Why I Support Occupy Wall Street

Impact

A recent friendly discussion has left me startled.

I think this is the reason: I not only like, but support and defend, the American form of government as it is established by the Constitution. That is, I believe in the spirit and principles that it contains, and I do not think that the Constitution is just a function of any capitalist/bourgeoisie dominating class. One of the virtues of the Constitution is that it has given the populace-citizens the opportunity to actively interfere in the affairs of government and lets their voices be heard.

Agreed, it is not always effective and economic elites, the American bourgeois, have been historically privileged in their access to representation in the government (especially at the federal level, whilst at the local level the populace seems to have more control). But it cannot be denied that since Jeffersonian republicanism, Jacksonian democracy, Lincoln's republicanism, and the 20th century civil rights movement, democracy (the rule of the populace) has always remained a part of the American form of government. The republic is formed by upper and lower classes and the ability of both segments to participate and check each other. This philosophy is alive in the Constitution thanks to different mechanisms.

Wall Street today has become almost like the ideological headquarters of the American oligarchy that has been trying to take over the republic for decades. Just because one opposes them does not make them a communist. I would go even further and say that a person that truly stands for traditions (a true conservative) is an obstacle to the development of capital in the form of big business; because it is that same big business, the one that is destroying traditional lifestyles and grassroots movements, that is so important for a healthy republican form of government. Democracy requires the populace-citizens to fight against economic elites trying to overrun their political rights, extort them through unemployment, lower their wages, and overwork them; the same maladies that destroy traditional lifestyles in America.

The rich are no "job creators.” That concept is the paramount ideological sham of our generation. The rich are wealthy bank account accumulators. What they want is to be more rich, even if it will send honest and hard working citizens into unemployment. Wall Street is incredibly skilled at doing that. If Occupy Wall Street is a spontaneous movement of disenfranchised young against the unchecked avarice of the rich, then I strongly support it.

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