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In a way I wish I could be more sympathetic with the Occupy movement. I finished a three part article on the Occupy thing in my local paper, and I’ve read a lot of crap on the net about their various activities around the country, but nothing I’ve read to this point has really explained what they’re stirred up about or why they are willing to get their heads busted and spend a night in a cell with Bubba. According to one source the Occupy movement is directed against economic and social inequality, and to a point the YouTube videos and newspaper articles bear this out with talk about them being the 99%, corporate greed and corrupt capitalists, but the people speaking the loudest for these mobs all look like recently unemployed yuppies and waanabe throwbacks to the anti-Vietnam war protesters of the late 60′s. Their inarticulate yammering borders on hysteria and whatever the message is that they are trying to get across seems far too vague amidst the flying rhetoric, the babble of the crowd, and the and the juvenile property damage wrecked by the lunatic fringe that has attached itself to them. In Oakland the crowd was chanting “End Capitalism;” that message came through loud and clear, but what didn’t compute in my mind was the why of it. What would it really mean to end capitalism? If we ended capitalism what would we base our economy on afterwards? How would ending capitalism make the economic situation of the people in this country more equitable? My gardener is a capitalist. He mows my yard and I pay him to do it, it works for him and it works for me. If we do away with capitalism would he be mowing my yard for free, or would I be paying him and mowing my yard myself? I suppose I might be a bit dense on this point and I would like somebody to draw me a picture of what this would look like or give me a diagram of how it would work because I just don’t get it.

I suppose that, deep down,  I think these Occupy people are nothing more than a bunch of idiots. The whole thing reminds me of the rabid-dog gun control crowd who want to prohibit a machine for the actions of its operator. Corporations are nothing more than companies. They provide services for which people choose to pay. The whole idea behind them is to make a profit, and the amount of profit they make is directly proportional to how many people desire the service they provide and are willing to pay for it. Where is the evil in that arrangement? If nobody were willing to pay for the service that a company was selling then how long would they remain in business? It doesn’t matter how big a company is or how much money they have now. Bank of America, Capital One, Chase Manhattan, how long would any of them last if it were not for the people who chose to do business with them? The fact is that many of the people who are out there bellowing the loudest have checking accounts and credit cards through the companies they are targeting and that sort of detracts from the credibility of the whole show. The real question should be is the problem rooted in the banks and the big corporations or is it in the government officials and elected representatives who secretly take their money in exchange for passing laws that benefit the banks and the big corporations unfairly, and at our expense? If this is the case, and I am fairly certain that it is, then ridding ourselves of capitalism, the one thing that has made this nation a land of prosperity and achievement for all, would be like shooting ourselves in the foot before a race. Why not fix the corruption in government, eliminate the laws they have passed to keep us all screwed to the floor and leave well enough alone?  I don’t like Bank of America any more than the next guy, but I am not about to cut my throat over it.

Why is it the Occupy crowd, as educated as they claim to be, can’t figure out that destroying capitalism and turning the big corporations into victims is not the brightest way to go when focusing on corruption seems like such an easy way to fix things up? Personally, I think that they know, but since it isn’t in line with their agenda they aren’t bringing it up. Besides it’s easy to get everyone fixated on the corporations and giving them a target keeps them from seeing the real villains.

The Occupy crowd claims that they represent 99% of the people but I suspect they represent far fewer. Aside from the perpetual joiners who leap onto every cause that wanders by, the crowds occupying the current protest sites around the country seem to be heavily weighted with college students, recent graduates, and characters wearing SEIU t-shirts. This explains a lot more than the rhetoric they’re spouting for dissemination through the news media, but whether or not is it something that you or I would normally support is something else. The colleges and universities in this country were long ago taken over by the extreme left and the curriculum offered is slanted to support their political views. The students are graded more on their ability to assimilate those views than they are on the absorption of actual knowledge. Degrees in mathematics, hard science and engineering have been declining for more than thirty years while graduates with degrees and even doctorates in ethnic studies, sociology, political science, and Hispanic Culture have soared. These are people that have taken out high interest rate educational loans over a period of four to six years while they pursued what amounts to the most worthless educational experience imaginable and thirty days after they finally graduate they find that they have absolutely no marketable skills that any employer is looking for. and as an added bonus, they are $175,000 in debt that they can’t pay off, and even if they filed for bankruptcy their educational loans won’t be discharged. It’s hard to imagine the joy of being 23 years old and starting your adult life with no job and $175,000 in debt. But is that a good reason for destroying the foundation of our nation’s economic system?

Honestly speaking, I suspect that rather than 99% of our society, the Occupy crowd actually represents about 43%. 43 is the percentage of Americans who are partially or completely reliant on financial assistance from state or federal government to meet their basic human needs. 43% of the nation is receiving some form of food stamps, housing subsidies or clothing allowance from the government and this number is growing very fast. This is the segment of American society most threatened by cuts to entitlement programs and without the ability to raise the tax money needed to pay for these programs, that threat is closer to becoming a reality and the amplitude of vocal outrage increases. But is that a good reason for destroying the foundation of our nation’s economic system?

When we hear the chants and speeches coming from the Occupy protestors are we actually hearing something that constitutes a legitimate complaint or are we letting our own displeasure with the current elected representatives lead us into agreeing with something that is completely unworkable. It’s easy to sympathize with the underdog, the poor family that has been psychologically conditioned to rely on others for their basic human needs, but do we really think that destroying our own way of life is going to help them. Wouldn’t it make more sense to strengthen the economy by eliminating the corrupt practices enshrined by crooked politicians and kick-starting the free market so that jobs were available? Rather than draining what little money the American middle class still might have to pay for the food, clothing and shelter of those who are either unable or unwilling to care for themselves, wouldn’t it make more sense to start cutting these programs back and wean these people off the public dole so that they could care for themselves and take some responsibility for their own lives?

