Who’s to Blame?

Over the last couple weeks I’ve been glued to my Twitter feed diligently watching Occupy Wall Street unfold in New York City and around the world. Then I heard Occupy Boston was starting to heat up and I was overjoyed.

I’ve been wanting to drop in on Occupy Boston since its inception last week but riding the bus to Beantown on my days off just isn’t going to happen. Today, however, we went to Massachusetts to visit family. I suggested to Wolf we go into town for a couple hours between visits but he declined. But as we were on our way to the second destination we heard Garrett Quinn speaking to Steve Annear on WRKO* The excitement I’d been containing all week finally exploded out of my chest when Steve texted me via twitter telling me to call in when I said I was listening to it. I called.

I started out sounding ok. But then I went off the deep end. I started to sound a little idiotic and then, boom, they hung up on me and it’s been bothering me all night. Not that they hung up on me, but that I (obviously) need a telepromter (though they do have their own set of problems) in order to sound eloquent. The lesson I learned today was not to speak off the cuff. It was my Liz Lemon moment.

When Garrett (I think it was Garrett) asked whom I thought brought on the financial problems 99% of us are facing, I said something akin to “we did. words words words, PDAs, um, like you know” then click.

I was trying to say this:

We, the people, voted for those who hold offices across the nation. If we’re not satisfied with our governments, then we only need look in the mirror for someone to blame. We do not hold our elected officials accountable for their actions or inactions as the case may be. Repeatedly we elect the “lesser of two evils”. By doing so we can guarantee nothing is going to change. If we want true change, change that will clean up our planet, clean up our schools, hospitals, and governments to wipe away the greed, then we need to come up with a political system that represents the people, all the people, through cooperation, mediation, coalition building. That’s where real change will come from.

Occupy Together is a great starting point for the Left. It is our time to get our agendas lined up, organized, and viable so we can create true change respecting all the people on this planet and their right to live debt free, healthy, well fed, educated, and on a clean planet.

*Incidentally, I have very vivid memories of WRKO being a rock station back in the 70s. Dad liked to listen to it as we drove around in his Ford truck.