PORTLAND – As I look out on the encampments within the shadows of skyscrapers in our metropolitan areas — the one I pass by is in Lincoln Park in downtown Portland — I would like to comment on what this means and what the demonstrators are trying to say.

To characterize the majority of people living in tents in our city centers as grubs of society living in their own filth, uglifying our urban landscapes, is to live in denial of a terribly broken system of government and finance.

It is convenient to look at these unsightly camps as “them” and “not me.” It is deeply disturbing to see police in full riot gear “sanitizing” these camps, clearing away what we do not wish to look at; trying to silence their message.

But what is this message? Where is their manifesto, their political platform, their candidate for change?

The message is loud and clear. It’s written on the signs hanging on the wrought iron fence surrounding the park; it’s written in bales of hay stacked up against a flimsy tent to protect against the cold nights.

Citizens are living outside in the middle of winter in the heart of our city. This is not a plea for pity or a handout. It’s not a matter of distributing wealth evenly.

Wealth has its own way of distributing itself. Like power, it can be the exclusive domain of the few only for so long. Eventually, when the distribution is so far out of balance, there is a revolution, a war, an economic collapse.

While tea partiers shout about “socialism” and “redistribution of wealth from hard-working Americans to the lazy poor,” what is actually taking place is an unprecedented redistribution of wealth upward in the nation’s history.

But it is not being distributed downward to the majority in the form of jobs, health care and domestic production.

With the country distracted by senseless debates about the president’s place of birth, a farce of a health care bill, endless posturing on the minutia of legislation and boring commentary from Fox and CNN, more billions continue to be grifted from the system at the top.

The bonuses at Goldman Sachs, AIG, JPMorgan continue to rise (because “good” people are hard to find).

Hundreds of millions pour into campaign treasuries from these same companies, while trillions pour out of our Treasury, and the blood of our soldiers continues to pour out in a war that should end.

Bin Laden is dead; let us go home and be good citizens here. Let others work out their own history.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is not a demonstration against capitalism or democracy. But it is a demonstration against capitalism on steroids, and democracy in an incestuous relationship with money.

And the steroids are derivatives, credit default swaps, subprime loans, banks too big to fail and corporations that have free speech rights as if they were living, breathing human beings.

Steroids are illegal in sports because they falsely pump up a performance. They should be illegal in our financial sector and political campaigns as well because they create false bubbles that eventually collapse and favors that need to be satisfied.

In 2009, my federal tax bill equaled almost to the dollar the amount my wife and I lost in our retirement accounts because of unethical conduct on Wall Street.

There was nothing left to expand our business or hire new employees.

We invested in the American free enterprise system. We were ripped off. And then we were asked to pay back to the very same thieves the money they stole from us in the first place, in the form of a bailout.

It was a win-win for the banks and a lose-lose for the hardest working Americans, many of whom, even after a lifetime of work and saving, are only one health care or financial crisis away from living in a tent themselves.

Too big to fail? Let them fall. We can rebuild something better.

This movement is not a call to arms. But it is a wake-up call.

We have laws protecting citizens from being robbed as they walk down Wall Street or Main Street.

We need laws protecting citizens from being robbed when they invest in Wall Street.

And we need big money out of our election process.

But what was under your Christmas tree, if you had one? How many things were made in the United States?

Want jobs? Buy things made here. Buy something from a locally owned hardware, grocery or bookstore. Buy some of your food from a local farm.

Invest in Main Street. That’s the strongest economy we can build.

Bring some food and blankets over to your local Occupy camp. They’ll appreciate it. This is a valid protest that demands our attention and support.

Daniel Porta is a small-business owner and a resident of Portland.