COMMENTARY | It is uncertain what the people gathered in the "Occupy Wall Street" event in New York as well as similar protests in other cities actually want. But a recent declaration, written in the style of Thomas Jefferson, spells out what they're mad about.
The declaration lists a total of about 20 grievances, each of which begins with "they." The declaration does not specify who "they" are, but it is implied it refers to corporations, evil capitalists and businesses.
The declaration accuses "they" of doing everything from taking peoples' homes illegally to creating weapons of mass destruction to get government contracts. One can just imagine that Jefferson is rolling his eyes in whatever afterlife the Founding Fathers find themselves in.
What does the "Occupy Wall Street Movement" propose to do about what irritates them? A list of demands has been posted on its website by a gentleman named Lloyd Hart. These demands include a living wage regardless of employment and a free college education, which is a contradiction, as if anyone gets paid regardless of employment, who needs to go to college?
Other demands come from the oldies but goodies list of the far left, including universal health care, ending fossil fuels, trillions in infrastructure spending and ecological restoration and an open borders policy. There is also a demand to forgive all debts and to outlaw credit reporting agencies. Clearly this is a gambit to try to attract the middle class, strapped as it is with underwater mortgages and credit card balances.
As far as the possibility of any of the demands being met, the protestors might as well throw in a billion dollars in untraceable bearer bonds and a fast getaway plane. In any event, they are not doing anything, aside providing equal measures of amusement and annoyance, that would cause anyone to consider their demands.
Is this the "American Autumn" that former green jobs czar Van Jones promised? If so, one does not think that the evil plutocrats are shaking in their boots, awaiting the arrival of the starving mob to drag them out of their Manhattan pent houses and take them, as Roseanne Barr proposed, to the guillotine. But stories of the bizarre sights to be seen on the way to the investment office are surely lightening many a cocktail hour.
