At the turn of the century the
Republicans had grabbed the White House through their Machiavellian exploits in
Florida with a Hail Mary pass from the United States Supreme Court and George
W. Bush assumed the presidency. When the conservatives arrived in town with
their cowboy boots they also came along with their distinct vernaculars such as
compassionate conservatism. The nation and the world were then exposed to the
practicalities of compassionate conservatism when President Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney, the Neoconservatives, and Halliburton decided to invade
and destroy Iraq under the pretext of “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The Republicans also gave us other variations
of compassionate conservatism which they sliced up into dosages such as tax
cuts for the wealthy, unpaid Medicare Modernization Act, and the Patriot Act
alias torture, international rendition, circumventing of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA, and the introduction of warrantless
domestic wiretapping.
The Occupy Movement is ready to
take the nation on a different direction with social and economic justice. After
challenging and changing the United States national narrative and dialogue from
deficits to inequality and fairness last year, the Occupy Movement in America
has been hibernating during the mild winter season of 2011-12. The Occupy
Movement which was started in New York by progressives and drew social and
tactical inspiration from the developments in Africa (Tunisia, Egypt, and
Libya), the Middle East (Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria), Greece, and London is now
set to further pressurize the political and economic discourse from henceforth
to the elections in November. The nation and the world should be prepared for a
rude awakening and progressive education of the American public. Members of
these progressive factions have displayed their tenacity, discipline, and sense
of purpose through their decision to go back to drawing board so that they can
strike with precision and passion from May 1st 2012.
Although key sectors of the mainstream
American corporate media who brought out the red carpet for the conservative
Tea Party Movement and vilified the Occupy Movement might again pretend to be
shocked by the patriotic civil disobedient actions we are all going to witness.
Fox News, Democrats, and others should be informed that the key bone of
contentions remains justice and equality in the distribution of wealth,
allocation of burdens, and acceptance of responsibilities in the polity. Despite
the near economic collapse of 2008-09 we still have too big to fail banks that
are bigger and greedier than before, through the support of the Democrats in
congress and at the white house. With the Republicans alienating women through
their anti-contraceptives policies, Latinos by their harsh and inhumane
immigration stances, and students with their Wall Street high interest rates,
hopefully Democrats would decipher the handwriting on the walls.
Fortunately,
I have been opportune to attend and listen to the community focused
mobilization efforts within the Occupy Movement. I submit that since President
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have declared their support for same sex
marriages; progressives in the United States will have to press the Democrats
on five major fronts. These key sectors include the economy, immigration, healthcare,
justice, and foreign wars. In order for democratic and independent progressives
to support the reelection campaign of President Obama, these key issues have to
be addressed with more than lip service. We cannot tolerate an economic
dispensation that is angled at the wimps and caprices of the Wall/War Street
banks. Instrumental policies like Glass-Steagall Act need to be reinstated as a
means of regulating derivatives, hedge funds, and credit swaps. We have to ask
President Obama why his administration insists on allowing home owners to be
foreclosed upon, whereas the banks were rescued by President Bush’s
administration and again by President Obama with taxpayers’ monies. Why does
President Obama plan to save only homeowners who have perfect mortgage payments
and perfect credit scores?
Ironically, the home mortgage
delinquency rate which is close to 6% nationally is a product of the economic recession
and an indication of the continuous struggles in the economy. The national
unemployment and underemployment is still a source of growing concern to many
progressives. In urban cities and rural America the unemployment levels is
still hovering within the 16% mark which is double the nation rate of 8.1%.
Interestingly, our student populations and all women are currently presented
with a choice of foregoing their insurance or having an increase in the student
loan rates. We the 99% should be willing to take on the Obama administration
which has continued their distant/midnight romance with Wall Street and their
too big to fail banks. Like Jesus Christ the preeminent progressive we need to
take up our whips to chase the Wall Street money changers and money doublers
out of the exploitative dominance in the economy. How long are we going to keep
on sending Wall Street banks and traders our retirement incomes for them to
fleece through their various scams such as derivative betting and credit swap
gambling?
