There's Something Happening Here...

I've said before that Americans on the whole are a rather passive bunch. We tend to endure a lot, provided certain basic needs are consistently met and certain injustices are restrained – or at least kept out of the open. Often, this has been to our collective demise. We have proven willing to sit still while many of our hard-earned rights and rewards have been scaled back, lost to the few, in their never-ending pursuit of more.

We complained a bit when the good jobs started to leave the country, when corporate raiders eager to tap the world's giant supply of cheap third-world labor, convinced our “leaders” to relax trade regulations. But we ultimately bought the line about rising tides lifting all boats, while we were further pacified with the flow of easy credit and creative ways to leverage our debt gave us the access to the level of stuff that made the decline less obvious.

There are few amongst us who can claim innocence in the decade of greed-driven gluttony that precipitated our fall. Perhaps our Judeo-Christian roots made it easier to draw a sense of self-blame as the clock unwound. But as years continue to pass without relief and it becomes clear that both the profit and the pain were shared in gross disproportion, there is a growing sense that the plate has been passed too many times through the same circle, while those with the most coins in their pocket have slipped out the back door before the end of the sermon.

Societies live and die according to their social contract. We recognize certain rules and rights even when they infringe upon our personal freedom, under the belief that a society of mutual respect and shared value, where the collective energy and resources are both protected and utilized most efficiently and responsibly, produces greater comfort, security and prosperity for all – even when it is disproportionate to some degree.

America has never been a meritocracy. In truth, few if any advanced societies are. But it always seemed like a place where a certain promise was offered. Even though the playing field wasn’t quite level, there were systems in place that kept enough checks and balances functioning to ensure some degree of equality, at least when it came to our most basic needs. And there was of course, the American dream. The idea that some amongst us, though precious few they were, with a combination of hard work, talent and plain old luck, could navigate the system successfully and rise to the top without having been born there.

For the rest of us, America held a promise that if we were willing to do the work, follow the rules and contribute to this privileged society, we would be able to earn a living, feed our children and age out of this world with a minimum level of dignity. In recent years, that contract has seemingly been broken to an extent that has left many of us questioning whether the system around it is not irreparable.

The history of empires are the history of their rise and fall. The one thing that every empire of every ideological persuasion has in common – monarchy to fascist regime, to socialist state, to dictatorship to democratic republic – is the shared fate of having ended. And they never end because those who are at the top get tired and give the keys of the kingdom to someone else. They end in conquer or they end in revolution. It is that simple. They hobble into subordinate roles, hoping to make nice with the next empiracal power atop the global food chain.

I'm not suggesting that we are doomed as a culture or civilization. But I do think it wise to open both our eyes and our ears in an effort to understand what is being felt by the majority of Americans. Over the past few weeks, I've heard far too many dismiss the rallies that occurred first in New York, before spreading throughout the nation and arriving on our own streets.

A considerable portion of our country has decided that the contract has in fact been broken, that the excesses have been excessive and that a precious few have gobbled up the near entirety of the profit while a tired and abused majority continue to suffer the seemingly endless pain that accompanies that prosperity. There is commonality in every protest movement that has sprung up in recent years – the call for the reform of the financial industry that was promised when the American taxpayer was stuck with the bill for their arrogant, reckless and greed-driven behavior.

From early Tea Party rallies to the Occupy protests of recent weeks, the groups have agreed on little, perhaps nothing except one central premise – that too big to fail is unacceptable, that we shouldn't be borrowing money to bail out bankers who are paying themselves eight-figure bonuses in return. Both groups seem very resentful of being associated with the other and yes, opportunists are attempting to co-opt the latest movement the same way many co-opted a huge swath of the Tea Party activists. But having been to rallies for both, the underlying emotion to many in attendance beyond the handful of deeply partisan voices on either side, is a sense of helpless frustration.

Many attendees aren't sure what they want, because they've long since lost the sense of empowerment to believe that their vote can be leveraged, even collectively, to make a demand on the pigs who feed at the corporate trough. However, it is rarely 100 million people who agree on everything that alters the course of a society. Rather, it is 100 million people who agree passionately on a single thing that then jump start the catalysts of change.

I would suggest that it goes without saying that the blame for the collapse of our economy and the persistent inability for us to right the ship in terms of employment, lending, lost retirements, housing and even the opportunity for the safe investment and distribution of capital, lies at the feet of our commercial and investment banking institutions – and by extension the representatives who have refused to reform that system. If we can agree on that and make the collective demand not as right or left, Democrat or Republican, but as Americans, we indeed can leverage our collective voice into true and meaningful power – the sort that effects deep and sustainable change.

We can debate tax policy, foreign policy, social policy, deficit policy and every other policy of state once we've removed the giant bullet from the patient's chest. America has survived its broad spectrum of political beliefs in each and every one of these arenas throughout its history and in most cases, been better for it. America will not survive the absence of a functioning banking system, adequately transparent to inspire confidence in financial markets while ensuring that the collective wealth of our nation is not being stacked all in on the gaming tables of a rigged casino, where the rules are shaped by the hand the dealer is holding at any given time.

We are all, with the exception of a those very few who profit handsomely at this free-market success/socialized failure approach, disadvantaged not only by our inability to participate fairly in markets that contradict the very concept of fairness, but by the unspeakable vulnerability that such market tree shakings produce. Anyone who opposes the demand for reform is not an enemy of the common man, no matter if they oppose him on other policies further down the list.

Divided or not, we are a society. When one of us is thrown from our home, we should all feel the pain of the fall. When one of us holds up a sign demanding justice, we should all mouth the words. When one of us is beaten down in the street for exercising the rights that others have fought and died to protect, we should all feel the sting of the baton. With a single demand from all sides of the road, we can rediscover our American voice. We can stop fighting each other over electing those who fight for someone else.

I believe that if we could prove to ourselves that change can still emanate from beyond the halls of power, that the common man united can produce uncommon strength, that if we were to solve this challenge by pulling the levers of power with our own enjoined hands, then we would once again know that it was our country and that not only could we correct injustice, but that doing so collectively is what it means to be American.

Check out the archive of Dennis' previous columns.