Monday, October 17, 2011

Occupy World Movement


2011 is certainly the year of protests worldwide. January began with the Egyptian revolution which resulted in the resignation of long-time leader Hosni Mubarak. There have been other protests in the Middle East and Africa including Syria, Libya, Yeman, Bahrain and Isreal. Scattered protests have occurred in Europe including the UK, Spain, Italy and Greece. Many of these protests are still happening. For example, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in early September in Israel's biggest ever demonstration to demand social justice, a lower cost of living and government actions to the concerns of an increasingly suppressed middle class. This past summer the UK was hit with violent protests. Greece has been plaqued by debt issues which has resulted in riots protesting austerity measures. There is unrest around the globe due to high unemployment, rising food and energy costs, along with the fact that a select few have too much while too many around the world have too little. These select few tend to make the rules too as far as government decisions are concerned.

In September, 2011 a group in New York City decided to protest outside of the corporate sector of New York. The Occupy Wall Street Movement was born. A month later these protests have been held in dozens of other US cities as well as across the world. Occupy Wall Street has literally become “Occupy the World” as protests broke out in nearly a thousand cities worldwide on October 15 to show the global solidarity of the 99 percent with their grievances against the 1 percent. In my home country of Canada a few dozen cities had “Occupy” protests. In my home city of Saint John, New Brunswick which is a city of under 100,000 people, peaceful protests were held to protest corporate greed. This points out the magnitude of anger towards coporate greed. Most of these protests have been peaceful, which is a good thing, as violence accomplishes nothing. A few places around the globe however, had these protests turn violent. For example, in Rome, buildings and cars were burned.

In 2008 Wall Street and multinational banks wer bailed out by trillions of dollars of tax payer money. Most of that money was never recoved and many of the exectives of the same companies that were bailed out continued to receive their ludicrous bonuses while the middle class continues to get squeezed. No wonder there is a lot of anger and discontent on the street. Everyone joining the movement is part of the 99 per cent who have bailed out the top one per cent. The problem is not as simple as anti-capitalism. I personally believe in capitalism. I am all for hardworking honest people. I think people should be rewasrded according to their profession or business to a certain degree. What I am against is “the too big to fails” and corrupt multinational corporations that think they are above the law and control governments and the media to push their corrupt agenda. The mainstream media has been talking alot lately about bullying on an individual basis. That is a good thing. Maybe it’s about time for this same media to talk about corporate bullying. Big corporations hold countries hostage to get trillions of dollars of taxpayer money or the corporate lobbyists do backroom deals in the offices of many govenments. The big corporations get the special breaks while the small business owner gets squeezed. Organizations like the IMF and the big banks and their partners going into countries and stealing their resources and impoverishing people is bullying at it’s best! The system now makes it tough for the average family farmer that grows organic food to compete against the likes of Monsanto who wants to control the world’s food supply by deceptive practices. It is sad to see genuine treatments and even cures of many diseases being withheld, because of the greed of Big Pharma that shoots down anything that is not in their business interests. These are just a few examples of how corrupt the economic system has become. People are fed up with the system as a whole and this is what the movement is about.

The greed of large multinational corporations stinks and is rotten to the core. The governments and the mainstream corporate media that supports them do not represent the common people. They represent the large banks and multinational corporations and many people are waking up. Are you listening Big Pharma? Are you listening Big Banks? Are you listening Big Agra? Are you listening Big Oil? Are you listening CBC, BBC, CNN and all the corporate media that hide and distort the real truth? Are you listening Federal Reserve and the IMF? Are you listening Presidents and Prime Ministers? Your time is running out !! The internet, especially social media is waking people up. People like Alex Jones, Gerald Celente and others are waking people up with alternative media available on the internet. Big corporations and big global banks have polluted the world at will, bankrupted countries, and killed millions through needless wars that they started for their own business interests. We need not be controlled by the elitists anymore. People are awaking and rising up. People need to continue this movement in a peaceful way. In addtion to holding protests in selected cities, we need to do more. We need to expose the head of the snake. That being the very large corporate powers that are behind the root of this greed. We need to stop feeding this snake. That means supporting your local farmer. Buy products made locally when possible. Stop shopping at businesses with corrupt business and environmental practices. We can take a more natural holistic approach to our health and be aware of the lies and deceipt of Big Pharma. Demand change from your government. We can all take part in this protest in individual ways.