Occupy Wall Street and Other Analogies | Our Blog Posts | Forum

I am the mother of three (bias alert: adorable) children. If I were to allow them to, they would stay up all night, subsist on an endless supply of food from McDonald's, and never do schoolwork or clean their rooms. If I were to subject you for very long to children accustomed to this anarchy, you would most likely label them "brats" and me a "bad parent." You would employ those labels, because you would (rightly) assume that as one of the two authority figures in the home, I should parent my children with the understanding that there are rules and boundaries for acceptable behavior.
We all understand this, from the foregoing analogy.
Why is it then, no one understands the same principle applies to all of this "Occupy Wall Street" madness? These corporations are the naughty children, allowed to "behave badly" while our government has — in the best case scenario — turned a parental blind eye.
Going back to my original premise of the three naughty (yet adorable) children: what if I allowed my son's teen friends to come over and drink beer? Or allowed a co-ed sleep over because, we all know," they will do this stuff anyway." Great gravy! I hope you would report me, not picket my house with signs about my kids' behavior!
But again, when it comes to Big Business, we can't connect those dots. I've discussed the "best case" blind eye scenario. The worst case scenario is when the parents aid, abet, enable, condone, assist, and/or are complicit in the behavior.
We've let these companies stamp their collective feet, hold their collective breaths, and capitulated and cooked yet another meal when they wouldn't eat their food and swore up and down they would "starve" if we didn't.
Bailouts, crony-ism, favoritism, payback. Solyndra, automakers, banks….Both parties, both sides of the aisle. Any dots being connected? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
Yes, I know there are some greedy, unethical companies out there. I boycott them selectively, and so what if they never feel it….my conscience feels better. Yes, I know I can't boycott every company I have a beef with, but my dollars matter to me, and I try to be a good steward when I can.
But I also know that this manufactured outrage is kicking the dog when you are mad at your boss. If you really hate what is happening on Wall Street, take a look at what happens on Pennsylvania Avenue or Capitol Hill, and use your vote, like your dollars, very wisely.

– Marie Stroughter

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