In Atlanta and Oakland, police in riot gear moved in and moved out the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Oakland police used tear gas and bean bag guns.
Memo to police: The video looks really bad and it goes global. That is not really the image we want around the world, especially among the fledgling Democracies in the Arab world. It really undermines our moral authority.
And it's not just police attacking the movement, increasingly the media and politicians have been sniping too. But the more Occupy Wall Street is attacked, the more it seems to grow in numbers. And there is a good reason for that - they are right.
They like to call themselves the 99% and they are protesting the richest one percent. Today the Congressional Budget Office released numbers showing that between 1979 to 2007, average household income for the nation's top 1% more than tripled, while middle-class incomes grew by less than 40%.
So while those at the top have seen their incomes soar over the past three decades, middle-class and lower incomes have stagnated.
For the top 1% of the population, average inflation-adjusted household income grew by 275%. The rest of wealthiest fifth of the population, not including the top 1%, saw household income grow by 65% during that time, faster than the rest of the population, but "not nearly as fast as for the top 1%."
For the middle class, it was a different story. Household income grew by just under 40% and the poorest fifth of the population saw their incomes rise by just 18% in a little less than 30 years, according to the study, which was based on IRS and Census data.
And then there is the matter of taxes. In 1979 the tax rate for the top 1% was as high as 50%, now it is 35%. So while the rich saw their income triple, their taxes were cut by 30%.
This is the kind of economic disparity that has toppled empires and governments in the past. It is a problem we need to fix. Don't attack the messengers, fix the problem. And stop with the argument that the protesters are just there because they don't have jobs. Well, YEAH! 14 million Americans are out of work. That contributes to the economic disparity.
If you want to end Occupy Wall Street, give the men and women protesting good paying jobs. Then you won't need tear gas. they will go peacefully.
