Forum Post: GOOD NEWS - AMERICANS ACROSS THE COUNTRY GET WHAT WE'RE DOING!

Millions of Americans have seen the fillm INSIDE JOB which has received pretty big media attention. Others have seen the film "Capitalism a Love Story" or "The Corporation". More importantly, Americans witnessed what happened with the bailouts and have FELT the effects.

They get it, despite the corporate owned media's fascination with any rally or personality associated with the words "tea party". Christopher Hedges describes in one of his Truthdig articles how, when a population has descended into fantasy and then the bottom drops out, they're inclined to cling to false and fanciful movements like the tea party stuff (harking back to some nostalgic view of America that never existed and doing so with a healthy dose of racism).

The thing is, I don't think most Americans support the fanciful approach where nonsensical statements like "keep the government out of my medicare" are uttered and crowds at a debate cheer for an uninsured person to die and boo a service member who happens to be gay. That's not the America I've experienced and I'm pretty sure most Americans would agree.

So, despite what some may say about "inconveniencing innocent people" with whatever direct action is about to take place (blocking of Wall St. entrances with human chains sitting in etc.), I think you'd be surprised how many "regular" Americans from all ages, races and backgrounds SUPPORT what's happening and are thankful that people are standing up in their name. They'll put up with a little inconvenience.

Some have said, "Be careful, don't hurt Wall St. because it's our economy." I would like to point out that it is a great mistake to equate shutting down Wall St. with shutting down the U.S. economy. As any good business network anchor will tell you (whether it's CNBC or NPR's business program), the Dow and Wall St. performance is not a measure of the health of our economy.

As a matter of fact, it's no surprise that Wall St. earnings are setting records and are back up at pre recession levels. And the wealthy families in America will confirm that because their portfolios are right back where they were pre recession. What's NOT back is employment for the middle class and the rest of the population that can't call themselves middle class or are losing that status.

The heads of corporations, as we know, are hoarding cash. The CEO of Starbucks came right out and said it and challenged his fellow CEO's to actually hire people. Those corporations could hire more people but THEY THEMSELVES are nervous about the state of things. They aren't saying it out loud but they're saying amongst themselves "Man, can we really keep this up??? With a society so unbalanced with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer in such a naked and open way?

Google info on the leaked Citibank Memo or visit the pdf of the memo at this link: http://madsociologist.net/resources/Plutonomy.pdf There are so many incredible statements in there. They are very fearful that citizens will wake up to "one person, one vote" and their analysts have determined that it's best to invest in companies that service the rich because the middle class is done for --- they say that the US is no longer a democracy, it's a plutocracy. This is the Citibank folks talking in a memo that went to their wealthiest clients (which they DID NOT want leaked): "The conclusion? We should worry less about what the average consumer – say the 50th percentile – is going to do, when that consumer is (we think) less relevant to the aggregate data than how the wealthy feel and what they are doing. This is simply a case of mathematics, not morality."

As we all know, the mathematics don't happen by themselves. The stock market generally loves high unemployment because it means there are lots of hungry workers and wages go down. We have to remember that most Americans are now "onto" the corporatist agenda. No matter how many flags corporatists put on their website, they have only one allegiance and it knows no boundries: money. Money. Money. Profit. Profit. Profit.

They'll externalize whatever costs they can: pollution being the easiest to identify. The conversation in the board room is "let the government pay for that." And the government is US! So we pay twice. Where I live, the air is very dirty. So we pay for cleanup and any regulation (what little there is) and we also pay because more people die and have a harder time breathing. The corporations that are responsible for this (and in our case, it's pretty easy to narrow down) get off scott free.

Their CEO's and VP's, and junior VP's travel to Italy or France and rave when they return to their friends about those wonderful little towns they visited, the sense of community, so wonderful..... and yet they could have that same sense of community here in their own country if they simply behaved as a PARTICIPANT rather than as a LEACH.

We need to help the few Americans who aren't awake to these realities yet..... help them recognize how bad it's gotten and how far the corporatists have gone. There is a whole class of people who don't care a bit about a America but drape themselves in the flag. Ask people to watch Chris Hitchens on the home page of this site. Slowly but surely more and more people around the country and the world are realizing that the jig is up and that the power is with the people. All we have to do is shed our fear and stay non-violent. The establishment doesn't know how to deal with direct action and civil disobedience that is non-violent because no matter what they do they look bad.

It would really help if someone who is good with info could post the TOP 50 WORST THINGS CORPORATIONS HAVE DONE IN THE LAST TEN YEARS (borrowing from the films INSIDE JOB, Capitalism a Love Story and THE CORPORATION). It would be good to list those films as well. The press will be asking lots of questions about "Why Are We Against Wall Street". I think Americans have a general feeling about what happened and what is happening but a list like this with a paragraph on each of the 50 worst things would really put some meet on the bone and help people who have the "vague feeling that something is wrong" go a bit further and help explain to others why they support our movement.