Our nation is on the verge of something wonderful and frightening -- Democracy in Action! Hundreds of thousands of Americans are choosing to voice their displeasure with the status quo and are doing so by standing up -- and sitting down. From Wall Street in New York to Boston, Denver, Richmond, New Orleans and L.A. -- and notably on the corner of 16th Street and 4th Avenue in Yuma -- citizens are posting their signs and participating in Democracy.
When the Tea Bag Party chose to do the same thing in many town hall meetings over the past few years, the right-wing media hailed them as true Americans with the determination to fight for their beliefs (no matter how wrong or selfish or badly thought out those beliefs were -- "Obama is coming after your guns or your mother or your job or your birth certificate.")
But now truly average citizens want to participate and shout out their individual anger and frustration at a Congress too wealthy and too out-of-touch (50% are millionaires or wealthier when the national millionaire pool is only 1% of the population) to care about the concerns of Main Street citizens -- the reputed 99% of our nation who share the 1% of the wealth left over from the 1% of the people with 99% of the wealth.
The Tea Baggers complained about the Corporate Bail-Out (TARP) and blame President Obama for that legislation, when President Bush owns all of that blame. The Baggers also ranted about bailing out Main Street when the improper enforcement of the current regulations covering the Banking and Securities Industries were ignored by the Bush administration and led to the un-repentant and unregulated GREED (read as PURE CAPITALISM!) that brought our nation to its financial knees. Oh yeah, and made a boat load of money for those bankers and lawyers and other assorted thieves.
Conservatives screamed and yelled to give the Wall Street Boys their duly earned bonuses (mega-millions for a very few people) because the Wall Streeters had contracts in place. Okay, fair enough, a contract is a contract. But wait: If that contract is held by a fireman or a teacher or some other government worker in Ohio or Wisconsin or Kansas or Arizona or Virginia or wherever -- then that contract does not count.
Wait a daggone minute! How can the ingrates who sold our nation's people a really bad bag of chewing glass be given their bonuses because they had a contract, and yet the very people who risk their lives to protect and serve and teach are told that they would need to renegotiate their contracts? Garbage, I say, GARBAGE! What those right-wingers told Americans is that, if you work for a living, you have no right to the contract you have in place. They told us un-ashamedly that we do not matter as much as the rich do.
That is one and only one of the very many personal grievances about which our Nation's 99 percent are suggesting We The People ought to care so that "A Government By The People and For the People Will Not Perish" from our nation! As a proud, life-long, informed and educated liberal, I revel in shouting to the world, "I am the 99%."
