Thankful Thanksgiving Day 4: Occupy Wall Street

I’ve expressed my interest in Occupy Wall Street before, but I’d like to add it to the list of things I am thankful for this year. It is nice to finally see a movement in this country that is raising awareness of income equality and undue corporate influence in government. The organic, leaderless, grassroots nature of it has reminded me that democracy is not yet dead in this country, and even if it were, it’s pretty easy to bring back from the dead; we all just need to stand up and exercise the power of the people. Corporations, elites, dictators, government, robot overlords all only have as much power as we give them.

I don’t know what the long term effects of the movement might be. But for a change, I am confident the country as a whole might finally start remembering to work together again. The central message of OWS is awareness and inclusion. That’s the story behind “We Are the 99%”. The vast majority have been affected by the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few. We all need to work together to fix it, not turn on each other in defense of policies that only help the few.

You can call OWS “class warfare”, and maybe it is, but just ignoring income inequality and the deterioration of the middle class is also class warfare. It’s just a covert war. OWS has brought these details to the surface and changed the nature of the conversation.

It may be years before we see any positive changes. But I think this means the pendulum has at least begun it’s swing back towards progress for all and away from consolidation of power and influence at the top.