With the 2012 Presidential Election coming up it is unlikely that you will hear anything of this nature proposed by the candidates from either party. If they want to get elected they will sympathize and pander to anyone listening. Unfortunately that is not going to solve the problem, and if we don’t solve it, it is going to get worse. The Occupy protestors might be a mass movement, but they do not represent the American people. If we really want to see a solution to the problems we face we need to quit listening to the guy with the degree in Hispanic Studies and start listening to the voice of common sense, otherwise we just keep losing and the other side will just keep taking.

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Herman Cain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, and he ran for the U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2004 but did not win in the primaries. His presidential campaign for the White House in 2012 began way back in 2010 when he hit all of the early presidential states, became a YouTube sensation, and addressed more than 40 Tea Party rallies around the country. Throughout all of this, his prior run for the presidency, his senatorial bid in 2004 and up until October of this year, a mere thirty day ago, in a presidential campaign that began over a year ago, not one word was said by any of the women who were suddenly overcome with a spasm of self-righteous indignation and are now claiming that back in 1997 he behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner with them. While this sort of trash may sell tons of newspapers, the fact is these women lack any sort of credibility and have nothing whatsoever to support their allegations.

I could just as easily claim that I caught Barack Obama in my back yard groping my dog. Furthermore, I am absolutely certain that there are numerous individuals out there who would be more than willing to allege that, they too, discovered Barack in their yard or barn doing the big nasty with their pet or their prize pig. The truth doesn’t matter when the news media gets on board and starts blasting the story across their headlines with every morning’s new edition. Repeating a lie often enough does not make it true, but to the easily swayed and the extremely gullible, anything nasty that shows up in newsprint is quickly bought into. In fact, the more vicious a rumor is, the more apt people are to buy into it even when there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it.

I look at the timing and substance of these allegations as a good indication of exactly how much neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party wants a credible candidate running for office. Consider the fact that if a candidate with any real sense of integrity and decency should actually run for the presidency, and against all odds, win the office, it would be the end of “business as usual” for both parties and neither of these corrupt political gangs are about to let that happen if they can scuttle it quickly before the average working people have a chance to get behind it and start pushing.

This country is not going to be pulled out of the frying pan by a die-hard Democrat or a die-hard Republican; they have too much invested in keeping things the way they have been and they are not about to let someone who might represent the people come in and screw up their party. However, if this nation is going to be put back on the right track it is going to take somebody that is not part of the current problem to do it. If Obama gets another four years we get more of the same. If Romney wins the election we get more of the same. If Perry wins the election we get more of the same and the same with Bachman, Gingrich, Huntsman, Santorum, Clinton or any of the others that have helped make the mess that we are in. If the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, why would we vote for the people that have already shown themselves to be dishonest, self-serving and politically corrupt while in office? Quit voting for political parties and political hacks and start voting for somebody that will do the job we want done.

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If the only way that Rick Perry can get to the top of the Republican heap is to smear the character of his fellow Republicans I believe that says more about his character than any words he has to offer. The allegations of sexual harassment filling the newspapers with respect to Herman Cain are so old that their pubic hairs are grey and the fact of the matter is that they say absolutely nothing about Cain himself. He was a business leader in charge of a large operation when these allegations first came out and there are damn few business leaders of any size organization that don’t carry some sort of sexual harassment claim in their baggage. It happens to be one of the most popular claims anyone with a grudge can level and thousands of such allegations are filed every year only to be found without merit.

According to AP News the latest of these allegations comes from a woman who said she “considered” filing such a complaint against Cain as a result of remarks she claims he made back in the 1990′s. This is just about as far from credible information as one can get, and yet this is the sort of thing that Rick Perry is digging up and leaking to the press in the hope that Cain’s campaign goes belly up so he can grab a bigger piece of the pie for himself. Rick Perry’s campaign took off with a bang but it seems to have fizzled out since he began airing his extreme evangelical Christian beliefs, some of which are downright scary.

Personally I believe that, as a Republican candidate for President in 2012, Herman Cain might just be the biggest concern that the Democratic Party faces and they would be entirely orgasmic if Cain’s fellow Republican candidates ganged up on him in the effort to send him packing. For one thing, the Democrats could point at it and say they were right all along about the Republicans being nothing more than a bunch of racists. Not that it would really prove anything, but what the hell, what ultra-liberal Democrat needs proof? Cain’s presence in the GOP line-up hinders the Democratic Party’s ability to portray the GOP as the party of the filthy rich white guy, and that’s an image they need to pump full of air before we get too much closer to election time. The Democrats have portrayed themselves as the party that fights for the downtrodden and oppressed for so long that they’ve forgotten that they’re also the party that started the Ku Klux Klan and fought against integration in the South. A black man running for President on the GOP ticket will do major damage to nearly fifty years of liberal lies and propaganda.

At this point in time, Herman Cain is the closest thing to a Presidential candidate the GOP has in the race. Perry’s a Christian fanatic and as would prove to be as bad as any Islamic fanatic could be as a president. Romney is still not much of a conservative and while he may be the favored son of the GOP leadership because he comes closer to their new left leaning conservative positions, the fact is he is nearly as liberal as Obama. When you get right down to it, in a race between Romney and Obama it wouldn’t matter who you voted for because you would end up with the same old garbage either way.

All things considered, I will still vote for Ron Paul if he gets the nomination, but if he doesn’t I would like to see Herman Cain get a shot at it.

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