The recent protest in New York entitled “Occupy Wall Street” entered its fourth day on Tuesday gathering a crowd of about 150 people. The protest is being promoted by a Vancouver based magazine called Adbusters, which has described itself as “a not-for-profit, reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine concerned about the erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial forces.” The magazine called on readers to flock to Manhattan, “set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.” The purpose of the protest according to a July 13 blog post is to end “the influence money has our representatives in Washington.”
We at the Journal support these protests. Wall Street’s influence within our government has been detrimental to the betterment of our country as a whole. Too many times we have seen financial matters take precedent over human issues. This is in large part due to the massive lobbying powers of Wall Street itself. And in a time in where unemployment in the United States is still above 9 percent it is time for Wall Street to give a something back. How about lending unemployment agencies some of that bailout money?
It cannot be forgotten who came up with the money for that $700 billion dollar bailout. I’ll give you a hint. It’s anyone who pays taxes. That’s right, it was EVERYONE. And it cannot be forgotten that most of the people who took care of the bill had nothing to do with the reckless behaviors and patterns that were being exhibited by Wall Street.
So it was sort of like taking the blame for a spitball shot at your teacher by the idiotic punk bully in class. Now you would never rat out the bully, would you? No. Most likely because the teacher would probably not want to hear it.
Sometimes you need to take the fight straight to the bully. And that is exactly what these protests represent; the first thrown punch in hopefully a long series of fights that will finally bring a change to a corrupt system that has run rampant for too long. So we at the Journal say God speed protestors and keep doing America’s dirty work…and please just try and avoid getting arrested because jail is not a good look for anyone.