Attention! The 99 Percent Movement Is on the Way to a Place Near You

Not since the late 1960s has a grassroots movement attracted so much attention of the liberal left and especially the Millennial Generation as has the emerging 99 percent movement or “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations. This is not some contrived grassroots organization funded by the wealthy of the left, but it is made up of disenchanted youth who have played by the rules and pursued the American Dream only to find the Dream to be an illusion.

It is reported that 55 percent of all young people between 18 and 29 are currently unemployed or significantly underemployed. The world that they have entered is far removed from that of their parents and grandparents. The Millennial Generation, as a group, entered the scene, with much hope and promise for the future. They were the first generation to be born into the Information Age. They grew up with electronic technology surrounding them, gaining a competency in utilizing this New Age tool. Society’s hope and future has been tied to this group to move the nation into the far reaches of the 21^st century. These same young people are the children of Generation-X (“Greed is Good” generation) that whole heartedly embraced Reaganism and supply-side economics. This group of young people is the best educated of any previous generation of Americans, yet have the least number of prospects since the “Great Depression." Over the last four decades, the middle class has been so squeezed that for the young people to afford their own educations, they have taken on unprecedented student debt, with many reaching six figures. Now they are in the position of not only being unemployed, but have these huge student debts facing them and jeopardizing their futures. The employment conditions are so bleak that many of these indebted students are choosing to stay in school to get advanced degrees and deepening their debt, hoping that the situation will improve by the time they finish.

This same group of Americans has stepped forward to voluntarily serve in the military and have fought two underfunded wars only to come back to unemployment and lives of economic and physical struggle.

Their parents and grandparents have robbed them, through their greedy decisions, over indulgences, and consumer debt; leaving these young people directly impacted by the previous generations “bad behavior." Their parents’ acceptance and the turning of a blind eye to misconduct in the name of business coupled with economic globalization and corporatism has sold this generation and future generations into economic decline.

What this grassroots demonstration is attempting to accomplish is to reverse the trend of absolute control by the financial or corporate system and return justice to American Society. They are seeking wealth redistribution from the 1 percent back to reasonable levels for the other 99 percent. They seek to create a society and an atmosphere where actions of overt and covert greed and corruption have consequences upon those that commit such acts. A question that keeps coming up is why are there no prosecutions of those who have engineered and precipitated the financial collapse. Why haven’t we seen these bad actors doing the “perp walk?"

This movement is going to grow in intensity and scope. It is going to pull our society kicking and screaming into a period of destabilization and social malleability, giving rise to the emergence of new systems and expectations. This is going to bode ill for the conservative movement, especially for the most extreme, including libertarianism. The movement will continue until the right moves back to center, meeting the left to engage in creating real solutions. Expect a resurgence of socialism, collectivism and even communism as viable alternatives to the current system of self-interest, greed and the denial of values of secular humanism.

We as a society have no one to blame but ourselves. Our past myopic view will no longer be tolerated and each of us who have proceeded this generation will have to come to grips with our own responsibility for creating the world that these young people now face.