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What About This Is Not Clear
Based on Occupy Wall Street
We do not need a handout; we need a hand up.
We do not want to destroy the financial system;
we just do not want the financial system to destroy us.
We do not special favors;
we realize that special favors belong only to
the big corporations and banks
that send away our jobs,
waste our money, and demand a bail-out,
then use the bailout money to give bonus
for poor manager performances
and to executives, who created the financial mess,
and furthermore used taxpayer money
to lobby against the taxpayers
in order to get more preferential treatment.
What part of this is wrong? What part of this is not clear?
Many of us want to work, at a decent job,
and be treated decently.
We are not ‘hippies’. That ended in the 1960’s.
We are not radicals, communists,
or any other negative term given to us.
We ARE the PEOPLE.
We are an 87 year old grandmother
worried about her grandchildren’s future;
we are the hard hat who cannot find construction work;
we are the teacher, the nurse, the shop keeper;
we are the recent graduate
with over $50,000 of loans
and no clue who will hire them;
we are the union member who was laid off
as a connivance to limited budgets;
we are the Maine Sergeant that faced off thirty police,
telling them that we do have First Amendment Rights
and this is not a police state yet;
we are the Vietnam Veteran
who was shot in the head with a rubber bullet;
we are the former bank manager,
one of 30,000 laid off after Wall Street downsizing;
in other words,
we ARE the People; not the enemy.
We are the ones who elect politicians
who are supposed to speak for us; not against us,
not to work against us, not to make things work against us.
What part of this is wrong? What part of this is not clear?
The Republicans praised the Tea Party
although their stand against TARPS
is the same as the Wall Street Protesters.
They praised Arab Spring
whose complaints are the same as the Wall Street Protesters.
The situation is too close to home,
too uncomfortable for their real support’s tastes,
so they accuse the protesters as being lazy,
ungrateful, and greedy. Yet they welcome the Tea Party
because it supported them into office.
If one was not true, then the other would not be true.
What part of this is wrong? What part of this is not clear?
Vote the real terrorists out of office.
Change the rules.
Do not let corporations spend endless amounts of money
supporting certain politicians
and paying for lobbyist to promote certain dangerous bills,
when they could be hiring people.
What part of this is wrong? What part of this is not clear?
If certain politicians had to take pay cuts,
lose their benefits,
not be able to include their pay towards retirement,
and have to get their own insurance
while having pre-existing conditions,
then they might consider more carefully
how it effects the voters, instead of their enablers.
What part of this is wrong?
What part of this is not clear?
Pass it on.
Bio:
Martin Willitts Jr was nominated for two Best of The Net awards and his 5th Pushcart award. . He has had seven poetry chapbooks accepted this year including “True Simplicity” (Poets Wear Prada Press, 2011), “My Heart Is Seven Wild Swans Lifting” (Slow Trains, 2011), “Why Women Are A Ribbon Around A Bomb” (Last Automat, 2011), “Art Is Always an Impression of What an Artist Sees” (Muse Café, 2011), “Protest, Petition, Write, Speak: Matilda Joslyn Gage Poems” (Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, 2011), How To Find Peace” (Kattywumpus Press, 2011), and “Secrets No One Wants To Talk About” (Dos Madres Press, 2011). He is a Quaker and they are used to protesting things they feel are just plain wrong.
(author retains copyright)
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