7 Core Demands From The Occupy Wall Street Movement
Editor's Note - It's difficult to find fault with any of the demands listed below.
UPDATE - A website has been set up for online voting on #OccupyWallStreet demands.
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Guest Post By Jason Hamlin
I am writing this article to express my full support and solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests that have been growing rapidly across the country. In typical fashion, the media first ignored the protests and have now been trying to marginalize the efforts by constantly stating that the protestors have no goals. To the contrary, there have been a number of General Assemblies and online polls where the people have been voting on which issues are most important and which specific demands rise to the top. This is a lesson in true Democracy, something that we haven’t seen on Capitol Hill in quite some time.
After all, the degree to which the politicians have been voting against the will of the people is insulting to the idea of a Democracy or Republic. It is clear to most Americans, if not the full 99%, that the government has been corrupted, bought off and is no longer working in the interest of the people they are supposed to be representing. This is one of main underlying grievances, which manifests in a Congressional approval rate at an all-time low of just 12%. But there are also specific demands that have been well articulated, despite the insistence of the mainstream media to the contrary. I’ve pulled from the various sources and distilled the list to what I believe should be the 7 core demands from the Occupy Wall Street movement:
1) End the Collusion Between Government and Large Corporations/Banks, So That Our Elected Leaders Are Actually Representing the Interests of the People (the 99%) and Not Just Their Rich Donors (the 1%).
This will involve sweeping campaign finance reform that would limit the contributions that come in from for-profit corporations or provide equal public funding for campaign finance. It will also involve limiting the size and scope of corporations, in order to reduce the power of the 1%, reduce monopolies in critical industries and ensure no bank or other corporation is ever “too big to fail.”
We should reverse the effects of the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision which essentially said corporations can spend as much as they want on elections. The result is that corporations can pretty much buy elections. Corporations should be highly limited in ability to contribute to political campaigns no matter what the election and no matter what the form of media.
2) Investigate Wall Street and Hold Senior Executives Accountable for the Destruction in Wealth that has Devastated Millions of People.
Financial fraud was very likely committed and those behind the curtain have gotten away with nothing but a slap on the wrist. We must remove the moral hazard that persists in the system and completely restructure the regulatory agencies so that they are no so easily manipulated. One common sense step would be to end the revolving door phenomenon, whereby the regulators quit their government jobs early in order to take jobs with the companies they were supposed to be regulating, resulting in a huge payoff for not enforcing the rules. Likewise, the people tasked at enforcing regulations should not be coming from the industries they will be regulating. The conflict of interest is obvious.
We must also liquidate both the public and private debt that has been growing out of control. Most of this debt was created out of thin air and is owed to banks with interest. The problem is that there is not enough money in existence to every repay the debt. The system was designed this way and serves to concentrate wealth in the hands of the bankers, as the rest of us scramble to pay them back, plus interest. Since the debts can never really be repaid (other than with Ponzi-scheme printing), the loan contracts were never entered into with good faith and the banks offered no consideration, the loan contracts are no valid and the debt must be forgiven and canceled.
3) Return the Power of Coining Money to the U.S. Treasury and Return to Sound Money
The founders understood the dangers of giving a small group of private bankers the authority to print the nation’s currency. The Constitution explicitly states:
Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 5
[Congress shall have Power ... ] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, …;
Art. I Sec. 10 Cl. 1
[No State shall ...] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; …
The bankers found a way to subvert this law as was meticulously detailed in the book “Creature from Jekyll Island” by Edward Griffin. The top bankers in that day were aware of the power they would acquire as evidenced in this quote from Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws.”
Giving the ability to print unlimited amounts of money out of thin air to private bankers has been the main underlying cause of the boom bust cycles, inflation that has led to the U.S. dollar losing 95% of its value since the Federal Reserve was created, the control the banks now command over government and increasing concentration of the world’s wealth and resources in the hands of fewer and fewer people. When the protests point out the gross imbalances, such as the top 1 percent of Americans possessing a greater collective net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent, their outrage ought to be directed at the head of the banking beast, the Federal Reserve. Accordingly, we should bring the FED under total control of the people, with absolute transparency of all of its actions. Furthermore, we need to return to sound money, whether it is gold or a basket of other finite commodities. This serves to restrain out of control government spending and reduce the hidden tax of inflation on the people. This “hidden tax” affects the poor and middle class the most.
4) Limit the Size, Scope and Power of Banks so that None are Ever Again “Too Big to Fail” and in Need to Taxpayer Bailouts
This means moving ahead with Basel III capital requirements and adopting the Volcker Rule to limit banks’ ability to engage in risky and speculative investments. Whether this is done via HR 1489 (“RETURN TO PRUDENT BANKING ACT”) or another way, it must accomplish the main objective stated above.
