After last week’s blog, someone asked me about my “take on Occupy Wall Street which seems highly focused on money; who has it and who doesn’t”. It certainly has been fascinating to see how this small grass roots effort has spread across the nation and caught everyone’s attention. It’s the focus of the current Doonesbury cartoon, first choice for an “occ” internet search, and is already in Wikepedia.
On my recent New York weekend, our tour bus drove by the park (with the statue of the bull) where it all started. It didn’t look like too big a crowd yet their message is causing everyone to stop and think. The gap between the “classes” is growing and something we need to pay attention to. Here is what I had to say about this issue back in my September 1st, 2009 blog, Reaching Across The Great Divide:
“It got me to thinking of how our money beliefs and values have caused an ever widening gap between those who have and those who have not. That gap has grown so that at times it seems impossible to bridge the gap. The two sides believe the opposite of each other and can’t even begin to understand those on the other side…..this gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” gets bigger and bigger based on baseless “truths” and unexamined beliefs.”
At the end of the day, the Occupy Wall Street movement is giving us an opportunity to examine this gap and to start the conversation as to whether or not this what we, as American’s, want for our great society. Is this what our forefather’s envisioned? Is this the freedom we fought for? Or, have our unexamined money beliefs taken us down a road we never intended travel?
What do you think? Let’s talk.
2 thoughts on “Speaking of Worlds Apart”
In the 1950’s and 1960’s there still existed strong value structures that lay outside the pure pursuit of money. These included religion, the remants, still strong then, of the English gentleman’s concept of personal honor, and even organizations such as the Boy Scouts, among others. Accordingly, among the better boards of directors there still existed a belief that profit alone could not necessarily justify a corporate decision. I know this from personal experience, including because my father served on Fortune 500 boards in that era and often spoke to me about board decisions.
Those old value structures are mere remnants and gross materialsim has taken over. It has been my experience that today most people would risk a company’s future and the possibility of gross personal dishonor if to do so gives them a fair shot at making $30 million in a few short years.
That was not always so and we are ruined as a culture unless matters turn around. Maybe Al Quaeda is right.
It has been a long time coming but I believe it is finally here. When I was young we believed that we had a voice, that people, the goverment, what ever would lesson to us…and they did. It was the 60s and change came. For to long people have sat back and let goverment and business do what they want and the problem have grown. I thought people might come out against the wars but they didn’t. Today people are coming out and speaking up. I have no idea where this will lead but I suspect it will bring about change. When we talk we bring about change when we sit back and say nothing then change will always go in the direction of most powerful. I hope this movement helps us all to look more closly at our money and power beliefs.