This will be a short post. This Saturday, I drove past the third anniversary celebration of OccupyOC at Irvine City Hall on my way to the Irvine candidate’s forum at the Chinese School. I would have stopped to snap a photo, but I had the left green arrow and there was an Irvine police officer behind me with no place to pull over, so I did a quick count and kept driving.
This year’s Occupy OC celebration? Eight people in one pop up tent with one sign saying “we are the 99%.”
I had always hoped that Occupy might be a progressive version of the Tea Party; there were be huge voter registration drives, candidates would emerge who supports Occupy’s message. But Occupy is a shell of what it was (some would argue that the Tea Party is too), but the Tea Party elects people to office while Occupy doesn’t. I’m just glad it wasn’t too hot for those 8 people who showed up.
OC’s Occupy Wall Street could have had an issue; the opportunity was there. Democrat Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang was running for Congress. An agreement could have been made: we’ll end the camping on the city’s lawn and save the city the cost of re-seeding if you (congressional Candidate Mayor Kang) will make re-instating the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act one of your issues.
In 1999, in a bipartisan manner, during the Clinton administration, congress voted to end what was left of the 1933 Bank Act. In the Senate: 94% of the Democrats and 96% of the Republicans voted to kill Glass-Steagall. In the House: (about) 78% of Democrats and 84% of Republicans voted to kill Glass-Steagall.
The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act is anti-Wall Street speculating.