All of the individual complaints being aired by the Occupy groups around the country and the world boil down to a simple premise: PROSECUTE THE CHEATERS! Laws have been broken. The few that have been prosecuted are small fry. The system is being rigged by the illegal purchase of influence. It is not simply that some are better off than others. We all want the opportunity to improve our own lots. But we also want the system that allows for our self-improvement to be FAIR. When the only people who are winning are doing so by gaming the system and literally CHEATING, we have to stand up and call it.
One thing that baffles many of us, I think, is that we have always wanted to believe that in the bigger picture, our laws and basic decency would correct any major rigging of the system and that those in charge wouldn't continue to allow such behavior to destroy the lives of so many. We counted on our local police to be behind our desire for Justice and the enforcement of the laws that are supposed to protect us. When they don't to that, but instead treat those people voicing their grievances in public as if they were criminals or terrorists, we become afraid. Fear leads to anger. Anger against our own police force is not a healthy thing in any society. We have to remember, as do those in law enforcement, that they are us. They are our neighbors, our friends, our brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, our families. We and they need to remember this at all times.
The focus needs to keep coming back to the idea of PROSECUTION of the criminals that have perpetrated the fraud that led to today's collapsed economy. We need to correct the trend that has re-written regulations at the behest of the fraudsters, allowing for more disastrous frauds to be perpetrated on the rest of us. We need to prosecute the lawmakers, elected to represent the people, for taking literal bribes to promote the interests of anyone besides their actual constituency. We want to fix the system that allows the worst polluters to determine their own laws and regulations. We want to see them prosecuted when they destroy the land and water that WE THE PEOPLE share in common, not given new permits to continue destroying the places where we live. People need to go to jail for these crimes, and I don't think anything less will satisfy the Occupy folks in the long run.