From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy The Globe

What started a month ago as odd protest by what media called “fringes of the fringe” clearly went global today as people started similar protests in  other countries spreading to other continents and it is now called ” Occupy The Globe Movement” that is bound to spread as a series of global crises’ converge to fuel the unrest.

 Economical woes created by failed policies that culminated in global recession of 2008 are largely to blame. People in many Western nations were willing to overlook the seeming unlimited growth of wealth and opulence among the worlds’ mega billionaires as long as some wealth trickled down to them in form of jobs and easy credit.

 Now that the system started to crash it is the people at the bottom of the pyramid who feel it the most and they are not willing to foot the bill while the ultra rich continue to grow their wealth. As the next global recession looms around the corner, most people know that the governments would want to do more bailouts and take on more debt, which clearly did not work in 2008 and no one is expecting that it would work when the next crisis hits, so they are protesting against it already.

 Even though the movement does not have any clear leadership or demands it has a message that appeals to the masses and can take different tones and forms depending on the local situation in any given place. In United States it is against government favouring the rich at the expense of the working people. In Japan it is against irresponsibility of the government during the nuclear disaster that followed the tsunami and its lack of transparency when it comes to health risks it poses to the general public while in Europe people protest against bailouts to fiscally irresponsible countries such as Greece.

 Wherever it happens it is fuelled by a sense that something is seriously wrong with the current system and that it is common people who will pay the price, which seems to confirm the claims of various conspiracy theories widely circulating the Internet in recent years.

 While these protests are now conducted peacefully, it is very possible for them to turn more violent if they are ignored by the governments as the economical crisis gets worse and the people become more frustrated. And the images of wealthy executives of Wall Street mocking the protesters by drinking champagne on the balcony will only fuel the outrage. It is unlikely that this movement will fade as passing fad and the governments must make important changes before it gets out of control.

 Increasing the taxes on the wealthiest is an important step as well as putting caps on the salaries of top CEO’s. The practices that lead to economical meltdown such as selling mortgages as derivatives on the stock market and credit companies prying on those who cannot afford their loans must be stopped.

Common people also should not allow themselves to be taken advantage of. Surely what credit companies and banks are doing id unfair, but we allow it by taking the baits and borrowing and buying what we cannot afford thus making ourselves poorer and the wealthy richer.

 It takes more than protests for things to fundamentally change for the better. Our own habits and the way of life must change as well. We need to return to ethics of hard work and living within our means instead of looking to get rich quick schemes. Unbridled capitalism is really bad, but the last thing the world needs is a global Bolshevik style revolution. It did not work then and it will not work now.

 What we need is a balanced system where there is freedom of enterprise without greedy schemes to gain wealth at the expense of the working poor. Hard working people should never be poor neither the rich should hold 99 percent of the wealth, but it will take the change in mentality of the whole societies. Politicians alone cannot do it for us.

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