Brazil's youth rebellion against government, unemployment, a world-wide crisis

[caption id="attachment_20647" align="alignleft" width="300"] Gramado, a symbol of the rich, against whom youth rebel in Brazil[/caption]

Carol Forsloff---Youth rebellion is occurring in many places around the world as young people can’t get jobs.  So in Brazil, as in Egypt, young people are taking to the streets to vent their frustrations.  Will the US see the same kind of showdowns in the future?

In Brazil today newscasters hypothesize the problem of student rioting will get even worse, due to the political issues inside the country.  Despite the fact that formal figures depict Brazil’s unemployment low, the fact is that many of the youth are vastly underemployed, or are not in any  kind of job or job training program.

Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, DC., tells us,“The protests led to a complete change in the political landscape in Brazil,” Sotero said. “The youth, which has typically been alienated from the political discussion, is now clearly a new layer of that landscape, and can be mobilized.”

Joblessness in Egypt is also a significant problem, with a record 13.2 percent of the population without jobs, while eight out of every 10 of these people are under age 30 and 25% of them have a university degree or higher.

And even as Congressional leaders in the United States are at loggerheads over the debt ceiling and government shutdown, young people, like those in other countries, are facing unemployment in greater and greater numbers, even as many of them are college educated.

While many in the United States bemoan the unemployment and the growing gap between rich and poor, it seems the problems of getting a job if you are under the age of 30 is a worldwide phenomenon.  The biggest concern, however, is how that overwhelming issue can impact how young people react to government and whether or not they will trust the government to help in any situation.  And the question is asked:  Will they follow the Brazilian and Egyptian models and take to the streets, as an outgrowth from the previous year's Occupy Movement?

 

 

 

Occupy Movement, environmentalists rally against Hanford nuclear threats

[caption id="attachment_15044" align="alignleft" width="300"] Dorli Rainey, activist[/caption]

Carol Forsloff - Richland, Washington  looks to the idle visitor like the kind of town that is prospering, healthy and one of those sunny villages alongside the Columbia River that people flocked to for fishing and outdoor fun. But it is also located just a few miles from the Hanford Atomic Plant, a place some scientists tell us is the most dangerous area in the world. This weekend it was the site of a protest organized by the Occupy movement and an array of activists from different organizations, as controversy continues about the potential disaster that could result from the Hanford Nuclear Plant.

Stewart Udall, former Secretary of the Interior, reportedly called Hanford the “most tragic chapter in American Cold War history.”

The Hanford Atomic Plant was one of the principal research and development centers for nuclear energy for bomb-making purposes during World War II. After worries arose over the safety of nuclear energy, the plant was closed, leaving behind many unresolved issues. Some  of these issues have involved the health and welfare of people who had lived and worked in the area, with lawsuits in and out of the courts. Some of these lawsuits remain pending, although filed decades ago. Plaintiffs claim infertility, miscarriages, cancers and a host of other diseases they believe were caused from direct or downwind exposure to nuclear waste products. The medical risks associated with Hanford, some of which are still being investigated, also include birth defects, organ failure and a host of chronic diseases, as noted by this source.

Radioactive material, above the range of normal, is found surrounding Hanford. The concerns continue even more dramatically about the disposition of the nuclear waste that threatens widespread contamination and the specific  risks to the Columbia River that extends through Washington and Oregon.

Environmental activists and members of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Oregon Peaceworks, Nukewatch, and Occupy groups from both Portland and the Tri-Cities, as well as private citizens and members of other activist groups gathered on April 15 at the Jon Dam Plaza in Richland, concerned over the consequences of a prolonged nuclear clean-up that has cost the taxpayers more than $12 billion to date.

The Hanford Watch Advisory Board  says, “The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere and a major Northwest environmental issue. It is a serious long-term threat to the Columbia River, which Oregon depends on for power generation, farm irrigation, fishing, transport and recreation.”

