It would be understandable if the powers-that-be in Washington regarded the initial protests that broke out on Wall Street two weeks ago as little more than a nuisance.
Why worry, after all, about a bunch of disgruntled, out-of-work vagabonds staging a little demonstration?
We suspect Herbert Hoover might have thought much the same thing about the Bonus Army of 1932, when that group of World War I veterans set up a tent city in Washington to demand bonuses they were promised for service to their country.
Obviously there are some differences between the Occupy Wall Street protests and the creation of the Bonus Army, but they may also have something in common: A reflection of widespread public discontent.
The Bonus Marchers were caught up in the throes of the Great Depression, were hopelessly out of work and saw collection of the bonuses they were promised as a way to feed their families and ease the pain of poverty.
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations which have spread to other cities across the nation are aimed at corporate greed and the perception that Corporate America is calling the shots in this country and has its well-heeled boot on the throat of working-class America.
Much of the resentment is targeted at many of the same corporations that took billions in government bailouts, paid out millions in bonuses to top executives and poured millions more into the campaigns of Republicans and Democrats running for Congress and the White House. And Congress, conveniently enough, watches out for its corporate donors.
If youre a working-class family trying to make ends meet in an increasingly cruel economic environment, theres probably no part of that little circle that doesnt stink.
The Wall Street marches, as much as anything, reflect the increasingly widespread belief that the financial sector exerts a disproportionate negative influence on government and the country as a whole.
Theres a reason some people derisively refer to Goldman Sachs as Government Sachs. Its because the investment banks former and probably some future employees are littered throughout the halls of power in Washington and its not clear that those employees always put the best interests of the country above the interests of corporations.
And therein lies the rub, because the issue is not that corporations dont look out for the working class. Thats not their job. Their job is to suck as much money out of the economy as possible.
No, the real issue is that government has become answerable only to the rich and powerful people who run those corporations. The sad truth is, the people you send to Washington dont work for you. Except in the rarest of circumstances, they work for the lobbyists who contribute to their campaigns.
That right there is what you call a broken system.
The arrest of 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend may or may not galvanize the anti-Wall Street movement in much the same way that the U.S. Armys attack on the Bonus Marchers crystallized anti-Hoover sentiment in the early 1930s. We dont yet know if the Wall Street marches represent the vanguard of a larger uprising to curb the excesses of Wall Street and reverse the decay of responsive government. But we understand why some people are fed up enough to take to The Street.