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Declaration of Grievances issued by Occupy Wall Street

by: Tully Fitzsimmons

Sun Oct 02, 2011 at 09:38:35 AM EDT


Voted by voice acclamation at 8pm on Sept 29. (For all the naysayers in the media who insist that the protest is unfocused):

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

Tully Fitzsimmons :: Declaration of Grievances issued by Occupy Wall Street
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Where are we meeting in New Hampshire? (4.00 / 5)


Your Local Bank of America For Starters! (4.00 / 2)
What a great and inspiring document!

Bank of America is both an ugly symbol and a major actor in these assaults against America and the earth. They don't care about anything but taking from the middle and poor and gifting to the very top.

Let's make our voices heard anytime, peacefully but forcefully, in front of their offices in our towns!
Singly or in groups. Solidarity!


No'm Sayn?


Right now, people are up in arms over the $5 card fee. (4.00 / 2)
That's nothing.  My daughter goes to U Mass-Amherst, and their on-campus bank is Bank of America.  She was short funds, and asked me to run to our local Keene branch and make a deposit for her.  As I made a mere $50 deposit, the following conversation ensued"

"You know, there's an $8.95 fee for this."

"What?!  To deposit money in your bank?!  Why?"

"Because it's a checking account that should be used online only"

"So how do you add money to it?!"

"Direct Deposit by your employer"

"But she's a full-time student, and this is the account they recommended she get!"

"I'm sorry...it's only a one-time fee."

"Oh, so once I pay this $8.95, I can make as many deposits as needed without additonal fees?"

"No, it's a one-time fee each time a deposit is made."

"Then it's not a one-time fee, it's an every-time fee!"

I felt like Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole...


[ Parent ]
Two Words: (4.00 / 2)
Credit Union.

They. Don't. Care.
We do.
Rinse, repeat.


[ Parent ]
Thats what *I* use (Cheshire Co Federal Credit Union). (0.00 / 0)
Unfortunately for my car-less daughter trapped on a huge campus...she has one institution from which to choose.

[ Parent ]
How about UMassFive CU? (0.00 / 0)
You probably know about this already, maybe not quite as ubiquitous as BA, but they do have a presence on each of the five campuses.

They. Don't. Care.
We do.
Rinse, repeat.


[ Parent ]
dont know of them... (0.00 / 0)
I'll speak to my daughter...thanks!

[ Parent ]
Sounds like a boycott is needed on the Amherst campus (0.00 / 0)
I went to UMass/Amherst. Wonderful school, but they sure have turned into corporate whores over there. To avoid the BOA, your daughter can take the free "Five-College" bus downtown to do business with a local bank. (I'm hoping, of course, this service still exists and hasn't been killed by budget cuts?)

BOYCOTT is the best way to deal with giant corporations who charge you all those fees and donate the proceeds to the tea party. I have canceled my credit card with a certain giant bank and only do business with my local credit union. The benefits are many.

I also no longer  patronize a certain phone company, big box stores, offshoring technology companies, Koch brothers toilet paper [how symbolic], and the list goes on....


[ Parent ]
BofA like Coke & Pepsi... (0.00 / 0)
Probably cut a sweet deal with UMass that keeps competitor's ATM machines off campus!

[ Parent ]
If you want to organize an occupyNH event, you might (0.00 / 0)
want to register with
http://www.occupytogether.org/

They're trying to set up a clearing house.


The tradmed treatment of this situation (0.00 / 0)
is elucidated in this excellent article by Lisa Romero from last week. Pay particular attention to the "why" section.

They. Don't. Care.
We do.
Rinse, repeat.


Excellent! (0.00 / 0)
This is our cue to raise the issue of our failing media along with all the other issues.  We need to know.  Here we are, like Iran and Egypt and all the other protests that worked or didn't, getting the news by cell phone and Twitter.  With hundreds of newspapers and thousands of "reporters" working for a few corporations ignoring what is going on.

[ Parent ]
700 + arrested today. (0.00 / 0)
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes....

Something's happening here.

In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.


For completeness ... (0.00 / 0)
see several other posts concerning evidence that the police played a role in deliberately setting up the situation.

In particular the lede of the referenced NYT story was changed within 20 minutes to obscure this.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com...


[ Parent ]
NY Times deliberately changed their story 20 minutes after reporting the set-up: (0.00 / 0)
http://www.tullyspage.blogspot...

[ Parent ]
When the president starts talking (0.00 / 0)
about pitchforks and torches, maybe they're starting to get it.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po...

But to me, the most astonishing comment in the brief is Ken Lewis, CEO of BoA, with one foot in bankruptcy, saying he won't "suck up" to the administration.  Wow.  That's Bill O'Brien ballsy.  

In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.


The President said that two years ago, in April 2009. (0.00 / 0)
The autocracy took it as a threat; liberals took it as him taking the banksters' side.