5) Eliminate “Personhood” Legal Status for Corporations
Revise the interpretation of the famous 1886 case where the U.S. Supreme Court supposedly ruled that corporations are “persons” having the same rights as human beings based on the 14th Amendment, which was intended to protect the rights of former slaves. As most lawyers know, the Supreme Court made no such decision. In the case in question – Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the court itself never rules on personhood. A court reporter by the name of J.C. Bancroft Davis (a former railroad president) snuck that “ruling” into the books.
What most people don’t know is that after the above-mentioned 1886 decision, artificial persons were held to have exactly the same legal rights as we natural folk. (Not to mention the clear advantages corporations enjoy: they can be in several places at once, for instance, and at least in theory they’re immortal.) Up until the New Deal, many laws regulating corporations were struck down under the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment–in fact, that clause was invoked far more often on behalf of corporations than former slaves. Although the doctrine of personhood has been weakened since, even now lawyers argue that an attempt to sue a corporation for lying is an unconstitutional infringement on its First Amendment right to free speech. ( Nike v. Kasky.)
6) Repeal the Patriot Act, End the War on Drugs and Protect Civil Liberties
The constitution’s fourth amendment protects people and their property against “unreasonable search and seizure” without “probable cause”. The Patriot Act tossed the probable cause provision out the window. Now, if government agents want to read your mail, listen to your phone conversations, comb through your financial records or worse, they don’t need evidence or a search warrant; they need only say, “It’s for a terrorism investigation.” This draconian law was never about public safety. Americans’ constitutional liberties have been trashed for the war on drugs and war on terrorism.
7) End All Imperial Wars of Aggression, Bring the Troops Home from All Countries, Cut the Military Budget and Limit The Military Role to Protection of the Homeland
The two demands above are the key requests in order to reign in a government that has grown too large, cumbersome, bureaucratic and inefficient to serve the needs of the people.
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Vote now:
Website For Voting On Demands For Occupy Wall Street
Oct 23, 2011 at 9:00 PM
Reader Comments (33)
That's great news. And yes I am very aware that Beau Biden along with Shneiderman and the AGs from Cali and Nevada are doing a great job of fighting Iowa AG Tom Miller on the foreclosure settlement.
Schedule of events
Oct 8th at 10am in Bryant Park Lake Worth - Occupy Palm Beach
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Palm-Beach/254148327961791
Swat Team in St. Louis Barring Customers From Withdrawing Funds from BofA (Video)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/swat-team-in-st-louis-barring-customers-from-withdrawing-funds-from-bofa.html
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/swat-teams-in-st-louis-protecting-bank-of-america-refusing-customer-withdrawals-directing-customers-to-broken-bofa-web-site_10042011
The problem lays in bankers pretending the freshly printed money was their property
and forceing We the People to issue bonds as collateral in return for the meritless printed money
(which was ours to begin with all along)
Can we please have EVERYTHING (principal and compounded interest) back all the way from 1913 !
And then we'll call it even.
It was all differant then.........We still have a voice, but nothing like it was ment to be..........?
But then the village idiot is always the one that the news likes to zoom in on. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link, they need to get rid of the morons (weak links) that are defacing any good they are trying to accomplish. And stay clear of those trying to co opt the movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im_VektDXqM
Dan wasn't the only one in a panic. I was scrambling to get the lake systems (automation system) VTR's loaded to run extended commercial breaks and PSA's because the only filler tape I could find was a 30 minute kids cartoon.
Disney was a pain in the ass too. Their two hour sunday flicks (on 1 and 2 inch tape) always had bad timing sheets. I once had to air a 2 part film and they just happened to sent part 2 first (in the part 1 film can). There was nothing I could do so the GM cleared me to play part 2 first and part 1 the next week. Unbelievably no one noticed.....
Gompers,
I think Fox Noise and the other Wall Street propaganda pushing MSM's are canvasing the protesters and selecting individuals who are completely out of touch with reality for their interviews. I have yet to see an intelligent person explaining the real reasons for the protests on any news show except Dylan Ratigan.
Typical corporcratic control of the MSM bobble heads, standard operating procedure to put out misinformation.
Reporters are never interested in the struggle, only the storyline they create to try to seek personal journalistic awards. To them the cause is irrelevant, the spin is King.
It is up to the protestors to police themselves, and not give the reporters fuel for discrediting themselves. Not following the police around like they were the Pied Piper into traps on bridges would probably help their self image also.
It is important to realize people are watching, so acting the fool will only turn people against them as you see already happening.
I was gona say something, but you took the words out of my mouth Gomp..........!
Right out of "Atlas Shrugged." You sound like a Tea Partier. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
"Corporations should be highly limited in ability to contribute to political campaigns..."
They are. In fact, they can't contribute to political campaigns at all, as corporations. Corporate PACS are limited to a maximum of $2,500 per candidate.
Citizens United didn't change any of that. It dealt with the right of corporate associations to engage in political speech, independent of political campaigns. That right was determined to be constitutionally protected in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision.
The doctrine of corporate personhood, incidentally, wasn't a creation of the Southern Pacific case. It goes all the way back to the Middle Ages. That's why you can sue a corporation for running you over with its delivery truck, instead of just suing the driver with ten bucks in his pocket.
Both hate Wall St. and love Main St.
Both hate Big Banks
Both hate illegals.... OWS because they suppress wages - TP just wants them gone.
Both want to abolish the Fed.
Both want an end expensive Wars.
Both hate outsourcing Corporations.
Both think Wall St trading is corrupt... insiders make money up or down... while Grannie's 401 K is destroyed by the games. Outlaw short selling and both TP and OWS will vote for you.
So why don't TP and OWS speak to each other?
OWS is gay, has tattoos, loves Tacos and smokes pot.
TP is homophobic, xenophobic, loves Chicken Friend Steak and beer.
The parties play one against the other... and steal from all of us.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/02/shellcompanies-idUSN1E7711OH20110802
There you go Speak Truth...
Are you all round the bend? This demand comes straight out of Atlas Shrugged and was a core demand of deep-dyed conservatives and Ayn Rand followers like Alan Greenspan. (See his 1966 essay on this subject here: http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm) In John Galt's version of Utopia in Atlas Shrugged, everyone had to pay for goods and services in gold.
I don't know which bright spark first raised the idea of including this item among the demands, but it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that there's a mole in the organisation of the Occupy Wall Street movement and that most of its followers are too naive to notice.
Fear-mongering about inflation is precisely what makes it possible for Republicans to demand that we reduce the national debt by cutting jobs and essential services to people most in need. If you want to understand this subject, read Economyths by David Orrell (he's done the maths), Zombie Economics by John Quiggin, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang, nearly anything by Paul Krugman, Robert Reich or Joe Stiglitz, and Griftopia by Matt Taibbi — to name but a FEW.
We are NOT in danger of hyper-inflation. We have a jobs crisis, not a debt/inflation crisis.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE.
In Keynes we trust.
These corps NEED TO GIVE BACK THAT MONEY and the executive board needs to go to jail, as simple as that. I believe that they were all in on it and knew the US and the world economies would be devistated and did this with full knowledge of the outcome, that's amazing that the government doesn't do anything to them.
Any money that has been paid back with any interest (if any at all) should be disclosed to the American people as to where it went, I know I never got a break from it, my taxes are still high, my expenses are still high and I still pay too much at the gas pumps, so where did all this money go??? Back the Corps? To the politicians? Pork? Who knows and who knows if it really was paid back.
Zero Transparentcy!
There are two common ways business owners are stealing their worker's tips. One way is, restaurant owners lobbied our government for law that allows them to use their employee's tips to pay their minimum wage obligations. If you earn tips, your employer can take up to $5 an hour of your tips and use them to pay you $7.25 an hour instead of his own revenues.. The other way business owners have devised to steal their worker's tips is by forcing their tipped employees to share their tips with workers who receive less in tips or workers who normally don't receive tips. Again, the system works the same. If you earn tips your employer can take your tips away from you and use them to pay workers he should be paying.
The National Restaurant Association has influenced our federal government into turning a blind eye to blatant labor law violations. Our minimum wage law specifically states that "every employer shall pay each of his employees minimum wage". However, if your willing to throw some fundraising dinners and shell out some big campaign contributions to the Republican party, our government will make sure you don't have to follow those silly labor laws. Cough up enough and they will let you use your customer's tips to pay your minimum wage obligations,
Why would any business owner use his own profits to pay his employee's minimum wage when he can simply take the tips his workers receive and use them to pay his employee's minimum wage?
This is why I am so excited to see the Occupy Wall street movement. Our government has aided business owners in contravening our labor laws for over 40 years and now people are starting to see how blatantly corrupt are government has become. Our wages have fallen to the lowest level we have seen in over 50 years and it's time we let Washington know, we aren't going to let it get worse without a fight.
This isn't class warfare, there is only one class and that is citizen of the United States of America. Now treat me like a citizen.