October 17th - Why We Exist

It seems I'm being required to constantly defend myself and the movement as to why we're doing what we are. Why we stand outside for hours at a time, why we march around town, why we spend hours typing out papers, performing research, and creating networks of people who want their voice heard. Often these accusations come from strangers, but family and friends seem to play a big role in forcing me to defend myself as well.

So I've decided to make a list. These are the things I know I'm angry with and most likely cover a good base of the population. They are not in order because everything on this list deserves to be corrected, the order in which they are corrected matters not so long as they are corrected.

1. The Fast and the Furious program which involved the selling of high powered munitions to Mexican Cartels in order to track their locations and discover Cartel strongholds. Seeing as there were no tracking devices on these weapons, an obvious result of these weapons being allowed in to the hands of violent Cartel members would be their appearance at crime scenes. One of the crime scenes in which they showed up was the slaying of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Now, the United States is sending even more CIA, DEA, and private security personnel to Mexico to combat the even further increase in violence and power of the Cartel's.
2. The Patriot Act
3. The Bush and Obama Bailouts
4. High Unemployment
5. An Unfair Tax System
6. The Gambling of the People's Money in Financial and Foreign Markets
7. The Violations of States Rights
8. Wars Which Have Lasted Over a Decade
9. The Ever Increasing Presence of the U.S. and NATO Military In Central Asia
10. The Continuation of Massive Bonuses to the CEOs of Corporations Who Received Taxpayer Funded Bailout Money
11. The Outsourcing of Jobs
12. Lobbyists Controlling Policy
13. The Foreclosure Crisis Which Was Created By the Banks Themselves
14. The Bullying of American Workers - Don't Forget Wisconsin
15. The Robbery of the American Education System
16. The Ever Increasing Cost of Education in America
17. The Continual Overreach of Government In To the Daily Lives of Citizens
18. The Continuous Creation of Committee After Committee For Governance of Ever Narrowing Sectors of Society
19. Treating Corporations Like People
20. The Treating of a Citizens Privacy as a Commodity
21. The Control of Corporations Over People's Food, Water, and Medicine
22. The Privatization of Central Banking, the Prison System, the Water System, and the Military
23. The Genetic Modification of the Staple Foods in the Name of Profit
24. The Requirement That Citizens Become Immunized in Order to Access Education and Benefits
25. The Disregarding of the Constitution on an Ever Increasing Basis

While this list is long, it is not all inclusive. The people have been passive for so long that the list of grievances targeting the citizens of this once great nation has become hard to fully describe. Yet, they all seem to center around a few central problems.

For too long now corporations have been allowed to do what they will because they have the resources to influence our elected officials. The problem with this is no one elected these people who bribe and intimidate and coerce and convince these officials yet they feel they have a right to control the policies in this country. They feel that because they have attained so much wealth, power, and influence, it is their right to now control the country to allow them to gain more wealth, power, and influence.

They influence our politicians, they influence the media, and therefore, they influence the people. It is our duty as Occupiers to push the truth in to the vision of the population of a whole. They can no longer wear blinders which tunnel their vision towards the light at the end of the tunnel so long popularized as the "American Dream". We can no longer allow them to live in a society which takes their potential and directs it in to the pockets of a select few. We can no longer allow them to destroy their bodies, their hopes, their dreams, their minds, and their futures, for the sake of another person's wealth, power, and influence.

It is our job, our duty, and our responsibility to change this country, this world. We must remain united, we must not falter. We are akin to the Spartans with their stand at Thermopolae, except we must not fail. For if we fail, it will be generations before another movement of this magnitude can take root and flourish. The powers that be have a death grip on this world, and if we do not succeed, they will crush the earth underfoot until only they survive.