Hereafter, I’ll write more briefly and broaden the topics a bit.
I’ve been galvanized by Occupy Wall Street. At last we have someone speaking out on economic inequality in this country!
For years we’ve been reading about this issue, the fact that 1% of the population receives 25% of the nation’s income and holds 42% of the nation’s wealth, that these gaps are growing so that now roughly 46,200,000 people in this country live in “poverty,” defined as an annual income of $22,113 for a family of four.
Does it make any sense for one person to earn over $400,000,000 a year in salary or $300,000,000 or slightly less?
Is there any fairness in this? Is it the least bit reasonable? Does whatever rationale is invoked, let alone performance displayed, justify executive compensation of this magnitude, an annual payout, mind you. And this is only their salary, not the taxes they end up paying or the generous options and bonuses that often go with it. What kind of economic justice is this anyway?
Meanwhile, banks repossessed almost 1,000,000 homes last year and the number may be even more this year.
I quote from the website of Occupy Wall Street Now:
Our Mission
On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.
Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants.
Who is Occupy Wall Street?
Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.
The original call for this occupation was published by Adbusters in July; since then, many individuals across the country have stepped up to organize this event, such as the people of the NYC General Assembly and US Day of Rage. There'll also be similar occupations in the near future such as October2011 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C.
Those who believe that peaceful protests of this nature serve no purpose and accomplish even less might benefit from a closer look at history, especially recent history where far more people put far more at risk in acting upon their beliefs.
