Well, this started out as a reply to The Jersey Wife’s Blog entitled “Sleeping Giant Awakened.” http://thejerseywife.com/2011/10/09/sleeping-giant-awakened/ however, somewhere between “Hear! Hear!” and “It’s time for everyone to make this country go ’round not just the middle class.” I got wordy and it took on a life of its own.

I’ve been thinking about Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philly and the folks who started it all in Madison, WI. Full disclosure, I’m not sure they have enough focus or truly know what they want to come from all this but as I typed my reply it occurred to me that I support them and their cause more than I realized. Below you’ll find my long and rambling reply to The Jersey Wife. I know not everyone who reads here is political but those of you who are I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Occupy movement(s).

In reply to http://thejerseywife.com/2011/10/09/sleeping-giant-awakened/

Hear! Hear!

So true. I don’t get why Middle America, middle class people vote for republicans. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Rich people don’t understand that for most the deck is stacked against them from birth.

The other day I was thinking about high school & my lack of a college education. I’m from a blue collar, middle class family. We weren’t exactly comfortable (dad’s a retired truck driver) but we weren’t poor. We never needed welfare or food stamps, my parents have lived in the same house for more than 50 years and we never went hungry. We had more than many do. For that I am very thankful.

I went to 12 years of Catholic school, as did my brother 15 years before me. My parents did the best they could to offer us the best education they could afford. But they could not afford college for either of us. Because they could not afford college for me I had to be employable after high school. Starting in my junior year I had to follow the business curriculum. When it came time for SATS and scholarship tests I’d never seen any of the math (Algebra 2, trig, calculus) and so I could never rank quite high enough for scholarships.

I’ve paid my way and have plenty of college credits and I’ll eventually finish but if I, a middle class, Catholic school educated, relatively comfortable woman struggled to get where I am I cannot imagine how much harder it is for those who have so much less to get by. I never wanted for food or school supplies, in fact I never went without a birthday or Christmas present.

I don’t doubt that many rich people have worked incredibly hard against incredible odds to get where they are but there are others who’ve always been rich and will always be rich for generations to come. They get up every morning and have everything they need and have no worries about which bill will get paid when and how. Their kids go to the best schools and are afforded the luxury of studying basket weaving if they so choose because they don’t have to be employable.

It baffles me that the haves who started out as have nots aren’t more willing to contribute their fair share by way of taxes.

Oh and Herman Cain and Eric Cantor and those of your ilk…. The Constitution of the United States of America begins with the words, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.” The Constitution is meant to be a living, breathing document. It is meant to change with the times as is the country itself.

Our founding fathers risked life, limb, and fortune for liberty. The tea party loves to celebrate the founding fathers and invoke the name of Jesus when in actuality both would be disgusted by the tea party and those of their ilk (love this word). This country did not get to be great and glorious by its citizens looking out for number one. Just watch Little House on the Prairie those people, those farms, that town could not have survived if each family on each farm in each home took care of only their own and Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Like I said earlier I’m from a blue collar, middle class family. We lived in a small parish on a small street where people helped one another dig out of snowstorms and clean their pavements during the summer. I learned a very deep lesson from my parents and neighbors. During the later years of my high school experience our parish got a new pastor. He turned the parish upside down and did many things that many people didn’t like. Many left the parish for other churches but my parents and my immediate neighbors made up their mind that they were going to stay because this was their church and they’d literally and figuratively built it and this man was not going to chase them away.

The Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Philly and the good folks of Madison, WI certainly seemed to have learned this same lesson. We built this country and we aren’t going anywhere. We built it and it survives on the backs of the middle class who work, pay taxes, buy groceries and work their fingers to the bone to keep their homes (mortgages) paid for and in good condition. We make this country go ’round the rich just profit from us. It’s time for everyone to make this country go ’round not just the middle class.