Lots of angry folks on Wall Street right now, giving the richest 1% the hairy eyeball. What do we want? I could write a manifesto, but the right wing lurkers would probably call me a commie and a pinko and godless, all in the same breath. So, I am going to quote Tom Paine from
The Rights of Man. That's right. I am going to make a Tea Bagger turn dark purple with rage by suggesting that the folks occupying Wall Street are American patriots, doing exactly what our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) instructed them to do.
We are all born equal…Every history of the creation, and every traditionary account, whether from the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agree in establishing one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that men are all of one degree, and consequently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural right.
Government exists to serve us all equally…Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation of all his civil rights.
Popular protest is a sign that the government is not serving the people….Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness. It shows that something is wrong in the system of government that injures the felicity by which society is to be preserved.
The American middle class is the source of this country’s wealth and strength…Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honour. It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labour and poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and misery. Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not in that mass.
Hands off Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP…It is easily seen, that the poor are generally composed of large families of children, and old people past their labour. If these two classes are provided for, the remedy will so far reach to the full extent of the case, that what remains will be incidental, and, in a great measure, fall within the compass of benefit clubs, which, though of humble invention, merit to be ranked among the best of modern institutions.
School is for educating children, not for turning a profit...A nation under a well-regulated government should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
America must stop its foreign wars of choice…But any war is harvest to such governments, however ruinous it may be to a nation. It serves to keep up deceitful expectations which prevent people from looking into the defects and abuses of government. It is the lo here! and the lo there! that amuses and cheats the multitude.
If you want America to stop occupying Wall Street, then do something!The poor, as well as the rich, will then be interested in the support of government, and the cause and apprehension of riots and tumults will cease.
You should be glad we are occupying Wall Street. There are worse things angry, homeless, starving people could do.If, therefore, the good to be obtained be worthy of a passive, rational, and costless revolution, it would be bad policy to prefer waiting for a calamity that should force a violent one.
Words to live by from 1791.
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