Homie of the Day: David

Forget the 99%, be the 100%

The world in 2012 is an amazing place, full of wonder, innovation, and cooperation.  Within that world, America is an incredible land and an awesome idea.  Yet something is wrong with the country and the economy, affecting almost everyone.  At stake are people’s lives – their families, their homes, their communities and their sense of self-worth.  Because of these stakes, good individuals do things that are good for them but bad for society, whether it’s ignoring pollution or working for predatory lenders.

We are raised to believe that money is the reward for hard work; that making money helps society and fairly determines our value.  Making more money, by almost any means, is viewed as a virtue.  And the opposite is true of making less.  But now it’s obvious that this way of living is unhealthy, and our monetary system is corrupted, broken, and unfair.

It seems like only mass action, not individual financial success, will correct the ship of state – or more broadly, humanity.  Occupy Wall Street and the 99% have been America’s reaction. The premise of the movement is simple, even if the demands are not.  The premise is that the richest 1% of Americans has subverted the progress of the poorest 99%.  The movement believes only “occupation” and other military-themed protests will solve anything.

Here are a few problems with that logic:  The 1% is roughly 3,000,000 people.   The Occupy movement is based on divisive politics, pure and simple.  Blaming the rich is no different than race-bating or blaming gays for the failure of straight marriages.  Many of the 1% were simply born into their position and have had no affect on monetary or fiscal policy in their lifetimes.  The rich are not inherently bad nor the poor good, and the specific people and firms who directly contributed to the recession are a mix of both.  Viewing the world as a 99%er allows you to be unaccountable for your own impact on the economy.

Complaining about our problems and trying to bash the rich is easy – and cowardly.  It can be tempting, but is incredibly false and wrong.  Certain people in finance and politics may use flaws in our system to unjustly validate themselves, but America sets the rules and celebrates the winners.

Before Sept of 2008, I watched MTV’s Crib’s and listened to Jay-Z while wanting, approving, and glorifying excessive wealth.  I bet you did too.  Our entire country is responsible for our collective economic priorities, both good and bad.  And just as we all caused our problems, the only way to fix them is TOGETHER.

As we continue growing more connected as a species, our old institutions and power structures collapse. The more we connect the more we need each other because as things in our world break apart and change, all we have is each other.  We’ve come to a point where we must transistion as a people.  Simply put, we must unite to survive.

We have to be fully honest with one another, rich and poor.  Then forgive, unite, and move forward – we can be blessed by the abundance of the future, but we can’t do it divided.  We can’t do it pointing fingers and being hypocrites.  We can only do it by being honest with one another, by forgiving everyone for everything, and solving the five or so immediate, dire problems the world faces right now. Together, and only together, can we fix our world and ourselves by recognizing the humanity of, and human rights in, everyone.

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And in case you missed them, check out David’s previous posts Connected Part I and Part II.