99%11 — Demonstrative Attacks on Wall Street
I’ve always found it interesting that the 11SEP2001 attack on Manhattan wasn’t aimed at Liberty.
It targeted Wall Street, like a wake-up call for 99% of Americans who came to lust for revenge against the alarm clock,
while the captains of our financial institutions effected our economic collapse.
Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/13nuc)
Who Are the ’99 Percent’?
Anti-Wall Street protesters have differing motivations
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we’re working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
We wondered who were the “99 percent” protesting on the streets on Thursday and why they were demonstrating. Here’s a random sampling.
Charlene Woodcock, 71, retired book editor
QK: Why are you out here?
CW: I’ve seen the wealth of this country – and especially California – go from the middle class to the very rich. It’s destroying California, it’s destroying our schools. The Republicans are doing their best to privatize everything they can and it’s destroying the country.
QK: What do you want these protests to accomplish?
CW: A state bank. North Dakota has a state bank that isn’t doing it for profit.
QK: What do you have against Wall Street?
CW: They broke laws, they made a mockery of process of granting loans to enrich themselves in the short term and they didn’t give a damn about the long term.
Mary Ann Meany, 60, lawyer
QK: Why are you out here?
MAM: I’m out here because the program I work for has been cut, my court has been cut, every social service in California is being cut and I think it’s time that we all recognize that there’s a social contract that we have to support. I work in juevenile court – employees, commissioners, court reporters have been cut.
QK: Do you blame Wall Street for those cuts?
MAM: We use Wall Street as a symbol and a signal of whether the economy is good or not. I don’t think it’s the right indicator. We think the economy is doing well because Wall Street is doing well but we still have high unemployment and people aren’t willing to pay taxes and things seem to be breaking down.
Larry Yee, over 50, service technician
QK: Why are you out here?
LY: I’m a member of CWA 9410. I’m here in support of our brothers and sisters asking for fair jobs and making sure the banks don’t just walk away after the disaster they caused in the financial market. We all need to speak up and make sure our voices are heard.
Evelyn Sanchez, 35, community organizer
QK: Why are you marching out here?
ES: I’m very much in touch with families that have been affected by this crises. Both immigrants who have been cut off from services as well as families who are facing budget cuts in their school system.
QK: What does Wall Steet have to do with those cuts?
ES: A lot of our laws and policies are designed to favor them – their health and their well-being and not enough is being done for us, the people, who are on the street. I’m happy to see there are so many people here who are sick and tired of the agenda of our politicians and that’s doing what’s best for corporations and the financial sector. It’s about time they pay attention to the needs of the people.
Karen Henry, 50, runs clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies
QK: Why are you out demonstrating?
KH: I came out here because I am fed up with supporting corporate America. There’s a much bigger gap between the rich and the poor. And we gave all our money to the banks and we don’t have anything left. This morning I was going to work and I heard Bank of America is going to charge $5 for debit transactions – that’s friggin’ ridiculous! It goes into some stockholders pocket while it gets eaten out of ours. I heard about the demonstration today and decided to come. I left work early and decided to come.
Chris Tully, 36, unemployed
QK: Why are you out here?
CT: To support the 99%. To support Occupy Wall Street. They’re out there for us. I’m against corprorate greed and I want to see a higher employment rate and banks should pay.
QK: Why should the banks pay?
CT: They’re the ones that benefited the most from all of us in the bailouts and their still making massive profits. They continue to do so.
QK: What do you hope will come out of these protests?
CT: I’m hoping to see a stronger sense of community and be more organized. Everyone tends to walk around thinking they can’t make a difference and we’re out here to show them we can.
Ulises Olvera, 19, student at San Francisco State University
QK: Why are you out here?
UO: To stand in solidarity with all the workers and see if we can make some change.
QK: What kind of change do you want these protests to make?
UO: Drastic change
QK: Like what?
UO: Like the way the tax dollars are collected. Who gets taxed and the amount of taxes we impose on people who have money and people who don’t have money. I come from a working class family and in the last five years, they have been struggling just to make rent and it’s been really tough. I’m from San Deigo and a lot of my friends, their parents are agricultural workers, and it’s been hard on them too. They’ve lost jobs in the last couple of years.
QK: How is Wall Street responsible for that?
UO: They hold all the wealth and they get preference on how money is dispursed and they’re pretty much in control of everybody else. So whoever has the money has the power and that’s how they control.
Darnell Boyd, 50, tenant organizer for SRO Hotels
Boyd lives at the Mission Hotel and he helps organize tenants.
QK: Why are you out here?
DO: We need the rich to pay more taxes. And we need them to not cut aid and medicare.
QK: What does Wall Street have to do with that?
DO: I think they’re [rich] Wall Street. They need to pay their fair share.
Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/13nuc)
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Scott Ellington's Blog 
I think the occupy Wall Street gang is misguided, but not unfounded. What they need is to do a little more critical thinking and really dive into the crust of the problem. They all say roughly the same thing. They are having a difficult life, and there is a small 1% possibly more which is having a no problems at all. It seems as though they are just taking a random stab at the issue rather than really thinking about it. But for you Scott, I will sum it up. The vast majority of Americans lack any sway in this country founded on the principle “for the people by the people”. Yet, middle class and below fail to have any real financial power to get candidates elected into office. The Democratic Party and the republicans are controlled if you will by the larger powers that are responsible for their current existence. They answer to their parties policies for the most part, and they answer to the corporations which back them. Three major issues in our congress right now are; health care, green energy, and retirement (jobs are in a separate category). These three mentioned issues are hugely impacted by corporations. Oil is the blood America’s veins; the largest corporations sell it, refine it, depend on it, or make devices that depend on it. Companies like GM, Ford, NASCAR, ect. are huge contributors to the two political parties in America.
These two parties are not representing the majority of Americans; they are representing the people and companies which fund their campaigns. If you go to AmericansElect.org and see the polls you will see that issues like green energy are favored by a majority of Americans. (Before you complain about the bias of polls let me just highlight one thing for you, the polls at Americans Elect have been taken by almost 2million people, where as the CNN, or Whitehouse polls are generally summed up by small polling bodies like 1 thousand to 10 thousand. With the larger number polled you will have a smaller tendency of a bias poll.) At Americans Elect dot org the last time I checked somewhere around 90% of the people asked if they would like our government to invest in green energy to limit our dependency on foreign oil answered yay. With such an overwhelming majority why hasn’t the congress or senate made any headway in such a direction? The investment in green technology would limit the cost of purchasing foreign oil and create job in the process possible generating more money. Healthcare should be a no brainer.
This country was founded a refined system of ethics. We were and still are proud of the fact that we claim we have some form of freedom. Freedom is great, but not at the expense of the working class. I understand there will always have to be a working class, but to stand by and let them suffer with illnesses is a crime against humanity. A friend of mine has had a shattered foot for over two years because he was told how much it would cost him out of pocket to get surgery. My mother owes 100k for four chemo therapy treatments and she is a freaking bus driver for a school system, she’s lucky if she make 20k in a year, and her house is on the verge of foreclosure. My wife is in the army and I am medically retired from the army and the only bills we have are phone, insurance, internet, and car, still we have a hard time making ends meet. Why is universal healthcare scary to America? Not because of communism, but because of the insurance companies, the pharmacy industry. The people that work in the medical field aren’t rich, so who is getting rich on human suffering? The same people that funded Obama’s campaign. The same people that fund the Dems and the Reps the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies.
There is one simple solution to this problem. I call it the “Separation of corporation and state”. All money that is donated will be put into the general election fund. Once a year all recognized parties will get an even share of the funds to use as they please without the intent to make investment or gains the money is purely for campaign and operational expenses. Since big business and the 1% already shell out financial gifts, it shouldn’t upset them too much when it becomes a federal tax, and my guess is that the tax would end up being less cost to big business anyway because they use their money like it is a giant vote generator.
This simple fix wouldn’t change one thing about how we live on a daily basis in America. It wouldn’t change how business is done on Wall Street or how CEO’s line their greedy pockets. All it would do is cut the criminal tie that links our government to corporations. Let’s face it a corporation is not one person anyway. A corporation is a massive body of people working to accomplish a goal, and when a business donates to a campaign they are basically saying everyone that works for me wants you to have this Mr. Republican, and chances are there are plenty of employees that would have given the money to a different guy/girl. Americans don’t pick the president the parties do. The parties are stocked with people that bring money from big sources. Americans then get to cast votes on two or three candidates that probably work for the same dirty money. You see even the rich should be worried about this because the 1% can’t shake a stick at what Apple puts into the election funds, and what’s worse, apple can’t shake a stick at what foreign investor put into the pot either. Some day we are going to be voting on people the Arab league floated to the top on a money boat, and when that day comes I don’t want to alive.
Esko,
Thanks for this comment that sums up your beliefs. I disagree with many of your contentions and priorities. We don’t need to have the conversation in which our common points of disagreement are revealed and negotiated to equitable solution, because our opinions won’t influence whatever’s coming.
What a lame, and boring response Scott. Why participate in conversing at all if that’s how you comunicate. The Greek philosophers developed the very idea of democracy simply by having chats on the steps of the agora. If you ever decide to pull your tail from between your legs let me know, you can find me at
ListenToMePeople.wordpress.com.
P.S. no hard fellings, i just like to have a good conversation every once in a while.
One more thing. If you haven’t already noticed the media has decided to lift their OWS boycote. I wrote a little something about it, I think you should take a look at it.
Esko,
I looked. I didn’t find new information, fact nor an actual argument.
I didn’t find a conversation in which I intend to participate with you.
That isn’t my tail you’re groping for.