The Occupy Movement and the recent events at Penn State have something in common. They resonate with the vast majority of people in the world who sense that something is wrong and want something done about it.

The occupiers claim to represent the 99% of the population who have to live with what the other 1% control. I'm a ninety-niner and so is virtually everyone I know. In the Reagan era it was called the silent majority, silent because the majority never seemed to speak its mind. That seems to be changing.

To refer to ourselves as the ninety-niners is somewhat inaccurate. According to recent research*, in the United States in 2007 the top 1% held (controlled) 42.7% of the financial wealth. That's a very big number, but the next 4% controlled another 29%. So, just 5% of the population controls over two thirds of the wealth. The average net worth of families above the 90th percentiles was $3,306,000. The statistics show that 80% of the population, the vast majority, controls only 7% of the financial wealth. Do you think that wealth might influence corporate decision-making and politics?

What history has shown is that wealth begets wealth and, over time, tends to be more and more concentrated at the top. The occupiers do not, for the most part, begrudge wealth. But they can see that as the concentration of wealth has increased the "job creators" have failed to create new jobs. They are frustrated that the playing field is tilted toward those with the wealth. They would be happy with a level playing field and the American dream of equal opportunity for all. They believe that people in power should do the "right thing" even when it doesn't benefit them, or their friends, directly.

That was the frustration people had with the situation at Penn State. We might disagree on whether some specific behavior is immoral, but the law is black and white. It is illegal to do certain things to a child and it is the responsibility of adults to protect children from harm. How is it then that those same adults can choose to ignore a problem situation and fail to take immediate action to prevent it from happening in the future?

Many people will lose their jobs as a result of this situation. Worse, many children were probably harmed that shouldn't have been. All this because people failed to do what they knew needed to be done. It's the human dilemma - we feel compelled to avoid personal pain even at the expense of hurting others whom we love. It is only by an act of will that we choose to do the right thing. It's a sacrifice made for an idea that's greater than our personal self-interest. It's an act of love and of hope in a better future. It's enlightened self-interest.

*The research is analyzed in an article by a sociology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Click here to read the article.