Environmentalists worry about the fact that the cleanup plant is only half constructed. Problems related to waste removal and protection of the environment have yet to be resolved for the estimated 53 million tons of radioactive waste. Some of that waste is contained in tanks that are long past the life span projected for safety.

In an article published in DC Bureau, entitled "Veteran Hanford Engineer Says DOE’s Multi-Billion Dollar Hanford Nuclear Waste Processing Plant Might Not Work Properly and Has Serious Potential Safety Problems", author David Rosenthal  relates some of the background of the Plant and the whistle-blower whose report of safety violations cost him his job. Dr. Walter Tamosaitis was the research and technology manager and the deputy chief processing engineer for URS Corporation, according to Rosenthal's report. URS Corporation is a subcontractor to Bechtel, the company in charge of the clean-up. Tamosaitis had been responsible for the  $500 million budget set up to cover the major design functions of the waste treatment plant. functions.

On July 2,  2010 Tamosaitis said that he was literally escorted out of the building at the Plant “like an absolute felon,” he said. He was fired after raising concerns of about safety and some of the operations taking place at the plant.

“The management, in my opinion, did not want to hear that and the easiest thing to do to move ahead is to eliminate what’s a potential road block. …’We’ll get rid of him,’” Rosenthal reports Tamosaitis as saying. This had followed a presentation Tamosaitis and some of his fellow engineers had presented to URS and Bechtel managers.

Should nuclear power be dismissed as an option for energy? While environmentalists complain about the potential risks, Jerry Schlaman, a mechanical engineer who has worked for 27 years in nuclear power and who was interviewed by this reporter at the rally, maintains nuclear power is a viable option.  He said, "I am pro-nuke, but anti-nuke management. The emphasis needs to be on safety, not money."

And money continues to be a major factor, as Richland sports new housing developments everywhere. Money from Hanford fuels much of the Tri-Cities economy, and the longer the delay, the more money is spent on the challenges left at the nuclear plant. It is, however, those great risks to the populations of Oregon and Washington all the way to the Canadian border that brought the activists to rally this weekend for the government to explain the delays in containment of the nuclear waste and to demand appropriate solutions to what they call "the problems caused by Hanford's past in order to ensure the health and dignity of future generations."

Dorli Rainey, who is called by the community of activists, "a rock star" for her involvement in causes of peace, women's rights and the environment, spoke early on the program about the need for safety in solving the problems of the nation's energy crisis. She was raised in Austria during World War II, and at the age of 84 remains a stout defender of peace, telling folks, "When you have a bomb dropped on your house, you can scream for revenge or look for peaceful ways to solve problems. I choose the path of peace."

But for Lori McMillan of Hermiston, Oregon, who lives "downwind" or less than 50 miles from the Hanford plant, the problems at Hanford are truly  personal. She told this reporter she had moved to the area in 1977. Out of 14 people who were a close group of friends, Lori said there are only 4 left. All the others died of cancer, and McMillan has breast cancer now. Her daughter has cervical cancer, had an ectopic pregnancy and two miscarriages.

[caption id="attachment_15045" align="alignleft" width="300"] Lori McMillan at protest rally in Richland, Washington[/caption]

It is this personal story, the anecdotal evidence, that arouses compassion from those who call attention to the safety concerns of nuclear power and those who challenge governmental delays before Hanford becomes the far greater disaster than Japan's Fukushima plant that some scientists predict may happen.

Permaculture: Growing Hope

[caption id="attachment_11837" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="adult literacy"][/caption]

Bob Ewing - Permaculture is a nature-inspired, holistic design methodology that can be used to grow food, create communities and build businesses.

My personal experience has encompassed all three with creating communities and building businesses being combined and leading the work, both paid and volunteer, I do.

We live in false and troubled time, this reality has been brought into the light by the Occupy Movement and we must keep that light shining as it can guide our way. One of the results of Occupying was the awakening of hope.

