What can I do???

Alternet/ by Les Leopold
Occupy Wall Street Is Not a Spectator Sport: 5 Ways the 99 Percent Can Contribute to the Movement Right Now

How can the rest of the 99 percent demonstrate our outrage? Here are five things we can do, without parking a tent in the street.

November 8, 2011   Let’s take a look at where we are right now. There is battle royale underway between inhabitants of two entirely different universes over what’s wrong with our nation and what should be fixed.    

On the one hand, the entire political establishment, blessed by Wall Street, wants the conversation to be all about debt and “entitlements." We are told 24/7 that we’re living over our heads, that our social safety net is too expensive, and that we need to cut, cut, cut trillions of dollars from public budgets so we don’t become the next Greece.

Photo Credit: sashakimel on Flickr

On the one hand, the entire political establishment, blessed by Wall Street, wants the conversation to be all about debt and “entitlements." We are told 24/7 that we’re living over our heads, that our social safety net is too expensive, and that we need to cut, cut, cut trillions of dollars from public budgets so we don’t become the next Greece.  

In that framework the only question is how much to cut and how much we should sacrifice. The so-called liberal position is that the rich should pay a bit more while the rest of us suffer cuts in education, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. (Please note that taxes on Wall Street are not on the table.) The “grand bargain” is all about how much we will have to pay for the economic collapse caused by Wall Street. It's also a loser because the more we cut, the longer unemployment will last, and the more fiscal distress we’ll face as tax revenues stall.  

On the other side is the framework that Occupy Wall Street successfully put into play. It argues that Wall Street should pay for the mess it created. It suggests that the issue is employment for the many, not debt repayments for the few. It also gets us to face up to myriad of ways that income inequality is hollowing out our society, destroying the middle-class and increasing poverty. It points the finger at those who crashed our economy and it demands reparations. And it does all this without making any specific demands. It doesn’t have to. It just needs to be the living embodiment of the many versus the few. 

That’s the fight. So how can we enlist? Sure, some of us can go down to our local encampment and join the party. But if you’re old like me, or if you have a job and a family, you’re not likely to head out to your local town square and sleep on the concrete. So that raises the critical question:  How can the rest of the 99 percent demonstrate our outrage?

Read the rest of this article and find out what you can do at The Alternet
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Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and Public Health Institute in New York, and author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green, 2009).