Occupying America

Last updated on: October 27, 2011 at 1:54 pm by Jim Burklo

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Occupying America 2011-10-27T13:54:58+00:00 Jim Burklo

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“It is extremely difficult for most of us to believe that our political or economic system is inherently corrupt,” said New York University psychologist John Jost, (quoted here from Miller-McCune Magazine, 10-24-11) “and it is a belief that we are tempted to resist, even when there is evidence suggesting deep and fundamental problems. Because of our immense psychological capacity to justify and rationalize the status quo, human societies are very slow to fix system-level injustices and to enact substantive changes.”

New York Times, 10-25-11: “The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt.”

I walked through the Occupy LA encampment in front of City Hall on Monday afternoon. I was most impressed with its orderly rows of tents and the quiet demeanor of its “occupiers”. I hope this peace prevails here, unlike what happened in the last few days in the Bay Area “Occupy” sites. In the midst of this impromptu community, which has browned all the grass on the east and north sides of the building, I found a tent marked as the “Meditation Temple” (see attached picture). This seemed to epitomize the relatively calm atmosphere of the protest, if protest is the right word for it. I’ve participated in lots of loud, sign-waving, boisterous political marches in my day, so the relative lack of sign-waving and noise was striking. This loose gathering appears bent on avoiding heated partisan rhetoric. They’re sticking with the message that the 99% of the American people who have become a dog wagged by a 1% tail have decided to sit on that tail and hold it down until our economic and political system fundamentally changes. Their message is overwhelmingly resonant with the preferences of the American people, who want a much more equitable distribution of wealth. According to a recent study by Harvard and Duke University scholars, 92% of Americans want the wealth “pie chart” of Sweden (a country that still has plenty of rich people), rather than the one that currently prevails in the US. We don’t want perfect equality of wealth. We just want much more equality than we have today.

I teach a course in public policy at the graduate school of Social Work at USC, and preparing for my lectures has convinced me more firmly of the need for major structural changes in this country. We’re now at a point where 20% of the population owns 80% of the assets of the country. But my students react like deer in the headlights when I first introduce them to the statistics about income inequality in America and the corrosive effects it has on our democracy and our society. It’s hard for them to connect that information with their everyday lives, nor with the lives of their clients in the social agencies where my students are placed as interns. It’s hard to imagine what to do about something so massively amiss. We’ll never see a ballot measure asking a “Yes” or “No” vote on whether or not it is okay for the rich to get richer and the middle class to lose buying power. All politicians, of all political persuasions, are dependent on big-money interests to mount credible campaigns.

But after visiting Occupy LA, I’ve been musing that taking effective action might be simpler than it seems. The signs at the encampment focus on “99%”. But really this campaign is about 100%. It’s time to tell 100% of the people we know, repeatedly and boldly:

I’m going to vote in every election for the candidates who are most likely to do whatever it takes to make the poor and the middle class better off before letting the rich get any richer… so that 100% of Americans have a more secure future.

What is your one-sentence summation of the sentiments of the Occupy Wall Street movement? Write it up and send it to everybody on your email lists! Or copy mine and do the same.

It’s up to us to re-frame the political discourse in this country. Our politicians aren’t going to do it for us.

If the 99% are richer, the 1% will have a bigger market in which to make even more money than they are making now. So the fundamental changes required in our economic and political system will benefit 100% of the American people. This isn’t “class war”. It’s not partisan or ideological. This is a struggle against economic and political irrationality that hurts everybody. “Trickle-down economics” failed, and the evidence of its failure surrounds us. So why do Rick Perry and other Republican candidates still advocate for it? It’s time for “trickle-up” economics. If the people on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder are better off, everybody will rise higher.

Here’s a short version of the details of the solution: Protect the poor and middle-class with a strong public “safety net”, take strong action to protect the environment, raise taxes on the rich and cut military spending to balance the federal budget, and rationalize regulations so that private enterprise will thrive on a more level playing field.

Here’s a longer version: Close the tax loopholes for the rich and the corporations, so that Warren Buffett’s secretary doesn’t pay a higher effective income tax rate than her boss. Raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, if necessary, to balance the federal budget without wiping out the public social safety net. Drastically cut the military budget: a strong society is the best defense. Make taxes simpler and more predictable, while maintaining the progressive system that taxes wealthier people at higher rates. They get relatively more out of our society, so they should contribute relatively more to it. Regulate the financial system in a simple and efficient manner, to protect consumers from predatory and careless lending practices. Vigorously enforce insider trading rules in the financial markets and make corporate governance more transparent: make sure that purse-snatchers don’t do more jail time than corrupt financiers who wipe out the assets of tens of millions of working Americans. Maintain ecological protections while at the same time streamlining regulatory processes so that they are more predictable and much less time-consuming. There’s no reason we can take bold action against the threat of human-caused climate change while at the same time enabling private enterprise to flourish. Make the IRS our health insurance payment system to cover services by private doctors and hospitals. That will improve public health and eliminate the nearly half-million bankruptcies that happen every year because people can’t pay hospital bills. It will save everybody a lot of money now wasted on for-profit insurance bureaucracies and emergency room care for uninsured people who can’t afford to go to much cheaper outpatient clinics.

Such fine print, and more, will be needed in the service of goals that can fit simply in a sentence. For now, as the political season heats up, I pray that all of us will find a few words to express our values and aspirations for our country – and repeat them to everyone we know. Thank you, Occupy Wall Street, for focusing our attention on the change we really need….

This post originally appeared at Jim Burklo’s blog Musings, and is reprinted with permission.

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