Voices of the 99 Percent

But one of the poignant testimonies out there, one of millions

Another testimony:

I am 66 years old, and don’t plan to retire, ever. I am fortunate that I look young, feel young, am healthy, and still have a job. Friends / contemporaries are not so lucky. One needs a liver transplant. One is in a wheelchair. They are both still working. Two others have not worked for 2 - 3 years. They are smart, talented, experienced, and desperately want to work. Instead, they have the terrifying prospect of years - 25 yrs? 30 yrs? the rest of their lives - spent in unexpected poverty. Through pure luck, I am me and not them. I could wake up tomorrow and be any one of them. We are the 99%!

Our creativity and labor is the foundation of wealth. Legalized greed and exploitation concentrates it in the hands of the 1%. We are Atlas. We carry the world on our shoulders! We are the 99% . . .

Hits me in the heart. I am 68 years old, Susan is 64. I cannot imagine us being in such a condition. 

Go spend some time at the "We Are the 99 Percent" blog. This is just one person. Just one. Holding up a a sign at the "Occupy Wall Street" site in New York. There are pages and pages of such stories from people there. A real person behind every sign, every scribbled page of grief and suffering. And this is but one city in America. What are these people going to do?

I sit here typing this in my nice warm house. Tomorrow we will attend a Christmas party given by our neighborhood association. Everybody will have nice clothes, and we will dispose of who knows how much uneaten food afterwards. There is a serious disconnect going on here. There's a serious disconnect going on all across the country.