Occupy Wall Street? They Should Go Home...

Our roots stretch until frayed, but their elasticity often snaps us back to the emotional past in the present reality. Such has been my course recently as I made another of my infrequent pilgrimages back to the place of my youth, New York City. We are drawn to these periodic reminiscent pilgrimages, much like salmon struggling to make their way upstream to spawn in the pools of their youth. The footprints I trace are smaller and the echoed voices I hear in my mind shriller and seemingly more joyous in their carefree simplicity than now. But yet the starkness remains as I remember.

While I was in New York, I cruised the streets of Manhattan and the Bronx as I used to, but with a different focus. Whereas in my youth I was more concerned with scoring drugs and pretending to be tougher than I really was, I now found myself seeking out the Occupy Wall Street crowd. The drugs were the same, the carefree decadence was the same and, unfortunately, so was the focus. Which was none...

I was excited about the prospect of observing passion of conviction in people willing to sacrifice for a cause greater than themselves. However, as much as I would like to report differently, the Occupy Wall Street movement and its spawns are not unfortunately about any deep philosophical pining for a more equitable society but rather, for the most part, a congregation of disaffected, unemployed, drug addled punks who would as soon accept a joint as a job. I was disappointingly amused by the guy, typical rather than the exception, laying on his boyfriend, smelling like an unshowered gym rat, pierced and tattooed with squint eyes, raising his head and asking me if I had a job for him. My advice to him was get clean, get dressed, get a resume and get a job. He was so stoned he did not even have the energy to argue, he just laid his head back down on his boyfriend.

I hoped that the Occupy Wall Street movement was a call to arms for the populace and a re-evaluation of our economic structure, but I fear that those presently doing the occupying cannot sustain such a lofty goal. At least not as long as the drugs hold out...

Without demonizing either the Occupy Wally Street crowd or the actual Wall Street crowd, it is obvious that the vast disparity in advantage will lead to dissatisfaction and push back, as always historically has been the case. Occupy Wall Street and its progeny are the push back....But can’t they push a bit harder, and in the same direction? And can’t they decide who will speak for them? If so, the balance might ultimately be restored.

The pendulum is ever shifting, and this shift is nothing of which to be afraid. It keeps us centered, vibrant and vigilant. Tea Party...Occupy Wall Street... Black Panthers, Young Americans For Freedom, hippies, right and left radicals... Let the people be heard and let their will be done, whatever it is. As imperfect as it is, we have endorsed a "majority rule" system. But to work, the people must be heard so that this ship of state and all its passengers—us—can sail on in greatness in the direction most of us want. Neither money nor riots should dictate this direction. The thoughtful and quiet citizens without radical agendas of either pole need to consider the shouts from the fringes and then rise up and speak their voice and impose their moderate, sensible direction upon us. This will allow us to bring to bear dispassionate and reasonable solutions to very real long-range difficulties which confront us, with all options and possibilities reasonably considered, including increasing revenues, cutting some benefits and making the sacrifices Americans have always been known to make when faced with adversity.

I’m back in Ramona now, the place I have chosen to live. Although my hopes for Occupy Wall Street have been dashed, I continue to hope for reasonable discourse and energetic citizenry participation as we calculate the best solutions to our circumstances. The wave which I hope sweeps this country is not left or right, but reasonable and pragmatic. When will this group start occupying our attentions?