Hope, not the buying of a lottery ticket with the goal of increasing your income type of false hope, but real hope that is rooted inaction, is what we need to encourage today.

I like the definition of hope put forward by Rebecca Solinit:”Hope just means that another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranted. Hope calls for action: action is impossible without hope.”

Permaculture design is action, considered action that can change how we see the world around us and how we related to all the elements that bring that world into being.
My study and work using permaculture ethics and principals shows that if we want economic regeneration, and we do want and indeed, need this, then the place to begin is with environmental regeneration.

Urban agriculture, for example, could create enterprises that would revitalize low-income communities. Brownfields and other vacant lands that are suitable for urban agriculture are often located in low income areas. These sites can be reclaimed by the community businesses and become attractive, productive enterprises rather than empty eyesores.

Brownfields are properties, often, industrial or commercial areas that have been abandoned because of perceived environmental contamination. Some examples include abandoned factories or manufacturing plants. Gas stations that are no longer in business are one example.

On-the-job-training, such as adult literacy projects, could be incorporated an urban agriculture enterprise which is located in a low-income community. This provides fresh food, education and work for the community members.

If the urban agricultural project is designed using permaculture techniques in will help reduce the stresses because they can contribute to the strengthening of a community’s resilience.

Resilience is the ability of an ecosystem, in this case, urban environments, to withstand extreme stress and to survive periods of catastrophic occurrences.

Resilience is often used to refer to the ability to survive natural disaster such as floods and hurricanes and permaculture design can create systems that will do this.

However, resilience is also vital when it comes to getting through the human made disaster of a false or lop-sided economy. For example, credit unions, cooperatively owned and operated are a viable alternative to banks. Workers cooperatives are a democratic business structure that empowers the worker-owners.

Permaculture design is praxis or theory in action and as such it grows and nurtures hope, hope that will generate action, action that will bring about, a just and sustainable society where no one will live in fear.

Occupy Revolution

[caption id="attachment_11559" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="American Revolution gallery - wikimedia commons"][/caption]

Joel S. Hirschhorn - History tells us that it is nearly impossible to know in real time whether some kind of national, grassroots public protest ends up being the beginning of a true revolution against a ruling government system.  This is true for the earliest beginnings of the revolt against the British that produced the successful American Revolution and the creation of the US.  The British at the time surely thought that they could retain power and control.  More recently, the revolts inEgypt, Tunisia and Libya certainly could not be accurately perceived in their earliest stages as likely to topple well established dictatorships wielding incredible and cruel power.  Even now, the rebellious actions in Syria are not widely seen as surely resulting in successful revolution.

My central point is that the Occupy movement in the US offers the possibility of being seen, eventually, as the seed of a successful Second American Revolution, which I and many others believe is desperately needed to fix our corrupt, dysfunctional and unfair government, political and economic system.

What are the main similarities among successful revolutions?

At the beginning of ultimately successful revolutions the focus is almost entirely on what the rebels oppose and only in the most general terms what they want instead.  What rebels are always against is some form of tyranny that takes the form of repressed freedoms and economic pain for most ordinary people.  In other words, it is clear at the beginning what causes citizen anger and passion; what is intolerable and far less on the exact changes in the nation’s political and government system most desired.  Mostly what is being fought for is either a true democracy or a better one, a system where elections are open and free and really matter, where status quo powers can be replaced.  The more you think about it, the more sense it makes for nascent rebels taking great risks to have a single minded focus on what is wrong, unjust, corrupt or just plain evil in order to build wide public support for fighting a powerful, oppressive government.

