Wall Street Protesters on Main Street

When you live in a small community such as Hot Springs, many medical and commercial needs are met in the larger city of Rapid City, sixty some miles north of us. Last Saturday I had a book signing, along with several other local authors, at Prairie Edge, a store featuring Native American art, music and literature. During our time in the store a small group of "Wall Street" protesters were on the corner in front of the store. They interacted with us and were very pleasant, mostly older, and, as one of the signs proclaimed, "take baths and hold jobs".

It has been interesting to see how the press focuses on the few unemployed and rowdy types in the gatherings around the country. Each and every one of this enthusiastic group in Rapid City represented the majority of Americans. They are employed, paying taxes, involved in the community and their families, and, with no exception, are citizens who are fed up with politics as usual, politicians from both parties, greed, corruption, non tax paying wealthy corporations, unpunished banks and mortgage company executives who don't seem to give a damn for the majority of the average and poor in this country. They are concerned over the direction we are heading as a country, with the unemployed and homeless increasing by the day.

As I chatted with some of them I thought back to the Vietnam and Civil Rights protests of the sixties. Those protesters were mostly younger, many in college and a bit more disruptive than today's protesters. They had reasons for their discontent, and by their civil disobedience, affected the path of this nation. For the most part it has been mainly the younger generation who have impacted society in this manner. Today, at least in Rapid City, they are an older generation, from all walks of life, dissatisfied with the status quo in our leadership, hoping for a better tomorrow for all Americans, no matter what their political affiliation.

Change can come from the bottom up, from strength in numbers, a common purpose, determination, and hope for a better future for our young, our old and everyone in between. Time will tell what this movement will bring.