Why I Agree With The OWS Folks

Source: Think Progress

The last time income distribution was so sharply skewed in the U.S. was the Gilded Age of the 1890s, a time when robber barons carved up all the land and resources in the US for themselves. As income for average Americans has stagnated over the last few decades, rising by 3 or 4 percent at most, wealth for the top 1 percent rose by a staggering 275%. And things are only going to get worse, on the path we're on, because the conservative Supreme Court majority's Citizens United decision means that there is unlimited influence for wealth in politics.

Unfortunately, just voting Democratic instead of Republican won't do the trick nowadays. The financial industry has bought the Democratic Party wholesale (the Republicans, of course, have always been safely tucked in their pockets). All politicians need money to run modern political campaigns now that campaign finance spending limitations are a thing of history. The finance industry is where all the money is concentrated. So that's where they go. And what do you know, there are strings attached to money when it comes in half a million dollar increments. Imagine that!

So, taking to the streets and expressing some real public outrage may be about all that's left. The political system appears to be at a choke point. It can't even stop the financial abuses (i.e., CDOs and similar financial instruments) that led to the last economic collapse. Let's hope the Occupy Wall Street folks can give the American political system the Heimlich maneuver it so desperately needs.