Occupy Wall Street Movement: Is America Slipping Into Its Autumn?

Cycles and defining events — whether in the life of a person, an institution, city, or country — are often compared with the seasons of nature. We describe the mature stage of life as our summer, the aging as our winter. The awakening of citizens across the Arab world, demanding a better and more democratic life earlier this year, was dubbed the “Arab Spring.” Nuclear winter is used to describe the grim scenarios after a nuclear explosion.

Could it be that the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is America’s and the worlds' autumn? With “Occupy” protests occurring in more than 600 communities across the nation, 80 of them in major cities, does that mean imminent changes, just as autumn does, are about to occur all around us? And just as autumn may not foretell how quickly or how harsh the winter might be, it accurately forecasts that a change in the weather is upon us.

America, are we paying attention to the winds of change? Are we taking them seriously enough? Or, will we sit by, expecting them to subside, die down with a whimper…? When one considers the protests that began as non-violent, in cities like New York, Oakland, Austin, Portland, and Richmond, are now becoming more confrontational, the likelihood that the storm will pass over grows even more doubtful.

We have only to remember how the Civil Rights movement and the protests against the Vietnam War started and how they evolved. Oh, the hazards of short-term memory.

Does the “Occupy Wall Street” movement mean that America is moving into the autumn stage of its history, and will the leaders and those in power recognize what is happening and have the courage to take measures now to change its course and prevent a terrible and long winter?

If you look at the list of grievances that fuel the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, at a minimum it signals America’s season of discontent. The atmospheric conditions are ripe for the perfect societal storm. There is ever-growing intolerance of the social and economic inequality that pervades our way of life where the majority of wealth resides with 1 percent of the population, leaving the remaining 99 percent working disproportionately hard, or barely able to get by. The blatant and brazen greed that characterizes the financial sector on Wall Street and large corporate boardrooms across America continues in an atmosphere where small businesses cannot get loans to keep their doors open. And industries and jobs are disappearing at lightning speed.

Persistence, on the part of some, to keep in place an unfair tax code that continually benefits the wealthy while hurting the middleclass is undermining the economic well-being of the entire country. Poor regulatory oversight, that consistently turn a blind eye to the pillage and pilfering of natural resources, continually puts the earth’s environment at risk.

The list of grievances represent facets of the same cloud: The continual dissipation of striving to attain what is the greatest good for the greatest number of people. After all, isn’t that the bedrock that sustains any healthy society?

Like some weather forecasters, many politicians and pundits would like to say that the movement is a bluster that will blow over, or a weakening hurricane that will dissipate because it lacks a defined eye, a galvanizing center. They are taking this posture because they claim the movement does not have a specific “ask.”

A cursory pass over may give one that impression. But a deeper probe reveals a very unifying theme: Many Americans have grown tired and weary of the increasing decline in the economic, political, educational, and environmental conditions of this nation that have been brought about by inequities and disparities in public policies and private financial practices. Their discontent and anger is quite focused toward inept, even corrupt, leaders and decision-makers in both the public and private sector.

There are always warnings when the seasons change or when a storm is on the horizon — whether it is a simple thunderstorm, tornado, hurricane, or tsunami. Most of us have come to know we should heed the warnings and take appropriate actions accordingly to avert, minimize, or prevent some impending disaster.

But there are some of us who, no matter what, choose to ignore the signs to our own peril, and often those around us and who depend on us.

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has moved to main streets all over America — even across the globe, confirming the belief that as America goes, so goes the world. While we are not Greece or Italy, and we definitely are not Egypt or Libya, we are buffeted by some of the same winds of economic unrest.

What will it be, America? Another autumn like countless others that have warned us that winter is upon us? Or, an autumn, that will bring a winter that could change, in a bad way, our landscape forever, because we chose to ignore the signs?

We have an opportunity to heed the warnings and take corrective actions before we sustain a disastrous sea change in our way of life.

Will we?