Big Money, Big Deal – what should we make of Soros

The news is out!  Occupy Wall Street was a scheme financed by George Soros to bring down American capitalism and make himself more powerful and reward all of his rich friends.  It’s an attack on freedom so that government and taxes can get bigger.  The 1% is funding the 99% to bring about a new world order beneficial to them and duping the 99% in the process.

Well, first, the 1% have been lying for decades to the 99%.  We’ve been sold the trickle down economics line time and time again.  But it’s not a simple lie that we are told — it’s part of a bigger view of the world that feeds into the worldview of many Americans — the American dream, the if you work hard you can make it better for yourself, the I go it alone mentality.  So if it is a means of duping the 99%, well nothing new.

Second, so what if Soros funded OWS?  Just because he funds it does not mean that he owns what people do with it.  He cannot control the hundreds and thousands of people who have gathered in various cities across the country trying to articulate a vision of democracy and live it out.

The Koch brothers, we know, funded the Tea Party in various guises and certainly got their monies worth.  But they tapped into a mindset that already bought into their ideas and were easily convinced to provide the very means by which the Koch brothers could make millions.  It’s not clear that Soros has done the same thing.  He may want bigger government or more taxes on the middle class or some weird thing.

But does he want the kind of democracy we’ve seen on every street in the occupied cities?  Does he want belief in equality and a consensus government like what has formed with Occupy Portland?  If he does, he could not bring about anything that would benefit Soros or any other rich person.  At best, it will make them equals in a more just society.  At worst, it will lead to civil war and a totalitarian state.  And we know what happens to the forces behind totalitarian states.

United

In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King jr. asked hard questions: if not us, who?  If not now, when?

These questions speak out to us from two generations ago.  MLK jr. fought for the rights of African-Americans, and history remembers him for that.  But he died for workers’ rights.  He came to Memphis to speak, not about race, but about the poverty and foul treatment of sanitation workers.  Today, we must continue to fight.

But poverty and poor treatment have spread through society.  On KBOO this morning, author Andrew Potter noted that people have been protesting for 40 years and yet nothing has changed.  Would MLK jr. agree?  Yes and no.

Most people no longer use racist language in their everyday life, though it’s worthy to note that language offensive to homosexuals may have taken it’s place.  African-Americans can go into any store and coffee shop across the United States and be treated with respect, though I often wonder about the Latino/Latina, the immigrant, the different.

The reason things have not changed might be something relatively simple to figure out and yet oh-so-difficult to work out — community building.  Race divides us, gender divides us, sex divides us, orientation divides us, political parties divide us.  As I’ve stressed in my blogging, we must — morally and socially — turn away from that which divides, including the divisive language found in the media and found in political parties.

Had MLK jr. looked out at the protests last year in Wisconsin and Ohio against attempts of government to rid the United States of public-employee unions he would have shaken his head.  For what he would have seen were everyday people yelling against the unions that unions members should be able to keep jobs, when non-union citizens could not; that union members should have to pay more for their insurance, when non-union citizens had none; that union employees should not be able to strike, when non-union citizens had nothing to strike from.

The 99% represents the idea that we are united more than we are divided — that we have more in common with each other than the top 1% has in common with us.  Why that cut off point?  Simply that — our unity shows in our powerlessness.  And what unity brings is power.

The protestors in Portland at least had this right: turn to your neighbor and introduce yourself.  Your neighbor is the best insurance you have when you are arrested and beaten for protesting.

It’s funny, because, in his letter, Dr. King started out by saying, the pastors and ministers here in Birmingham are complaining that what I do is wrong.  But they should be here with us.

If not us, then who?  If not now, then when?