Written by Gunnar McPeace   

Here's a few thoughts I'd like to put out there and if anybody wants to comment that would be great.

I think the true potential of the USA / Occupy Wall Street 'movement' hasn't come into view yet. It still revolves around 'the economy' and the inequities of the banking and political sector. Folks are finally fed up with the disparity of wealth and opportunity that 'now' exists in American society and they are outraged over issues like huge student loans, having an education but no job, banks not loaning, foreclosures, etc. We're finally pissed now and that's great.

HOWEVER, for many segments of the population this has ALWAYS been the case. Disparity is not 'new', it's just that it has now grown to where it affects the majority... Rather than 'minorities'. Some may want to hope that things will return to 'the way they used to be', before the economy tanked, that the government will somehow respond to the demonstrations with more equitable policies that will at least get us back to 2007, but it's not gonna happen. The wealth that remains is locked away in a cool dry place and the banks ain't sharing any. Yesterday is GONE.

Anyway, the "good old days"... Is a concept that has no basis in reality. They never really existed. If you're First Nations Native American, this country was founded upon land that was stolen from YOU. If you were an African American fighting WW2 in Germany, YOU could not eat in a restaurant in the USA. Years before then you were a SLAVE. If you were a white liberal 60's peacenick you might have got that way AFTER you had your legs blown off in a war based on LIES and propaganda. If you're Asian... If you're Irish Catholic... If you're Jewish... if you're Italian...

The fact is that America has been an absolute 'free for all' right from the start. The land of opportunity! That's the bright side of the coin.

The dark side is how the story of America has been driven by the hunger for wealth and power; so much so that rapaciousness is simply accepted as part and parcel of the 'American Way of Life'. The result is "the richest society the world has ever known"; a source of great pride for most Americans. HOWEVER, to really believe in "The American Dream" and all that it entails - 'Manifest Destiny', 'American Exceptionalism' and economic theories of unending growth - one must be rendered unconscious to the fact that the 'dream' is really just a concept; an IDEA somebody cooked up. It's not actually REAL.

Which makes it simply a delusion of grandeur. Beware the politician who proffers such crap. Find me one on the national stage that doesn't.

We have created a social structure built upon the crass exploitation of the earth, of animals... and of each other. You don't have to be a 'hippy', a 'liberal', a 'christian', etc. to see that at some point the environment will not be able to sustain, the animals will become extinct, notions of endless growth will come crashing down and the people will grow tired of being exploited.

My hope is that people from all walks of life, of all nations and races (many who have been living with the effects of great disparity for centuries) will see the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement as an opportunity to speak to a deeper moral agenda. At issue is not just the rich bastard in the black limousine who makes 150 times what an average employee makes; it's about how that rapacious mindset simply does not fucking work.

So... Maybe the next step in the Occupy Movement will be the start of the 'Waking Up' movement, where we finally 'get' that we are all in this together, on a tiny rock floating in endless space, with more than enough to go around. Ultimately the movement that results in a more equitable, inclusive society is about more than Wall Street.