my daily commute to work and back.

Luckily for me, I had the insight to select legal insurance as one of my employment insurance benefits, and saw an attorney almost immediately after learning the garnishment was about to take place. He advised me to inform the creditor the garnishment would cost me my job, and to ask for a settlement in order to avoid bankruptcy. To my surprise the creditor hotly refused "to settle with you (me) at all," or to make any changes in the garnishment, and I was forced into bankruptcy the day before Thanksgiving 2011, to keep from losing my job after over a year of settling with creditors and paying many of them off.

Corporations are not people, and have no compassion. For them, profit is bottom line and all that matters. Corporate person-hood is wrong, because corporations do not have souls. I support the 99% because I want to abolish any concept of corporate person-hood. We do not need big rich arrogant businesses controlling both political parties in the way they do today, because they have no compassion or concern for humanity.

My political Stand

1. I am neither a republican nor a democrat because the 1 % own both parties. I supported Obama in the most recent election, but feel little will change as long as wealthy corporations control both political parties, and are allowed to keep their donations a secret. They are not people, and should not be treated as if they are. They are powerful financial establishments capable of using money and propaganda to further their own ends.

2. I support workers rights. We need to uphold all labor laws and bring back the 40 hour work week. Management should not be able to work people longer hours for the sake of profit and lining the pockets of the wealthy 1 %, while many are unemployed and needing jobs. Corporate CEOs should not be earning 600 times what they pay their workers. This is greed, pure and simple. No one is worth that much, and with lower pay at the top, more people could have jobs. Minimum wage needs to be set at a level at which people can realistically support themselves, and corporations who choose to outsource for slave labor overseas should be taxed so heavily for doing so that they fail to make any profit by their outsourcing. There is a way to put more of the money in the hands of the many, and to stop the so-called economic recession, which I suspect is actually propaganda by the 1 % to justify working people longer hours and paying them less to increase their profit margin. Don't forget that people once owned slaves and had no scruples about it. The same people will make slaves of us today if we allow it.

3. I support regulated capitalism, and equal opportunity. The problem with unregulated capitalism is what we're seeing right now, a few of the people end up with all the wealth, freedom and power, and everyone else becomes little more than slaves to them. Peace is the presence of justice, not merely the absence of physical violence.

4. Government is not a bad thing. Some things need to be done for the common good without a need for profit. Operations such as the military, police, repairing roads and bridges, and health-care should not be for profit entities. Schools, libraries, and food should be available to all. There are some things we do better together as a group working for the common good than we do as businesses desiring profit as bottom line. These things should be done for the good of the community as a whole, not for the profit margin of the few.

5. We need to change our values as a society. Humanity should be valued over money and profit. Usury in the form of the erosion of workers rights, credit card late charges and over the limit fees that increase debt to ten times what was actually borrowed, and denial of medical care to people based on income are inhumane practices reflecting a greedy sick society. The desire to make or increase a profit does not justify anything and everything business wants to do. These are not the concepts America was founded on when we referred to it as a country offering liberty and justice for all.