Occupy Wall Street, occupy Bay: “Why?” PT 2

[“Why occupy Wall St. and Bay? For starters... fear of another economic collapse, harder on families and communities than the last one... the knowledge that the corporate and banking elite grow richer while an increasing number of families do not.” Oct. 25, G.Harrison, It Strikes me Funny]

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that occupiers of Wall St., Bay St., and Victoria Park (London, Ontario), to name but a few places, are planning to hunker down where they are in tents and sleeping bags for the North American winter in order to show solidarity to one another and stand behind their message that some things important to them must change.

During the winter some media commentators will still be asking the question ‘why occupy’ for some of the following reasons, among others of course:

because they don’t know what many citizens are thinking

because they know what the occupiers are thinking but don’t support their ideas and believe they should get a job

According to a recent poll, 31 per cent of Sun Media readers believe occupiers should be looking for work, but based on the ongoing struggles in the North American economy and the resultant high unemployment numbers (London is the centre of high unemployment in SW Ontario), the lack of work and good long-term full-time jobs may very well be one of the major reasons why people are taking to the streets in significant numbers to say something to any who will listen.


Though many may know about London leading the province with rates of 9 per cent or more, they will not know by personal experience how no job or a low-paying job affects a single mother or father or family trying hard to keep a roof over their head or the heat on through a long winter.

I don’t know what 9 per cent unemployment means myself. I know numbers of visitors to local food banks will rise because of it, but does 9 per cent mean that 91% are employed with productive, well-paying, full-time, long-term jobs and have nothing to complain about? Does 9 per cent track those without jobs or does it include those who are chronically under-employed? If not, does anyone know the percentage of people, young and old, who only earn enough to scrape by and are unable to save up funds for an uncertain future?

In Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges, Earnest Logan reportedly says the following:

The winters [in New York State] are really hard. There are less jobs and the heating costs are high. It is a struggle [for me]. But at least I have not had to devote forty hours a week to a minimum wage job that does not pay me a living wage. People here are really hurting. The real underemployment rate must be at least twenty per cent. A lot of people are working part-time jobs when they want full-time jobs. (pg. 5)

I would suspect Ontario’s underemployment rate is under 20 per cent but I don’t know for certain. I do know, however, if I was a young person with no decent prospects for a good job in the future, I might consider joining with others of like-mind and raise questions about, for starters, why the world works the way it does, why the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, and why steady work for adequate pay is so hard to find.

Why occupy?

More to follow.

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Please click here to read Occupy Wall Street, occupy Bay: “Why?” PT 1

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