What The OWS Protesters Are Saying Was Said Before - We Weren't Listening

Those on the right are now starting to get upset about the Occupy Wall Street movement. They have called them "anti-American", "anti-capitalist", and "anti-free enterprise". They are trying to marginalize these brave people who are just trying to wake Americans up and make them aware of what the 1%, the richest Americans and the corporations, have done to this country. The protesters, the 99%, are telling Americans that their democracy has been stolen by the rich and they have been marginalized.

This is not really a new message, but it does seem to be one that Americans weren't willing to hear until things got as bad economically as they now have. There have been those in the past who tried to say the same thing. One of those was the legendary George Carlin. Here is how he put it a few years ago:


"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard thirty fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers - people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork - but dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.


"And now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money! They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it! They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the Big Club."