Evict the lobbyists, not the Occupy movement

I’m writing to commend reader Amiee Klem for her Nov. 11 letter, “Laughing all the way to the bank.” I felt that her submission went right to the heart of the issues.

Throughout the years of the Bush administration, I kept wondering what it was going to take to pry people out from in front of their televisions to get them into the streets. Now that the effects of those disastrous policies are coming home to roost (and make no mistake, we cannot exempt any president since 1980 from some share of responsibility for these problems), the outrage is palpable.

That’s what I believe many people do not understand about the Occupy movement. It’s been a long time coming. In fact, this kind of reaction to the economic genocide that’s been going on in this country is long overdue.

While I am not certain whether the tactics Occupy is using are effective, at the very least the movement is shining a much-needed light on the fundamental unfairness of a broken system and I, for one, commend their bravery.

If we are to avoid descent back into the Gilded Age, where nothing exists but the haves and the have-nots, something needs to be done to even the playing field.

In my opinion, the first step is to get money out of politics. Mandate publicly-funded elections, repeal the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and take all necessary steps to protect the sanctity of every individual’s ballot by eliminating the involvement of private corporations in our elections.

It is the lobbyists we should be forcibly evicting, not these mostly-peaceful protesters whose lives have been ruined by decades of backdoor deals and corruption on the part of the former.

Michele Eason

Glendale