I see him shrugging his shoulders and saying, "well, I tried to warn them."


[ Parent ]
Manchester resident, (0.00 / 0)
and journalist Mark Provost has an interesting diary at Naked Capitalism on the Occupy Boston dissent.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...

In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.


Gold nugget in the piece: (4.00 / 1)
A politician is someone who gets in front of a mob and tries to call it a parade

Old wisdom, but worth re-reading. Of course, we could get more specific about what kind of politician this would be...

They. Don't. Care.
We do.
Rinse, repeat.


[ Parent ]
And the silver goes to, (4.00 / 3)
So far, hats off to the BPD. If they respect our right to protest, it makes it easier for us to protect their right to collectively bargain.


In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.

[ Parent ]
That is great (0.00 / 0)
and I don't see why "We are the 99%" isn't reason enough and agenda enough.  Keep it simple.  People know.  They just have forgotten that you have to fight for it.  

[ Parent ]
Sometimes numbers are easier to remember. (0.00 / 0)
99% registers with people who don't understand what "we, the people" means, probably because they're isolates.

R stands for rulers

D stands for doers

Democracy = generous, united, kind
Autocracy = stingy, isolated, mean


[ Parent ]
Unfocused? Most Definitely (4.00 / 1)
Tully, I'm not sure how you could read this and NOT think that the protests are unfocused. The main leads (e.g., the Wall Street wrongs that we need to right) are buried beneath vast generalizations and heavy-handed language. . . . As far as I'm concerned, the message needs to be this clear:

1. Wall Street decimated our global economy via a system that rewards short-term boondoggles over long-term investment. Its lobbyists in Washington continue to fight sound regulation to stop this. Small businesses and ordinary, non-seven-figure citizens are paying the price.

2. Warren Buffett's secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does. At a time when deficit reduction is a national priority, ending the "hedge fund loophole" is a common sense correction.

This messaging is clear, accurate, and applies to the system's widespread dysfunction -- as opposed to language that accuses Wall Street of every sin in the Western World and beyond. There are some people on Wall Street who actually fund alternative energy, not kill it, and most don't actively "perpetuate colonialism." Language like that undermines the purpose of the protestors, and makes them much easier to marginalize.

And, as far as I'm concerned, these protests are not nearly as constructive as volunteering to phone bank or knock on doors for a Carol Shea-Porter or Ann Kuster. Because getting folks like this in office is the only real way to end Wall Street's DC gravy train.


Well, I disagree... (4.00 / 3)
These people are not professors or policy geeks.  They are expressing a society's frustration.

Sure, there's a place for knocking on doors, but Unfocused, Mediawhoring Tea Party activists accomplished more in the last election by providing a semblance of a groundswell than all our knocking on doors did.

I've been to many a union meeting where the language was unfocused, the demands diverse, the characterizations not always entirely accurate...but that never mattered.  Passionate people with a common enemy accomplish more than all the policy wonks you can put in onw room with wordsmithing skill degrees.

Sure, the wonks become important at some point.  But its after the anger swells and the politicians notice they better do something...


[ Parent ]
Now THAT is some fine bloggery (4.00 / 2)
A good question well asked, a good answer well given. Kudos, gentlemen.


[ Parent ]
Duly Noted (0.00 / 0)
Thanks, Tully.  

[ Parent ]
Knocking on doors presumes it is good for people to be shut in (0.00 / 0)
their houses.  Inviting them to come out and occupy the public square is something else.  It's an invitation to share and be heard. Knocking on doors is like checking the milking machine and the automatic manure transporter to make sure they're working well. Turning the cows out to pasture is something else.

[ Parent ]
LOL (0.00 / 0)
Now there's a word picture for my morning coffee....:-)

[ Parent ]
No need to choose-- both are needed and the efforts if done well will reinforced each other. (4.00 / 4)


"But, in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." Si se puede. Yes we can.  

[ Parent ]
Protests,Election Campaigns, and the other 99% of us. (4.00 / 1)
I've worked on campaigns in hopes of a better future, but the immediacy of these protests is so heartening.

Carol Shea Porter theme has always been centered on the "other" 99%.  and  For the Rest of Us.

It all ties in, and it's so great to see a younger generations of Americans respond.

They'll hone their message I'm sure. I heard two of them speaking on NHPR yesterday and they were supremely articulate.


[ Parent ]
Who are the protestors? (0.00 / 0)
Many of them are young and feel betrayed by a system that promised them if they were good, and went to school, and went to college, they could have a job and live the way the middle class used to.  

Chris Hedges On Occupy Wall St (4.00 / 1)
http://burtcohen.com/Podcasts/...

No'm Sayn?

Local Transit Union Marches tonight at 4:30 (0.00 / 0)
Predicted to be the largest show of solidarity yet:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_...


[ Parent ]

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