Just asking ... this summer was supposed to be a big summer for OWS. Is that totally gone now? n/t

[Summer Hathaway]

220. I am very happy

that your participation in Occupy has been such a positive experience. I don't doubt for a minute that it has been just that for many. Nor do I doubt that some good has been accomplished.

However, to say that no one talked about the 1% before OWS is flatly untrue. Phrases like 'the Top 1%', the 'wealthy 1%ers", etc., have been around far longer than Occupy.

What OWS did was turn the phrase around by using the term "We are the 99%". It was a clever slogan by which the focus was changed from being on the haves to being on the have-nots, and it is indisputably Occupy's own original catch phrase. But they didn't invent the notion of the 1% holding more wealth and political sway than the rest of us. Nor did they educate people about the idea that a huge disparity exists between the 1% and the rest of the population. Uh, people kind of knew about that all along.

I take issue with the idea that I am the one trying to rewrite history. It is the OWSies who are doing so, by claiming that everything positive is somehow their doing. It's simply not.

Case in point: there was much cheering by the OWSies when Obama mentioned the high cost of a college education in his last SOTU speech. "He only talked about that because of Occupy," they said. They completely ignored the fact that Obama has been talking about the cost of a college education since his campaign days, as well as since being elected. That's just the kind of thing that causes people to question OWS's credibility - taking credit for pushing this administration to recognize a problem that it has recognized, and spoken about, all along.

I got into a debate with an OWSie on another website. He insisted that were it not for Occupy, Warren Buffett would never have had the balls to speak out about the disparity in the tax rate between the wealthy and the middle class. When I provided him with links to Buffett having told the story of his secretary paying more in taxes than he did DURING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, he refused to acknowledge the facts, and went on insisting that it was OWS who led Buffett to speak out.

This is what you're up against when you insist that everything is somehow to the credit of Occupy. Just look at some of the comments on this board. The Dems are fighting back, because of Occupy. Harry Reid took on Romney's taxes, because of Occupy. In this very thread OP: "Without Occupy, "legitimate rape" was the tone and was not being talked down. Occupy brought to the public the awareness of the difference in classes."

Seriously? 'Legitimate rape' was the tone and wasn't being talked down until OWS came along? That's just sad. And I can assure you that the public has been aware of the difference in the classes since long before Occupy came along and pointed it out to them.

Again, I am glad that your experience has been positive, and that Occupy has been a satisfactory way for you, and others, to go about changing things for the better. But claiming to have changed the world requires something a bit more substantial than merely saying so.