Second, despite various forms of peaceful protests at the beginning, history tells us that violence usually becomes crucial for successful overthrow of a hated political system.  More pointedly, violence is usually precipitated by violent actions of the existing regime against early peaceful protestors which then causes rebels to also become increasingly violent, even though they may have few weapons to match what the reigning government has.  Relying on civil disobedience alone has rarely been sufficient, with a few notable exceptions.  But even though India and South Africa may come to mind it is easy to forget that violence was practiced by the then reigning governments against protestors and their leaders, especially imprisonment.  That the protestors seeking fundamental reforms do not become citizen armies but nevertheless ultimately become successful in overthrowing oppressive regimes should be seen more as the exception than the rule.  In other words, violence is sometimes one-sided, but still is an essential part of the revolution process, in large part because it motivates not only more widespread public support, but often international support, including economic sanctions, for achieving the central goal of the rebellious protest movement.



Third, what follows successful revolution is usually messy, chaotic and painful, in great measure because entirely new, effective democratic systems must be created to replace what previously was used to implement political and economic injustice.  Even in the case of the American Revolution, it took quite some time to actually create a new government system (including an early constitution that was ultimately deemed a failure and replaced).  Presently, the renewed violence in Egypt by both the military controlled government and the same rebels that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship testifies to the considerable difficulty in establishing a true functioning and stable democracy. Ditto for what we see in Libya.  And many would say that Russia has not achieved a first class democracy despite the downfall of the Soviet Union.  The point is that it is best to think of two-stage revolutions, beginning with attacking the status quo, oppressive government and second creating a better system to replace it.  Nevertheless, we can conclude at some point that a revolution has been successful, merely on the basis of a successful first stage, letting time tell whether it becomes fully successful.

Apply this thinking to the current Occupy movement in the US.  What can we assess?  First, the Occupy movement has been focused on what is wrong with the US, principally economic injustice, and unfair wealth of the top one percent to the detriment of the 99 percent.  The focus on the terrible actions of the Wall Street, banking and whole financial sector that has wrecked the economy and the failure of government to punish the guilty and truly fix the economic system makes perfect sense.  Economic inequality is the target.  The Occupy movement clearly is against the status quo establishment, political parties that are both controlled by financial interests that manipulate the government and economy to benefit the few.  The Occupy protestors want to replace what they see as a system that no longer serves the overwhelming majority of Americans.

Second, it has become increasingly clear that mostly one-sided violence has emerged, with local police forces using violence and even anti-constitutional means in attempts to kill the Occupy movement.  Civil disobedience has been attacked with violence; free speech has been attacked; media access has often been prevented.  What is most interesting is that, unlike other revolutions around the world, it is not the national government using violence against this protest movement, but rather local police such as that widely seen in New York City.  Mayors seem to have taken the lead in protecting the status quo against the public distrust, dissatisfaction and disgust with the prevailing political and economic system.  Occupy means disrupting, and local governments are fighting back.

Third, even though it certainly is unclear whether the Occupy movement will turn out to be the beginning of a successful two-stage revolution, we cannot rule it out.  It is important to understand that about one-third of the USpopulation has been experiencing great personal pain produced by many failures of the system, including those losing their homes and jobs, those experiencing hunger and poor health care, and those unable to find any financial security despite hard work or incurring debt for college educations. However, the top 20 percent of Americans, not merely the top one percent, or some 60 million Americans are not suffering; they benefit from the corrupt, unfair system.  What is uncertain is whether the Occupy movement can expand its public participation and support to reach a large majority of Americans.

Here is some basis for optimism about the ultimate success of the Occupy movement.

A new report by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project asked Americans if they agreed with the statement “our people are not perfect but our culture is superior to others.” Only 49 percent agreed, compared to 60 percent in 2002, the first time that Pew asked the question.  That shows the malarkey about American exceptionalism, especially from conservatives, is being recognized.  Notably, among young people (those ages 18 to 29), the percentage who believed that their culture was superior was lower than young citizens of Germany, Spain and Britain.

Besides all the findings that Congress only has 9 percent public support, it is even more important to recognize that Americans do not feel very positive about their country. A Time Magazine/Abt SRBI poll conducted last monthfound that 71 percent of Americans believed that our position in the world has declined in the past few years.