Another
area progressives need to address is the area of immigration. We cannot allow
immigrants that come into this country due to a plethora of reasons like others
before them, to be demonized after the economy was run aground by the 1% in
Wall Street and Washington. There needs to be a comprehensive immigration
policy that seeks to strengthen families and communities instead of separating
families. Though we should enthusiastically support The Dream Act which is all
about granting citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants who have
been in the United States for many years, we ought to proceed with caution. We
cannot afford to make the same mistakes and missteps that have become the
hallmark of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 otherwise
known as ObamaCare with the Comprehensive Immigration Reform. During that
debacle the Democrats took a bill that could have resulted in either Universal
healthcare coverage or single payer healthcare and watered it down with the
majority slice apportioned to the for-profit Health Insurance Industrial
Complex.
With
our proclivity for equality and justice it remains expedient for the Occupy
Movement to fight against the double standards within the American justice
system. When there are these methodical disparities in prosecutions and
sentencing inside the criminal justice system, what we are left with is a
banana republic with kangaroo courts that are set asides for the interests and
vestiges of the 1%. Some of us that are contemporary immigrants have
experienced these “Big Man” or “Oga Mentality” regimes where so-called leaders
become invisible and entrenched in sustaining their powers. When a nation
becomes unwilling to prosecute war criminals from the President Bush and Vice
President Cheney administrations that circumvented the local laws, violated
international treaties, and authorized factory scale torture, then Houston you
know we got some damn problems. When Wall Street executives are allowed to
bring the nation to its knees because of their greed and most of them are back
to business as usual within a span of 3years, then we have transcended from too
big to fail banks to systematic whitemail.
Since
progressives comprise of large segments of the independent population we need
to organize and press the Democrats on their habits of sanctioning unjust wars.
The Occupy Movement and those of us within the social justice and economic
justice movements need to fight against the indefinite wars that have cropped
up in Pakistan and Yemen. After the sad lessons of the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq we should not allow the US corporate media, Neoconservatives, the US
congress, Democrats, The American Israel Public Affairs Committee AIPAC, and
President Benjamin Netanyahu to drag us into another unjust war in Iran. The
United States of America has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world two
hundred times over and Israel also has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the
Middle East two hundred times over. These are facts that the Iranian government
(religious and political) is very cognizant of and they would not think about
attacking neither United States nor Israel despite their acquisition of a
nuclear weapon. Our provocations and warmongerings against the fraudulent Iranian
government would eventually weaken the Green Movement leaders and activists
that arose after the rigging of the Iranian presidential election in 2009. The Iran
Green Movement has the capacity of changing their regime with the advent of
another Persian Spring.
In conclusion, the progressive
community needs to rally against the ever available surplus in the budgets when
it comes to matters of warfare and the sudden deficits when it is time to
investing in domestic policies. We cannot be underfunding/defunding the
education of the present and future generations with senseless wars and
warmongering initiates such as the United States nuclear shield. When teachers
are fired and schools are bordered up like we are witnessing in some states in
all levels of education around the country, this results in diminished
competitiveness in the international spheres. As a result America is bound to
have fewer inventors and pioneers to continue sustainable development and
manufacturing communities. The Occupy Movement must fight for common sense
regulations in the banking and energy sectors. We do not have the finances to
produce slick adverts/propagandas like Exxon, Chevron, British Petroleum,
Halliburton, JP Morgan Chase but we can still get the citizenry behind our
messages. We have to force Democrats to deny unnecessary tax breaks to
companies while making sure that they pay adequate corporate taxes. Individuals that constitute the 1% in our
population need to be taxed at higher rates without tax loopholes such as
charitable deductions and offshore banking/investment accounts. Lack of
justifiable taxations results in the funding of plutocratic projects like the
proverbial Voters’ ID disenfranchisement and Stand Your Ground Laws by the 1%
income earners.
Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist
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