We Are the 99 Percent! In We Are the 99 Percent, author Brian Stelter tells what he means by his title “We Are the 99 Percent” which is a political slogan widely used in the Occupy movement. The title refers to “the vast majority of Americans (and it’s implied opposite, “You are the 1 percent,” referring to the tiny proportion of Americans with a vastly disproportionate share of wealth), into the cultural and political lexicon.” (Pg. 679). He presents this short story in the form of an essay in which he shares his thoughts and analysis from joining the Cultural and Political Lexicon. This paper will review Brian Stetler’s story, his main arguments, and will evaluate the quality of Brian Stetler’s writing. Brian Stetler begins his story …show more content…
679.) The Occupy Wall Street movement is going to figure an improved foundation for future generations, meaning today’s American youths, “instead of having them deal with this tremendous debt the upper class has dug average American’s into.” (99 to One Percent. TCC Library Source). The slogan challenged spectators to pick a side between the 99 percent and the 1 percent. This issue is one of the most dominant and resonant elements of the of the Occupy movement. “Democrats in Congress began to invoke the “99 percent” to press for passage of President Obama’s Jobs Act — but also to pursue action on mine safety, Internet access rules and voter identification laws, among others. Republicans pushed back, accusing protesters and their supporters of class warfare; Newt Gingrich this week called …show more content…
Firstly, the author is a journalist at the New York Times where he reports on television and the web, which gives him the personal insight to be able to comment on the “We Are the 99 Percent” topic. He is incapable to be completely objective in writing his analysis. “Only the man inside knows. His judgments may not be objective, his evaluations may be out of proportion. This is inevitable. An attempt must be made to avoid any personal bias, and that is the real difficulty of a book of this kind.” (Voices from the 99 Percent: An Oral History of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. TCC Library source). Brian Stetler sometimes becomes too technical and garrulous is his writing style which makes it very hard for the average reader to understand. One example of this is as follows. Brian Stetler states “CBS ran a radio spot that invited viewers to occupy your couch. On Thanksgiving, people joked online about occupying the dinner table. Now on Facebook, holiday revelers are inviting friends to the “1 percent parties”.” This statement, which is excessively wordy and difficult, it makes it challenging for the average reader to comprehend precisely what he is saying. Although he is attentive of this bias, it creates a preference that will control the readers throughout his story and it obliges a minor dimness in his writing
Some people love controversy; some despise it. Regardless of how one views a controversial topic, odds are he is fascinated by it and has his own thoughts on the matter. Journalist Leonard Pitts, Jr., who authors editorial articles for the Miami Herald, writes extremely opinionated pieces on current controversial topics targeting those who are not minorities. He writes with the goal of bringing to light issues that people would rather not discuss. Pitts’ style can be seen through pieces such as “Don’t Lower the Bar on Education Standards;” “Torture Might Work, but That’s Not the Issue;” and “If the Gunman is White, We’re OK With Mass Murder.
He attempts to shock his reader into believing America is falling apart by comparing the diverse cultures that are active in it today. At one point in the essay, Buchanan writes “Our population is down to 67 percent European, and falling; 14.5 percent Hispanic and rising rapidly, 13 percent black and holding, and 4.5 percent Asian and rising” (599). The usage of “Our” in the sense of talking about Americans is a viewpoint that excludes anyone who is not white from being a true American. In addition, Buchanan is segregating the population by the color of their skin and creating an ethnic hierarchy. By only including white people in the definition of an American, Buchanan is showing an ethnocentric trait that Fredrickson analysed in his own essay. Fredrickson describes this changing viewpoint in American society when he examines the acceptance of all white people and the differences between colored people growing “more striking and salient than ever” (567). In general, Buchanan does not recognize the differences between white people, focusing primarily on the differences between white and non-white people. The correlation between the statistics he presents and the color of people’s skin undoubtedly prove Buchanan’s take on skin color and their ability to be American. This trait within Buchanan’s writing, coupled with the non-acceptance of colored people, has a strong presence throughout his essay, ultimately weakening his
For example, on page 134, he states that a group of 556 seniors at fifty five prestigious American universities were given a multiple choice test. 40 percent of these students did not know when the Civil War took place. Then the author states his concern: why politicians like senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin want to go after MTV when they are the ones responsible for the massive failure of American education (pg...
New Nationalism focused on eradicating economic inequality. In 2007, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 23.5 percent of the nation’s wealth (Pear, 2011). This problem has increased, not gone away, since Roosevelt addressed it in 1910. Unfairness in the tax code has become a prominent topic of political discussion. President Obama called for alterations to the U.S. tax system, which allows millionaires to pay lower rates than middle-class workers like teachers and firefighters, in his 2012 State of the Union address (“Remarks of President Barack Obama – As prepared for delivery State of the Union Address,” 2012.). In December, the president traveled to Osawatomie to speak. He echoed Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, saying he believes “this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share” (Fox, 2011). Although he spoke in Os...
A large part of this problem is that many Americans buy into the ploys of capitalism, sacrificing happiness for material gain. “Americans have voluntarily created, and voluntarily maintained, a society which increasingly frustrates and aggravates” them (8). Society’s uncontrolled development results in an artificial sense of scarcity which ensures “a steady flow of output” (78).
Scarborough, Joe. “Top 1% Took 95% of Gains Since 2009.” Tampa Bay Times. January 21, 2014. Web. March 11, 2014. In this article the authors shows how income inequality has been changing over the time. He also tries to emphasize how large this gap has become by comparing income and taxation of the top 1% with the rest of the nation.
