Just twelve days in, and the movement to hold bankers and corporations accountable to the public is picking up some serious momentum. A massive organization – New York’s Transit Union – just voted to help the movement to Occupy Wall Street. With tens of thousands of members, the activists on Wall St. can expect a surge in bodies, come Friday at 4pm.
Like freedom fighting figurehead Michael Moore believes, the revolution ignited on Wall St. will spread like wildfire. Moore describes the “army of Americans who are just waiting for somebody to do something”, and because of the demonstrations in New York, “the something has started.”
If your wondering why the so-called 99% are so upset, we can turn to eloquent words of wisdom from the man himself – Noam Chomsky:
The banks are bigger and richer than before with corporate profits reaching record levels, and unemployment is about the level of the Great Depression – I mean real unemployment. These people are saying, let’s blame the culprits and the institutions behind them – fiscal policies like taxation, rules of corporate governance, deregulation – it does set in motion a vicious cycle that is getting worse and worse.
If you walk down the streets of New York you can see very serious poverty and phenomenal wealth side by side, very much like a Third World country. Meanwhile, infrastructure is collapsing, schools are collapsing and all that keeps this cycle going.
And one factor contributing to these problems are the big money interests, which have been allowed to undermine democracy. Chomsky:
Each [presidential] candidate spends over US $1 billion. Where does that money come from? A lot of it comes from financial institutions. What gave Obama the election were primarily financial institutions’ contributions. They preferred him over McCain, they expected to be paid, and they were. It has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between elected officials and concentrated capital.
So, unless you are in the 1% who benefit the most from our distorted distribution of wealth and power – and face it, you’re not! – you should be out there protesting too. Get out there and let your voice be heard. Take to the streets and be part of a movement for greater social justice, because that is what democracy looks like!
