Will The Real American Please Stand Up?

For the past several months the news has been filled with the various versions of  the Occupy Wall Street exercise.  We've watched it evolve from an irritant reminiscent of the hippie 60's peace, love and pot outcasts to anything but.

 Rather than lining parade routes and putting flowers into the gun barrels of our military the crowds have turned ugly.  So ugly even city officials who had been giving them a pass on their law breaking ways decided, for their own political well being, it is time for them to go.

The bodies were buried, the injured cared for, the tent cities and filth which came with them were bull dozed to the ground. Businesses could assess the damage done by the hooligan element and repair it.  Until warm weather returns and they emerge from where ever they went maybe things will be nearly normal. Maybe.  Nearly.

I guess it may depend on how you define normal.  Have you ever wondered just who these people are and where in fact they do go?  It's pretty evident who they are - malcontents for whatever reason.  It doesn't have any coherency to it.  These young people who complain about lack of jobs yet study under water basket weaving.  Complain about the unfair distribution of wealth as they tweet their discontent on iPhones, iPads and every other electronic gadget known to man.

I didn't see many people my age in any of those crowds. We're not blessed to be one of the most wealthy but we do pay our bills and mortgage.  I'm not proud to be equated with these demonstrators.  One needed be wealthy to have a moral code and manners.  I do not expect handouts from anyone nor do I want any one to be forced to share with me what I've not earned.

That's enough moralizing on my part.  I'm not trying to be holier than thou.  Really.  I just don't understand what is happening to our country.  I could blame it on the generation gap but I don't think that's it.  If it is then it's because I've been around long enough to have learned a few things and did, in fact, learn.

So here we are.  A month before Christmas.   Thanksgiving just passed.  The demonstrators must have had a home to go to because they weren't evident at any of the free dinners being provided.

On second thought, I do know where they went.  At least on Black Friday.  They went shopping!  And they took with them all their good sense, manners and behavior with them. Look in the mirror and they are us. The 99% looking for bargains.

Well, maybe you.  Not me.  With all the faults heaped upon them by the 99% I'd much rather identify with the 1.