It's time to bring 'Occupy Wall Street' to Iowa

[Guest editorial by Iowa CCI Executive Director Hugh Espey appeared in the October 10, 2011 Des Moines Register]

There has been a phenomenal outpouring of support across the country in the past week for a tough, tenacious and genuinely populist response to the ongoing economic crisis.What started as a movement to occupy Wall Street has mushroomed into a national call to action for distressed homeowners, scapegoated union workers, underemployed youth and everyday Americans from all walks of life who have taken a hard look at our political system and economy and realized that they’re not set up to work for us.

The mainstream media and establishment politicos are having a hard time making sense of what is going on, but those of us who have been pushing economic justice and fairness since the 2008 financial crash know what this is: a massive democratic awakening of everyday people ready to fight back against corporate power.This new Occupy Wall Street movement is happening because everyday people are fed up with business as usual in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street.

We’re fed up with the big banks who crashed the economy and don’t pay their fair share of taxes. We’re fed up with a political system that lavishes bailouts, subsidies and kickbacks on big businesses, Wall Street firms and the top 1 percent while the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet. This nationwide mobilization is happening because 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and millions more have lost their homes. Meanwhile, politicians in Washington are stuck quibbling over cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — ignoring the harsh reality that we would have no deficit if we had single-payer health care and we stopped fighting two wars — and refusing to find real solutions to make Wall Street pay for the mess it caused.

This new populist movement is happening because the corrosive influence of big money in politics has a chokehold on our democracy, and everyday people and hardworking families are ready to stand up and say “enough is enough.” We want an economy that works for everybody and a political system where people matter more, money matters less.

Our political leaders are too busy asking big banks and Wall Street corporations for campaign contributions to push the “put people first” policies that this nation needs. President Barack Obama has failed to issue a moratorium on home foreclosures or push for a financial speculation tax to raise revenue and bring some stability to the financial markets. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has failed to bring the big banks to justice. His 50-state investigation into the national foreclosure crisis is crumbling after the California and New York attorneys general left the coalition because they know the settlement Miller wants lets big banks off the hook.

What the Occupy Wall Street protesters understand — and what Obama and Miller seemingly don’t — is that Wall Street and the top 1 percent are not more important than the other 99 percent of us who work day in and day out to keep this country running. We won’t pay for their crisis. It’s time to put communities before corporations and people before profits.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement members are proud to stand in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement sweeping the nation. The time for action is now. These occupations are a good thing. We need more of them, and we need laws and policies that serve everyday people.