Occupy All Streets

First bear flag

When I started this blog, I wanted to get local, thinking that the federal level was unreachable -- and perhaps beyond influence -- and the state level, well, I'm in California, and the state level has been near-catatonic since Schwarzenegger.

Occupy Wall Street started far from my little town of Sonoma, CA, but I've been with them in spirit all the way. I just didn't know what to make of them, but their statements against greed and banks ring true. What's really powerful is their calling themselves the 99%, as opposed to the top 1% who have acquired far beyond their fair share of the nation's wealth, not to mention power. If there's one thing I'd like to see from this movement -- and I hope it grows and grows to encompass towns and cities big and small -- is a new, progressive party, one that can be independent of the moneyed classes.

Maybe we can take back our country: it's been out of reach for some time now. If Obama and the Democrats wanted to harness the energy and vitality of 2008, they'd be all over this movement. If they're too ossified for that, then the hell with them. Let's form our own party, the 99% Party, or the 99ers, or something like that. Our motto can be "Justice for the rest of us, you know, the 99% of the country!"

We don't even have to be radical. We just have to embrace the values we grew up with. And those aren't James Dobson's values, or Randall Terry's values, those were our fourth grade teacher's values, our grandparent's values, you know, the values that got us through the Great Depression. FDR, once the clear favorite for greatest president ever, might have made some mistakes, but he made them on our behalf, not on behalf of the banks or Wall Street.

Let's have another New Deal, Square Deal, or Decent Deal, just no more Raw Deals. If it takes an Occupation, then so be it. It's time for the 99%. I'm definitely in there some place. And maybe the place for it is in the street, Main Street, USA. I love my little town, but right in the heart of it is a Chase Bank and a Bank of America, right there, a hundred yards or so from the statue honoring the Bear Flag Revolt (that's right, Sonoma was the capital of Free California, and its first capital) in 1846.

If there's something revolting these days it's those banks. Time to let them know.