First, I’m sure that there have been some arrests of Tea Party activism since it began several years ago…but I don’t recall anything near the number of arrests for civil disobediance that mirror what’s going on with the ramshackle movement.
Second, the focus of the Tea Party movement was and is the Federal government. This occupy movement’s focus is so disparate and more focused on external factors like corporations, the environment, the wealthy, the economy…there’s no direct sense of action that they or other voters are being asked to take.
So, unless something changes…I highly doubt that it will have the same effect as the Tea Party movement.
Historically, under more restrictive government regimes, the middle class average wealth and income is lower…if that make you feel not excluded…you can have it.
You are absolutely right. There are only two options:
- We can have income inequality similar to Turkmenistan (we tied!), Sri Lanka (who actually has us beat), and Ghana (we tied!). or
- We can be straight up communists, like China.
There are no other options. We can’t be like the UK, Sweden, Australia, or Canada. None of which are communist, or have particularly restrictive governments. But no, the only options are to have income inequality on par with Ghana and Turmenistan, or to be a communist country like China (their GINI is 46, whereas ours is 40). Looks like we are almost there after all!
This is all based on GINI coefficients from Wikipedia.
I dunno guys…years ago I was a member of the working poor, at Kinkos earing $7/hr, running off copies of your resume (or, if a “curriculum vitae,” was handed to me across the counter, I’d mutter *“Animula, vagula, blandula /Hospes comesque corporis…” * to see if that was the extend of your Latin) If you experienced any embarassment at the disparity of our income levels, you convinced yourself that I must obviously have deserved mine. Or if you were charitible enough to consider the slumy apartments and nonexistent healthcare available to the $7/hr worker, you hoped we could mutally accept that “that’s just the way it is.”
Now that the middle class has had its ox gored, I guess I should add my voice to the human microphone, in hopes that our numbers would cause a tide to raise all boats. But I doubt it. When the protesters last through this their Valley Forge winter, and the 1% buys off the smallest possible percentage of the 99% needed to quell the unabating outrage, the rest of us will be left back in the places we naturally deserve.
And then once again, the middle class may vacation at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, where there’s living proof of what a great county this is: even our driest desert has gondoliers!