OccupyWallStreet's declaration of principles

[toughyear]

<p>I seem to agree with all of them:</p>

<p>

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.</p>

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

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

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

<p>They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.</p>

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

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

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

<p>They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.</p>

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

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

<p>They have sold our privacy as a commodity.</p>

<p>They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.</p>

<p>They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.</p>

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

<p>They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.</p>

<p>They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.</p>

<p>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.</p>

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

<p>They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.</p>

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

<p>They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.</p>

<p>They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.</p>

<p>They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

[First</a> OFFICIAL Release from OCCUPY WALL STREET | OccupyWallSt.org Forum](<a href=“http://occupywallst.org/forum/first-official-release-from-occupy-wall-street/]First”>Forum Post: First OFFICIAL Release from OCCUPY WALL STREET | OccupyWallSt.org)</p>

[sk8rmom]

<p>Since when is a college education considered a human right?! Suggest you post this on Parent Cafe, btw, or combine with the thread that is already over there.</p>

[IthacaKid]

<p>I agree with sk8rmom. Many of these points, such as the “used the military/police to block freedom of the press,” are unsubstantiated at the least and possibly entirely fictitious. I do not support these idyllic fools that seem to have little-to-no understanding of market economies.</p>

[Bay]

<p>You are one of “they” if you directly or indirectly own any shares of stock in any American company.</p>

[alwaysamom]

<p>So many of these are ridiculous that it’s difficult to take any of them seriously.</p>

[dadx]

<p>Ha ha ha ha ha. In the words of John McEnroe “you cannot be serious!”</p>

<p>also the copy above left out the footnote on the last point</p>

<p>

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

</p>

<p>what a hoot.</p>

[rocketman08]

<p>I fully respect the right of these individuals to exercise their right to protest, but their lack of understanding for even the most basic aspects of the things they’re “protesting” against is almost comical.</p>

<p>

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.

</p>

<p>Apparently these folks don’t understand that most charities and labor unions are in fact corporations…</p>