OCCUPYING The Mind

For the last month, "Occupy" has been the buzz word. It shows up in newspapers, all over the web, on TV...and most people have no idea what it is, or why it's happening.  Some scorn the whole process as a bunch of ner-do-wells, chasing a party. Others swear it is a political hoax, set up to garner support before the next election. They have no "leader". They have no official stance, but one thing is clear...they are tired of being overlooked, or ignored.

Personally, I think they are a legitmate group, finally tired of Tea Party rhetoric, or business-as-usual politics. For most, their gripe seems to be the economy, and the bail out of the banks and corporations that began back in 2008, BEFORE the election.

A valid point. My question there is what the heck took you so long? I am not fond of the obvious answer. It's too easy to blame the politicians, the system, even the corporations themselves.  There has been a massive disconnect between people and the headlines for a long time. Apathy, distraction, and a whole lot of other nonsense either kept people from the political front, or made them feel that they did not matter to the process. We are beset with messages daily---hundreds of bits and bytes, and all too often, opinion is based on the last voice heard, rather than fact.

I grew up in a home with newspapers. My dad worked two jobs, but made sure he kept current with one major NY paper, and one local paper every day. He wasn't interested in talking about the news...just being aware of it.  He didn't care to bandy his opinions, or even share them...but he voted in every election, because that was what you did. To my knowledge, he never wrote a Letter to The Editor, never called a Congressman, and never told anyone who he was voting for.

Dad would not have liked the Tea Party. But he would not have liked the Occupy people any better. We never had to face the anguish of Viet Nam. Both my brothers were eligible for the Draft, but it ended before they could be called. I knew my dad was furious about Nixon, but that was more from observing him, than anything he actually said.

So I've been reading about OCCUPY, and what they've been up to. I understand the frustration of feeling like your voice is ignored. I get the anger of watching a political process too centered on "right now", with little thought to the future, and what it may hold. I've heard the lip service paid to "future generations", but have heard nothing in the way of concrete solutions.

All the financial experts have been talking for two years about the crisis of student borrowing, and the fact that many kids come from college with mortgage sized debt, at credit card interest. But no one is addressing it, or what will happen when most of a generation doesn't have the money to do anything, but pay off their loans.

Everyone is up in arms about the insanity that allowed people to borrow money for homes they simply could not afford---and THAT crisis was overlooked for years...right until the bubble burst, crashing Wall Street, making global waves, and leaving millions of people with mortgages they can barely afford to pay. The difference is that instead of being able to hold onto real estate, the students will not have a concrete asset. But they still will have the debt.

Most of us were either saving for a down payment, or actually had bought our first home within a decade of graduation. For today's graduates, that is a near impossibility. They can't discharge their debt with bankruptcy, and if they are unemployed, or under employed, they only thing they are being offered is more time (and more interest) to pay what they owe.

Maybe the message of Occupy is that a generation that is denied a stake in the future doesn't have to follow anyone else's rules, or expectations. The middle class is shrinking---and with them, the idea that we might all be in this together. So I will continue to watch what happens. I will continue to ponder the fate of a generation that we have failed, in so many ways.

When The Great Depression happened, Hoover spent four years hoping for a "reset" that never occurred.  FDR came on board  with his promise of a New Deal, and with it, the radical thought of planning for the future, while putting people to work for that goal. But that was a different time. Everyone was hurting, economically. No one suggested that if you were broke, it was because you were lazy, stupid, or deserved to be.

I have no idea how we will fix what is broken today...I only know that the way to do so will not be by embracing how the system fell apart in the first place. Much to occupy the mind...as people occupy the cities. I wonder what will come of us, and wonder too, how will we will explain how it all came to be.