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October 11, 2011
by Rev. JESSE JACKSON
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/11/winning-the-class-war/
Occupy Wall Street protests have now spread to some 800 cities. It’s spreading like a fire on a strong wind over a dry field. The heat is likely to keep on building.
Conservatives have fallen over themselves rushing to side with the top 1% against the rest. Eric Cantor, House majority leader, denounces “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” Herman Cain dismisses the demonstrators as “anti-American.” Mitt Romney accuses them of waging “class warfare.”
But class warfare is the reason Occupy Wall Street has sounded such a chord. Sure there’s class warfare, one of America’s richest men, Warren Buffett, concluded, “and my class is winning.”
Last week just before I left for Europe, I joined the Chicago “wing” of the Occupy Wall Street movement last week. I spoke to students who dropped out of school because they couldn’t afford tuition; now they are left with guaranteed student loan debt.
Students graduate with average student loan debts of over $20,000, and the bankers lobby passes a law that forces payment of those debts, even after bankruptcy. Now students are graduating from college laden with debts and without a job. Any wonder they are protesting.
I spoke with professors and teachers who have lost their jobs, as state’s face declining revenues – driven in part by the foreclosure/housing crisis and resulting loss of property tax revenues.
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