Occupy Wall Street Movement Pushes On
For 25 days, hundreds of protesters have loudly opposed corporate greed in New York City and Boston. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) describes itself as a “horizontally organized resistance movement employing the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to restore democracy in America.” Democrats and Republicans are taking sides in favor and against the infant movement, making comparisons to the Tea Party. The media is taking hold. There is even an Occupy Sesame Street, which parodies the Wall Street movement, maintaining its own Facebook page and receiving recognition on The Colbert Report and Fox News.
While these protestors have some legitimate gripes and the constitutional right to peaceably assemble, they are going about it quite haphazardly. In the words of Voltaire, "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it." OWS, being generalized as all unemployed youth and dirty hippies, is protesting the wrong people in the wrong place. They also seem to be very confused. From a speech at OWS, “We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?” The protestor goes on to say, “The only sense in which we are communists is that we care for the commons. The commons of nature. The commons of what is privatized by intellectual property. The commons of biogenetics. For this and only for this we should fight.” Their message is vague, but the “problem” of corporate greed in this country is a valid issue.
Occupy Wall Street should move to the Capitol Building; not the White House, but at the Capitol, where Congress passes horrendous legislation like Obamacare and stimulus spending that is truly ruining the younger generation's capacity to financially succeed in the future. Stockbrokers and CEOs, photographed drinking their champagne while they look down and gawk at protestors, do not create or pass legislation.
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati