Pre-Occupied

There has been a great stirring in NYC over the past couple of weeks.  Occupy Wall Street has taken over parts of the city.  I cannot begin to explain what it means to me.  People are frustrated with the way the huge banks and financial institutions have bought and paid for government.  They're upset at the fact that there is little distinction between Wall Street and Washington.  Upset at the way banks toy with people's lives.  Upset that they gave out predatory loans and then reaped great rewards when the owners defaulted and the banks collected their insurance money.  Upset because of the children living on the streets because of those mortgages.  Upset at the wealth gap and stuff like this:

I could go on.  Sadly, it's not just Wall Street.  It's health insurance companies, it's oil & gas, it's the concentration of the media in the hands of a few super-rich folk, it's companies like Monsanto. 



If I could be there with everyone I would be.  It is such an exciting time to see so many people coming together to take a stand against corporate greed.  What a shame that they are dismissed as kids with nothing better to do.  I've been very worried and saddened and angered at what I see happening in my country.  So often I feel alone.  No one in my family, no one at work, no one I come in contact with seems to feel the same way I do.  Sometimes I really have to wonder if I'm the crazy one to worry about what kind of world my son was born into.  I feel so helpless.  And hopeless. 

But this all gives me hope.  It makes me giddy.  I don't expect that everything will get better overnight because it won't.  There are some very powerful forces that must be toppled, namely greed.  And from what I can tell, greed doesn't die easily.  The other is ignorance. 

I wish I were a better debater.  I'm always so reluctant to express myself when it comes to politics because I really have a hard time doing so.  But I know in my heart what is right.  And I know we're fighting against a rigged system.  I honestly don't understand why more people don't get that. I would go.  I would be arrested.  And I would wear that badge with pride.  700 people were arrested Saturday, many of them as the police led them on the Brooklyn Bridge and then trapped them there.

I pray that we are successful.  I pray that I may be counted among the "we".  I am in my heart.  There are events in Houston this week.  I'm not sure I can make anything.  But I really want to.  Because I know in my gut it is every kind of wrong for children to go to sleep on the streets or in a car with an empty stomach when there is such wealth in this country.