Some underwater and financially fractured homeowners are supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement from the comfort of their own living room.
As the Occupy Wall Street completes its two-month anniversary and demonstrators were removed from Zuccotti Park, let’s take a moment to reflect on why these demonstrations are now resonating with both Main Street America and homeowners that are underwater or in foreclosure.
Maybe because it’s a revolution born by the systemic arrogance of the banking and Wall Street community that pushed our economy off a cliff and now continues to hold the whole country at bay.
“Our political system should serve all of us — not just the very rich and powerful. Right now Wall Street owns Washington,” said participant Beka Economopoulos. “We are the 99% and we are here to reclaim our democracy.”
Flash Back – Shays’ Rebellion
If we just go back a few years to the height of the economic crisis in 2007/2008, I did a short video on Shays’ Rebellion 2.0. In that video I discuss how the farmers in Western Massachusetts ended up protesting an unfair system that forcibly foreclosed upon the farmers during a severe economic recession caused by a severe drought. Shay and his compatriots ended up storming the courthouse and judges that were allowing the banks to foreclose on the homes and farms and in fact placing some of the debtors in jail at the time.
For those who know their history the great irony of Shays’ Rebellion is that it caused post-revolutionary colonial America to reassess their government structure and was in fact a key catalyst for the formation of today’s United States of America.
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