Unbelievable...and scary...

I just read this article in the Guardian.  If you haven't read it, you probably should.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy

I have been dismayed by the mainstream media position that the OWS protesters don't have a "platform" or any coherent ideas.  Then to support their claim they ask 3 different people one thing that they are protesting, and when each person says a different thing, they stand back and say "see!"

However, if you asked 100 people to list the top 10 reforms they'd like to see, and then charted the frequency of like responses, I bet you would start to see what the platform would look like.  And the answer, is that the platform is challenging the status quo in a way that challenges just about every power structure in this country, financial and political.

The extremely disturbing thing from this piece is that the Department of Homeland Security is involved.  The department formed by the Bush administration purportedly to protect us from terrorists, is coordinating with mayors across the country and telling them how to quell protests.  This is happening in a country that had freedom of speech implanted in our DNA from the first western dissidents to land in what became New England.  This implies that DHS is operating under orders from President Obama, because presumably they wouldn't do this without his direction.  This is just unacceptable, and if it is true, should outrage anyone that the federal government is funneling its powers to stop protests.

I, personally, wish I could do more.  I wish I could just say f*ck it, and fly out to New York, and do whatever I can to help.  But I can't.  I have a house, a job, and a beautiful family, and their stability is far more immediately important to me.

My hope rests on those younger than I.  Those undergraduate or graduate students who are a year or two away from graduating.  They are watching this unfold, and are discussing it with their economics professors, with their sociology professors, and their political science professors.  And I'm guessing only about 60% of them come out of college and find full employment soon.  The rest are underemployed, or unemployed, and they should be furious, smart, motivated, and without the responsibilities that I proudly shoulder as a husband and father.