[Cin]

Originally Posted by guihong

I have a few questions about OWS's mission, and I mean no snark, but it's been bothering me:

1. Let's say I become wealthy purely on hard work and a good idea or three (I'm not, but hypothetically). Does this make me one of the "few"? And if OWS is for income redistribution, exactly how much would I have to distribute, and why? If I manage to get rich, no one should be allowed to tell me differently or what I can do with my earnings. (I'm not talking about charity-which many billionaires create and/or support).

I think I will use a quote from Elizabeth Warren to address this one:

Warren rebuts the GOP-touted notion that raising taxes on the wealthy amounts to "class warfare," contending that "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody."

Warren rejects the concept that it is possible for Americans to become wealthy in isolation.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you," she says. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did."

2. Along that idea, would there be a maximum salary any one person could earn? And if so, who would enforce this, since OWS seems not to have any one leader?

More important than anything legislative is consciousness. Politics can only change after consciousness changes. The single most important thing that the Occupy Movement can do is shine a light on how Washington is controlled by Wall Street.

3. Most of us wouldn't be here if some of the "few" in England hadn't decided to start a colony, the purpose of which was to make a profit. I think that's a fairly common human motivation-making a profit. How does this jibe with OWS's theories of equality?

Well there's making a profit and there's what we have going on right now. Warren Buffett's secretary pays more taxes than he does. Many corporations pay no taxes at all. They are getting tax breaks to move jobs out of the U.S. where they can pollute at will and higher cheaper labor.

4. I saw some of the most appalling poverty in communist China-supposedly a society set up with far more equality than our own. Yet there, and in Russia, there were always a "few" and a whole lot of "many". Is the kind of society OWS envisions even possible, if income equality and redistribution taken to its extreme doesn't work?

I don't think anyone wants to address our financial disaster by creating more poverty.

5. Why isn't OWS really protesting in Washington, at the government that passed the regulations that ultimately created this situation?

First place Wall Street or should I say Those who have the money or should I say the 1% control Washington. Washington is a puppet government run by and for the rich. What possible use would it be to protest to them. The gesture of protesting where the power is actually located is symbolic. It is to get people to understand who is pulling the strings and controlling our government. Second place regulation did not create this situation deregulation did. There is plenty of information on this thread, some I posted myself, that explains this.