Add to this that an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted earlier this month found that beyond current hardships most Americans see their nation at “the start of a longer-term decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world.”   There is no rational basis for being optimistic about what the president or Congress will accomplish.

There is, in fact, enormous public support for addressing both political dysfunction of the two-party plutocracy, economic inequality, money in politics and a host of other public grievances.

James B. Stewart wrote a timely article An Uprising With Plenty of Potential that offers an optimistic view of the Occupy movement.  And David Carr has also offered an excellent analysis of the future of the movement.  Two leaders of the Occupy movement have also presented an important analysis worth your time, including this view “Occupy was born because we the people feel that our country and our economy are moving precipitously in the wrong direction; that America has evolved into a kind of corporate oligarchic state, a ‘corporatocracy’; and yes, that what is needed is a regime change.”  For a great history of the Occupy movement read this.  The role of the media in the Occupy movement has also been assessed and because I spent time at theOccupy Wall Street activity I know how inaccurate many media reports have been.  The mighty effort at takemoneyout.com is worth supporting as well as numerous efforts to get the first Article V convention.

Every American should use critical thinking to not only follow the Occupy movement but explicitly decide whether it is the seed capable of producing a Second American Revolution that truly reforms what is now a "delusional democracy" with "delusional prosperity."  For sure, voting for or against Democrats or Republicans will not suffice.

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All opinion articles are written as the opinions of the author and may or may not be the opinion of the publication.

Occupy Movement follows global trends in civil protest and conflictsince 2007

[caption id="attachment_10630" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Riots in Greece - wikimedia commons"][/caption]

Ezra Boyd - The financial meltdown and global recession of 2007 kicked off three waves of political protests and associated civil conflict.  Occupy Wall Street is just the most recent iteration of this global trend.

The three waves of civil unrest since the global meltdown of 2007 are the: (1) 2007-08 Global Food Riots, (2) the 2011 Arab spring, and (3) the ongoing austerity backlash.  Economic downturns are often associated with civil conflict, and the current downturn has been no different.  Further, while the major fractions speaking for Occupy Wall Street have repeatedly stated that they are conducting a peaceful protest, it is important that authorities tread carefully to avoid the violence that has experienced in many other countries.

2007-08 Global Food Riots

In 2007, in the months leading up to the global recession, global food prices spiked dramatically.  As food prices doubled during 2007, the meltdown of late 2007 set of the first phase of civil unrest associated with the global meltdown: a series of global food riots that lasted from 2007-08.  During this period, a string of food riots affected many countries, mostly developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Asia.  Impacted countries include Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

At this time, the world was on the heels of an unprecedented period of economic expansion and growth.  Many of these countries retained significant reserves of food stocks allowing governments to address the immediate factor driving this wave of unrest.  However, as we now know, this wave of unrest would be harbinger of coming wider unrest in many of the countries.

2011 Arab Spring

In January 2011, a Tunis street vendor set himself on fire to protest corruption, thus kicking off the second wave of violent protests associated with the global meltdown.  In Tunisia and Egypt, the protests quickly resulted in democratic transitions with relatively limited destruction and bloodshed. In Tunisia, transition took 28 days and ended when the former dictator fled the country after protesters stormed his palace.  In Egypt it took 25 days, and ended with the former dictator transferring power to a military council and is currently facing a trial in the country.  In both countries, the death tolls were in the hundreds.  However, for other countries caught up in this unprecedented regional protest movement, the process to be considerably more drawn out and violent.

By mid-February, "Days of Rage" were a common theme and destructive protests occurred throughout a region that stretched from Morocco to Iran.  On one "Friday of Rage", the protests spanned a distance of over 3,400 miles, nearly 15% of the Earth's circumference!!!  On that weekend deadly clashes occurred in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Bahrain with reports suggesting the collective death toll topping 250 spread across 2,000 miles.  In Libya, this protest movement quickly morphed into a violent civil war that lasted eight months and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths before the dictator died in battle-torn Sirte.  In Yemen, the protest movement also evolved into a much larger civil conflict.  At one point, the dictator fled the country due to injuries from an assignation attempt, though he has recently returned to the country and clashes quickly ramped up.  A violent crackdown to an initially peaceful protest movement in Syria has also morphed into a low level civil war.  In both Yemen and Syria, thousands of deaths have been reported.  Harsh crackdowns in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Iran appear to have squashed protestors for now. 

