Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

Semi-coherent screed ahead:

The 24/7 news cycle has done a damn fine job of villainizing the Occupy movement. As Digby put it, “All over the country people are hearing that the Occupiers are animals who are masturbating in public and shitting in the streets. The local news is luridly portraying the protests as hotbeds of crime infested with lunatics and drug addicts.” I see people constantly challenging the protesters, insisting that because the demands are amorphous, the movement has no spine and no purpose. Income inequality is this country is tremendous. The middle class is shrinking to extinction. Small businesses are drowning. You don’t have to know how to solve something to know you have to DO something. And you certainly don’t need a degree in economics to feel anger, outrage, and despair.

“We are just three years after the greatest banking crisis since the 1930s. I think it was brought on by excesses on the part of the financial industry and the financial industry was bailed out at the public’s expense and risk and yet we’re still in an economic crisis. And somehow the discussion of who are these guys, why are we supporting them, why haven’t they paid more for this, what are the reforms that’s going to stop this from happening again, all that disappeared from the debate.

We have been arguing about who’s going to cut Social Security and what about that budget deficit? And we lost the whole thread of the core issue in our society right now. And these protesters, who are a mix of all sorts of people, suddenly brought that back into the center of our national debate. And that’s an enormously positive contribution.”
~ Paul Krugman

If you don’t support Occupy, I want to know how you propose we as a country enact positive change.