Park Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of New York City, home to the ultra rich, the top tier of the American upper class, the 1% (Park Avenue). Those who reside in Park Avenue not only have vast amounts of wealth, but an immense amount of influence that has turned the tables in their favor. But, if you go a couple of miles North of Park Avenue and cross the Harlem river, you arrive at the other side of Park Avenue or otherwise known as the Bronx, one of the poorest districts in all of New York (Park Avenue). Here you see the real hardships average Americans must voyage through in order to put food on the table and provide shelter for their families. 40% of the 700,000 residents who live in the Bronx live in poverty making less than $40 a day (Park Avenue). Some of those residents have lost their jobs due to the economic recession, created by the bankers on the other side of the river (Park Avenue). The wages of these poor citizens has dropped in the past thirty years, while prices have sky rocketed. Even though economic and social hardships have struck these innocent citizens, they still have a chance at achieving the American dream, right? After all, this is America, the land of opportunity, the place where dreams are born and bred. However, America is not what it once was fifty years ago. In today's society, the American dream is hindered by issues involving gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and weak economic mobility. The influence of money has broadened among our society creating an elite group of winners, and leaving the rest as losers. Our government has been intoxicated under the influences of those holding a paper with a handful of zeros scrawled on it....
While the the 1%, are secured, no one is addressing the rest of the people. As the economy flourishes, housing, higher education and health care, and child care increases with it to the point where 30 percent of a person’s income goes towards housing. People are finding it impossible to purchase a house with their middle class incomes. People begin to fall out of the once stable middle class because too much is needed to be sacrificed in order to live in a stable home. In the shrinking middle class, “40% or more of the residents live below the poverty
In “People Like Us”, the writer talks about tolerance and diversity in the United States. America has for a long time been cited as one of the most diverse countries. Upon investigation of that statement, one will find that it is a fact, for the country is filled with millions of individuals from different ethnic extractions, political affiliations, religion, socioeconomic status, personalities, interests, etc. However, according to “People Like Us”, instead of the population of the country uniting in its diversity and using that as a strength, individuals are trying really hard to distance themselves from others who are not like themselves, and to band themselves together with those who are like them. David
... over romanticized, as the U.S government is constantly making it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens, especially those from the global south. Furthermore, immigrants from the global south tend to be in the lowest income bracket, showing Marston’s interpretation in his film to be false.
(The idea that everyone has equal opportunity in America as long as they work hard). American economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote an article titled “Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%” that points out some harrowing statistics. He declares that the youth unemployment in America is at a shocking twenty percent. He also pronounces that one out of every six American desiring a full-time job is not able to get one. On top of that, one out of every seven American is currently on food stamps. Stiglitz powerfully professes that “Those who have contributed great positive innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding, to the pioneers of the Information age, have received a pittance compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that brought our global economy to the brink of ruin” (Stiglitz). This backs up everything the film represents referring to the inequality in America and the unfairness of the gap between the wealthy and the middle class. The middle classes’ income has fallen while the top one percent’s income has remarkably risen. The worst part is that this is not the result of hard work but only the result of a corrupt economical
These protests haven’t been centralized to a single country or region but rather have appeared throughout the globe. Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria emerged in the form of the Arab Spring protests that swept across the Middle East in 2011. Labour movements in North America, economic austerity resistance in Spain, injustice protests in Greece and Israil, and the ‘YoSoy123’ movement in Mexico all sprouted around the same time(Basok, 2014). Then in late 2011 these movements seemed to have blended together and culminated in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Each of these movements share a common goal in the form of increasing the bleak economic situation that plagues the globe. Basok notes that it was the dichotomy between economic classes that motivated the movement and sparked the notorious ‘1% versus 99%’ motto. Causes for such global disparity can be traced to decisions made decades prior. Levine Marc noted in 1996 that since the early 1970’s “there has been an unprecedented surge in income inequality and a polarization of earnings in the United States”. The western middle class had been shrinking for almost four decades but at a rate that, while not
The many graphs presented in this video look visually simple, which allows for the audience to better understand the point the creators are trying to get across: there is a major disparity in wealth amongst the American people. The video heavily relies on polling data by Dan Ariely and Michael L. Norton in a 2011 article called Mother Jones, which showed Americans' mistaken expectations of wealth distribution Several topics are discussed throughout the video including, the 1% argument. It is argued and supported with data that 1 percent of the American populations holds the majority of the country’s wealth. The video looks for a simple ...
Feel the Bern. We have all heard this political slogan this past year for the running Senator Bernie Sanders, who is known for his messy hair and crowd enticing speeches. The speech I have chosen to analyse is one that he professed to the students of Georgetown University in Washington D.C. last November. He speaks about how he is a democratic socialist and how many highly respectable persons of the past were as well, and that their socialist ideas are some of the defining beliefs that are held in the United States today. His speech touches on many issues that need to be fixed in America and the world today, those included are the wealth gap of the middle class and the top tenth of the one percent,
The Goal is a story about overcoming manufacturing problems that is told through the eyes of a plant manager, Alex Rojo. Alex arrives to work one morning only to discover the division vice-president, Bill Peach, showed up unannounced to see the status of a specific customer order number, discovered the order was incomplete, barked orders at employees to assemble the products, and finally informed Mr. Rojo he has only three months to improve his plant's performance before it's closed because the plant cannot get orders out the door on time. In fact, the order Bill investigated was already seven weeks late and the product not even assembled. After Bill departs, Alex heads to the floor to discover Bill's unexpected arrival has created more problems. The master machinest Bill yelled at before Mr. Rojo arrived quit but only after setting up a machine to complete the seven-week-late order that Bill demanded be shipped out today. The machinest, however, forgot to tighten two adjustment nuts on the machine so several parts must be scrapped, but even worse is that the machine, which just so happens to be the only one of its kind in the plant, is broken.