2010-11 Austerity Backlash

Greece was the first Western country to feel the acute effects of the global financial crisis.  It was also the first to adopt stringent austerity measures and the first to experience a violent backlash against those measures.  While tourism and shipping fueled a growing economy through most of the 2000's, the 2007 meltdown brought this expansion to a quick halt.  Unemployment rose, as did the budget deficient.  In December 2008, a police killing of a 15 year old citizen set off weeks of rioting throughout the country.  While the police shooting triggered the riots, the underlying economic and social conditions were also an important cause.  In early 2010, Greece became the first country to initiate widespread budgets cuts, and violent protests and riots have been common there ever since.

Just as other European countries have experienced the impacts of the global financial crisis, they have also experienced protests and civil conflict.  In Ireland in November 2010, up to 40,000 people protested against cuts to funding for higher education.  One group of protestors occupied the Department of Finance, while others clashed with police.  At the same time, up to 50,000 people in the United Kingdom participated in similar protests against cuts to higher education there.  Again, sporadic clashes between protesters and police occurred.  More recently, England was rocked by widespread riots in early August 2011.  Triggered by a police shooting, opportunistic criminality seems to have been pervasive through this outbreak of violence, though the events cannot be separated from the harsh social and economic context within which they occurred.

Most recently, this global wave of protests from the 2007 economic meltdown has reached the United States in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Starting out as a small group of protesters who occupied a park near Wall Street, this movement has gained widespread traction nationally and internationally.  While mostly non-violent occupations of public places to raise awareness of the dire economic conditions that have griped this country, this fractionalized movement has yet to unite under one cause and one method.

Conclusion

Throughout 2007 and into 2008, a first wave of food riots and protests hit a number of countries throughout the world.  Governments of the affected countries responded with expanded food rations and price controls, and with the peoples’ immediate needs met those same people returned to normal life.  However, three years into the great recession, circumstances had changed drastically.  By early 2011, chronic unemployment has taken hold, leading to deeper, lingering civil discontent.  Because of the drop in global productivity, food stockpiles have been diminished, and this time the grumpy old, out-of-touch dictators were unable to respond quickly and effectively.

So far, three North African regimes have fallen, Yemem is very close to falling, and Syria is facing an increasingly violent low level insurgency.  Greece continues on a downward spiral and the Eurozone continues to have trouble containing the upheaval.  During the recent "Global Day of Rage," we saw the violence in Athens spread to Rome.

While Occupy Wall Street is only two months old, this protest movement fits within social and political trends that have played out over years.  Certain groups, speaking about the goals and methods of the movement, say they are non-violent protesters and they do not seek to overthrow the government.  However, recent events in Oakland have demonstrated that the fractionalized nature of this movement creates the potential for violent confrontation, particuarly when authorities aggressively deploy well armed riot police.  Without doubt, Oakland is starting to resemble Athens.  Most folks hope that an aggressive response by authorities there and in other U.S. cities does not escalate the violence to a point where these cities start to resemble Cairo, Sana, or Misrata.

Numbers justify Occupy Movement

[caption id="attachment_10059" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Money Bags and the Coffers"][/caption]

Joel S. Hirschhorn--Feeling angry about being betrayed by a corrupt government owned by rich and corporate elites has driven the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Emphasizing how the top one percent has prospered incredibly while the bottom 99 percent have been screwed royally is supported by countless data.  New data show this is a global phenomenon and that even in the worst of economic times the wealthiest make out like the bandits they are, and there are a lot more of them than one percent.

