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This video/infographic was published on YouTube last November. I hadn’t seen it before today. I think it’s incredibly well done and a must watch. I recommend maximizing the size (the bracket/square in the bottom right corner of the video) to get the full effect. At the end of the video, the creator, politizane, states that the work is being placed in the public domain.
Wealth Inequality in America
Published on Nov 20, 2012
Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.
If you were as impressed with this work as I was, please consider going to YouTube and giving it a thumbs up. Right now it has about 48,000 views. It needs to be seen by many more eyes.
There are many positive comments on YouTube, but there are a lot of negative ones too, and a good number have been removed, so presumably those were even worse. One person who seemed generally positive about it complained that there was no call for action. But the creator of the video did call for action. A simple action. Wake up!
And that is the real task here, to wake people up. It’s the first step. Even the people who had an instinctively negative reaction to this will not be able to forget it now that they have seen it. Seeds are planted by the facts depicted in those infographics. The extreme nature of our wealth inequality is really not known by most people in this country. That is a big part of the problem, and you don’t find things like this very often in the corporate media, dominated by the 1%, who really don’t want people to fully understand it.
This is why the Occupy movement was so successful. It planted seeds and woke people up, and changed the narrative and brought the issue of wealth inequality (a much better term than “income inequality”) to the forefront, along with other issues like money in campaigns, Citizens United and of course Wall Street. Never have these issues been more important than today, as major changes are being planned and executed in our country’s budgeting priorites — changes that can and will change the very fabric of our society. Never have these issues been more important, as Dodd-Frank regulations for the financial system are being implemented or undermined, as more and more people lose their homes in a fraudulent foreclosure process with a fake task force, and as statutes of limitation expire for holding people accountable for the fraud and crimes that caused the crash of 2008 that did such damage to our economy and our people.
As more and more people understand what’s going on, the Occupy movement will morph, reignite, and/or new movements will germinate. There are many valuable forms of activism. This video is an example of one of them — creating it, talking about it, writing about it, and spreading the information… and acting on it.
Below are some of my photos from Occupy Wall Street events in New York, Philadelphia and Wilmington, NC during the time period from September, 2011 to September, 2012 and some music to accompany them. There are also some photos from Occupy Congress in Washington, DC taken from a video.
Zuccotti Park. September 17, 2012. |
Wilmington, NC. November 12, 2011 |
New York City. September and October, 2011 |
Philadelphia. October, 2011 |
New York City. May 1, 2012 |
Occupy National Gathering. Philadelphia. July, 2012 |
Occupy National Gathering. Guitarmy March, Phila to NYC. July, 2012 |
Occupy Congress. Washington, DC. January, 2012 |
12 Comments
Thanks for reading.
Excellent graphics in the video, and thanks for all the photos of Occupy. It was such a moment of clarity.
P.S. Your diary title seems to have gotten stuck in the middle of the recent diaries list (some kind bug, I think, that happens to new entries sometimes), and with all the photos was slow to load, at least on my pc. Hope you still get some attention. Recommended.
excellent video and excellent diary! thanks for all of the pictures of occupy; it’s good to see the solution after a cogent description of the problem.
Thank You. Try to remember those days of September…..and follow….follow
okay that was from The Fantastiks, a musical….
any who …love your work!!
Thanks, Tom :)
Mary, thanks for the heads up. I wasn’t aware of that issue. I did put a lot more graphics and videos in this diary than usual. I hope it’s worth the load time.
Put this up on whatever social media sites you might participate in, it seems to resonate with people, this got a nice response for me on FB where most of my rantings pass straight into oblivion.
joe, thanks. I always appreciate the support.
Kurt, that is really good news about the way it seems to resonate. It’s going viral on YouTube. Mashable had posted it and it was flying around on Twitter. Maybe a million people will see this before too much time passes. Maybe more.
Definitely worth it! Thanks again.
Noted and liked. Recommended.
USA is not a poor land,a barren place. Those who would tell us there is not enough for all USians to share and to benefit in large parts on a equal basis are spinning big untruths.
It is about wealth. Held wealth. The avarice of held wealth.
Many years ago I first came across a chart showing how held wealth was distributed across USian society that used a row of ten chairs to show how the wealth and income holds were distributed across USian society. As I best recall 3 of the chairs went to 90 percent of USians while the other 7 chairs were taken by the top 9 percent,top 1 percent of USians.
At the time this simple illustration in chart form of this fact based information was break out knowledge relaying. It was a revelation to me of first rank. Still is after all the ensuing years ( 20-25 years ). This fundamental and pivotal seeing of the truth being brought to the fore explains much about USA.
The USA is not a poor land. It is poorly led,criminally led. By a small set of held wealth interests and R and D politicians this small sets held wealth buys off and puppet strings in front of common USians to play and game USian elections.
Plainly Barack Obama is a good R POTUS — much better than the R Obama replaced on Jan.20,2009 — Barack Obama has been telling us ever since the USA is a poor and broke land that now must punish the least able, the worst off,the most disadvantaged. Obama telling us we could not afford MedicareForAll. Obama telling us we must now accept cuts to SS and MC. Telling common USians the US must plunge into austerity laced government done to the mediocre rather than to the best.
Barack Obama plainly has no intention of telling the Pentagon and CIA this same big lie. Of telling Wall St. and the One Percent that the USG is broke and they will be getting less and then some more less.
Barack Obama should be ashamed about this big lie Obama keeps running out and retelling.
It is doubtful shame is in the Obama political lexicon.
Barack Obama is a disgrace as POTUS.
Thank you joanneleon … stay with it…
Great diary, joanneleon, thank you.
Rec’d.