If I had a vote on the matter, I would vote against your ever writing another opinion piece. In spite of your considering that last one (November 2011, page 2) the kick off of a tradition (an impossibility, if you would have thought about it), the lack of sensitivity shown in that piece alone should make you rethink the idea of doing this again. That “most people” in LaPorte have jobs is not convincing given that that could mean that 49 percent of its good citizens are unemployed.
The reason no one is Occupying LaPorte is that there is not much to occupy there: no bank, a couple of bars, a lot of tattoos, some missing teeth, people with ankle bracelets, many without health insurance, a gas station, a restaurant or two (depending on how one counts restaurants), two churches (one of which seems to be decent), a market and a hardware store. The “engines of the local economy”?
Principal engines of the local economy are the two underfunded government-run schools. So, what’s to occupy? As long as the people of LaPorte and elsewhere continue to vote against their own best interests, they are not going to occupy anything.
Your defense of the 1 percent is not only short-sighted, it is just more unsocial, un-Christian and un-realistic manure. Also, ‘tain’t funny, McGee.
Charles H. Calisher
Red Feather Lakes