Globally, millionaires and billionaires now control 38.5 percent of the world’s wealth, according to the latest Global Wealth Report from Credit Suisse.  Never have so few owned so much.  There are 29.7 million people in the world with household net worth of $1 million or more; they represent less than 1 percent of the world’s population, actually just .4 percent of 7 billion people.

Their wealth share rose from 35.6 percent in 2010, because even during the global economic recession their wealth increased by about $20 trillion.  In fact, their wealth grew 29 percent — about twice as fast as the wealth in the world as a whole.  How many ordinary people saw their wealth increase from 2010 to 2011 by anything close to 29 percent?

For the Occupy Wall Street movement it is even more significant that the US has been the largest wealth generator over the past 18 months, a time when about 100 million Americans have suffered with unemployment, underemployment, home foreclosures, hunger, high living costs, no health insurance, loss of savings, and historic financial insecurity.

According to the new report, the US added $4.6 trillion to global wealth, withChina ranked second with $4 trillion, followed by Japan ($3.8 trillion), Brazil ($1.87 trillion) and Australia ($1.85 trillion).  Which Americans shared in that $4.6 trillion increase in wealth?  Only those at the very top.

There are now 84,700 people in the world worth $50 million or more.  And 42 percent of them, 35,400, live in the US.  At the top of that global group are 29,000 people world-wide worth $100 million or more, and just 2,700 worth $500 million or more.

According to the latest Forbes list there are 1,210 billionaires in the world.  And the total net worth of America's wealthiest people was up $1.37 trillion in 2010, according to the latest Forbes 400 list, where it took a net worth of $1.05 billion to make the list of the richest Americans.

Here are some more data on current high net worth Americans: those with more than $100 million, 29,000 (about .1 percent of US population); $10 to $100 million, 987,300; $5 to $10 million, 1.96 million; $1 to $5 million, 26.7 million.  You can see that the top one percent of Americans (about 3 million) have net worth above about $5 million and they get about 20 percent of annual national income and have about one third of national wealth.

The top 10 percent (about 30 million) have net worth above about $1 million and account for about 50 percent of all national consumer spending (which is amazing, think about it).  They have enormous consumer power, adding to their political power.  Those 30 million are a big chunk of the 99 percent, so don’t expect them to be thrilled with the Occupy movement.  Rhetorically, pitting 99 against 1 percent works, but understanding that the blood suckers are really 10 percent is important but still not the whole story.

There are still more economic winners than either the top one or ten percent. When you take into account households with net worth of several hundred thousands of dollars, there are at least 60 million Americans or about 20 percent that should be considered wealthy (probably including most Tea Party activists and the Republican base) and unlikely to see the legitimacy of the Occupy movement.  Those people account for an amazing $9 trillion sitting in cash in the nation’s banks.  Message: The political battle is much harder than it first appears.

But, of course, there are some rich Americans that strongly support the Occupy movement, including a number from the entertainment world who clearly are part of the wealthy upper class.  Like others, they understand that opposition to a grossly unfair capitalistic system designed primarily to benefit a few is not the same as rejection of capitalism that serves the interests of the many and the nation, allowing wealth to be shared (like it was from 1950 to 1980).  Note that corporate profit as a share of the economy is at a 50-year high.

Also note that often people with moderate incomes, and not just retirees, still are very high net worth individuals, with most of their income being passive such as interest and dividends, rather than wages of any kind.  Being wealthy, in other words, is best seen in terms of net worth rather than income data.

Last point, 50 percent of Americans make less than $26,000 a year.  We have become a two-class society with very little upward mobility, especially when even those with a college education or decades of work experience cannot find a job. Rebellion is needed.  Fighting economic injustice and greed is long overdue.  Now you know: Delusional democracy breeds delusional prosperity.  This is what the Occupy movement is all about.  Help make it a success by supporting the petition at getmoneyout.com.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]