What does "We're the 99" mean anyway?

“We’re the 99! We’re the 99!”

The chants have been heard across the US for the last few weeks. The movement and the chants are supposed to be valid because the movement has supposedly started by some organic, grassroots effort. Whether it is or isn’t grassroots is really not the issue. What is the issue is “Does this cry really have any validity?”

I can hear the besmirchment already.

“This is America!” Yep, is sure is.

“How dare you!” How dare I what? Say that the cry may have no validity?

“You’re just part of the problem!” Define the problem.

“Well THOSE people have all THAT money and its not fair!” Really?

Fair is defined as: free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice, so maybe that leads to the dispute. Many believe that there is no way that corporations can make as much as they do without being biased, dishonest or unjust, even though in most cases there is no account of wrong doing on the side of the corporations. Now before you start screaming about this corporate incident or that corporate situation, please notice that I said most cases. Those corporations that have involved themselves in wrong doing deserve investigation, and if appropriate, prosecution.

Even still, the fact that they were involved in wrong doing does not give us the right as citizens to tear down their front doors and empty their safe, throwing the money out into the streets after we have made sure to stuff our pockets. If that were true, the first corporation we should go after is Solyndra, since they apparently misappropriated a half a billion dollars of our tax money. But I don’t see any of the protestors complaining about them.

One other thing that deeply concerns me is that many people, who have the Bible as the core of their beliefs, say that this protest is right since we need to take care of the poor. Can I address that for just a minute? Yes, Jesus did say that we needed to take care of the poor. That is not in dispute. But would someone, anyone, show me where Jesus said we need to do that through the government? It was a direct and personal challenge that Jesus was giving to each individual, not a policy whereby we need to establish odious and inefficient government programs. Just sayin.

In fact Jesus was the one who many people want to quote when they say that he put a dividing line between government and personal belief- “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” I am amused that many people want to quote the Bible when a tiny portion of it seems to support some kind of political agenda, but discount the Bible on a wholesale level when it comes to true governance.

What did Jesus say about giving? Take care of the poor and the needy. But what else did he say? Read John chapter 12. Mary (Martha and Lazarus’ sister) opened a very expensive bottle of salve and dumped it on Jesus feet. The ointment was worth between $25,000 and $50,000 (a common man’s yearly wage) and she dumped it on his feet. Somebody at the party complained because the ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Several factors come into play here, and this isn’t a sermon, but it is an analysis on giving.

Of the incident, Jesus said “leave her alone” or in other words “mind your own business.” The ointment was Mary’s. Just Mary’s. Only Mary’s. No one else had the right to any input on what she did with what belonged to her. And what about the protestor? Chapter 12 of John says “he said this (it could have been sold) not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to steal from what was put into it.”

That’s a huge revelation that many people like to overlook because it’s uncomfortable to look at. “We’re the 99! Give us the money! You don’t care and we do!” It all sounds so eerie and similar. Now am I saying that everyone who says they care about the poor, and collect money, are crooks? Absolutely not. But when you hear things like “It’s not fair. They have too much. Give it to us and we can do right!” Run away. It doesn’t matter if the chant comes from a group of protestors or your current government, just run away. You’ll be better off.

What do we take away from this? Just this- when something is someone else’s and you think you want it, that absolutely gives you no right to it. That’s money, or a spouse, or a car, or a house, or a career, or anything else that someone else may have, or didn’t we read the part about Covetousness?

Why now?

I'm looking around the U.S.A. and see a bunch of people that are more concerned with self-serving results than doing the right thing. And it's not just the politicians. It's often the people who say that they are looking out for kids, the elderly, the disabled, or vets, etc. Be careful when someone tells you that they are looking out for so-and-so, and it has dollars attached. So is this blog self-serving? In some cases, maybe so. But it’s not going to cost you a single dollar to find out.

Who is this guy anyway? I am an educator, and a miner of truth. Like those guys digging for gold in Alaska, I am nearly impossible to dissuade. I have worked in radio and newspaper, but I am never going to give you enough info for you to figure out who I am, not that you have ever heard me or read me. I have been a reporter, a deli manager, a gas station manager, a bounty hunter, a cable TV show producer, a photographer, a prep cook, a security guard, a shoe salesman, a kick-boxer, a janitor, a dad, a barista- hard to believe but it’s all true.

So why the anonymity? Quite honesty, because I currently work in human services which gives me an accurate perspective of how government and private industry work (or don’t work) together, and if the current administrative team found out who I was, I could very easily lose my job. But I’ll put it on the line for the truth. Am I a whistleblower? No. Because we’re are going to talk about  perspective and attitude, function and dysfunction, rather than specific instances or municipalities or organizations.  

I’m a political independent and will not tow a party line for anybody. There are a good many people in radio that are great communicators, but they just can’t seem to get their thinking past the party agenda, on both the left and the right. I have seen people attempt to break down the ideas of Rosie O’Donnell or Chris Christie, only to have their commentary disintegrate into a criticism of the target person’s weight. The practice is neither enjoyable nor amusing, and the shows the smallness of the person’s thinking in what they call observation.

When Ed Shultz says he’s a liberal that packs a gun, he’s showing that he can think outside the left-wing box that people might wish he would stay in. When Mark Levin calls the GOP on the carpet for what he calls a wishy-washy stand on budget reform, he’s letting them know that he’s not playing patty cake with a party agenda, and he’s going to call fakeness as fakeness.

My observations are neither bought, nor paid for. I will listen to a good, factual presentation of an idea, and will not be intimidated by, nor respond to, flames. If you wanted to try to back me up against a wall, you should have been there when I was doing bail bond recovery. I don’t get ruffled.

We are going to discuss everything here that we aren’t supposed to: religion, politics, sex, the poor, giving, taking, having,,, it’s all up for discussion. Bring your brains, and leave the political pamphlets at home, and we’ll do fine.