Declaration: Occupy Wall Street Says What It Wants

Not even Thomas Jefferson--in all his genius--ever thought of this︰A declaration issued by New York City protest movement Occupy Wall Street lists its objectives and complaints.

In its declaration, the protest group comes out four-square against foreclosures, executive bonuses, workplace discrimination, monopoly agriculture, and the sale of personal privacy data. It decries everything from colonialism to “faulty bookkeeping.”

Of several similar protest movements--Occupy Boston, Occupy Los Angeles, and others now gaining steam around the U.S.--New York’s is the first to issue so specific a manifesto.

“I think initially the movement started as just an airing of grievances by people frustrated by the economy and by the lack of government responsiveness to inequality,” says Columbia University political science professor Dorian Warren. “But now you see those frustrations starting to congeal into a more formal list of goals and demands, a more specific articulation.”

There are almost as many grievances as there are protesters. “We’re tired, we’re mad, and we’re standing up,” protester Hero Vincent today told ABC News. He complains that the movement is “degraded” by the news media for not having a well thought out set of goals. “Our constitution took a year to make,” he says. “We’ve been here for three weeks, and we’re supposed to have an agenda？ That makes no sense.”


(2011-10-18/The Liberty Times)