I’ll be honest with you, Save Jerseyans. When I first saw the website for the Occupy Wall Street “movement” I thought it was a parody. I was under the impression that some clever conservative blogger had taken to the internet and created a website to make the faux-testers in New York look stupid (which admittedly would not be all that difficult, they do a great job themselves).
I was wrong.
Occupy Wall Street has an actual website and they have demands! They are truly focused on a common goal shared by all the…hundreds…of people participating. In fact, they have thirteen demands, with each demand being completely and totally insane. Whoever Lloyd Hart is (he wrote this list of demands and put his phone number at the bottom), someone should check on him and make sure that whatever asylum he escaped from gets him back.
Here are some of my favorites with some blunt commentary to follow:
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
This one basically calls for the collapse of the entire financial system across the world. A return to the dark ages. Something tells me (ie. Darwin) that these coddled yuppies sitting on the sidewalk with their iPads and “More Government Please” protest signs would be the first to fall in such a society. Debt is not some amorphous abstract idea, it is something that you owe to someone else for something that they did for you. These people simply want everything for nothing. I wish this was #1 on their demand list because it puts the rest of the demands in total context.
Demand four: Free college education.
HA. Yeah. That’s all.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
Ok, so after we pay for everyone to go to college, we should spend a trillion dollars (someone picked a random number based only on what sounded good) on building roads and bridges. I wonder how we could fund that after refusing to pay any of our debts?
Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.
Even better! So now that everyone is educated, and we spent a trillion dollars on new infrastructure, we can now spend another trillion on breaking that infrastructure down to restore nature!
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Because we do not have an illegal immigration problem already in the United States.
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market
More great reasoning! Let’s put up barriers to trade but not barriers to immigration and foreign labor. Not only that, but the previous demand totally defeats this one. By allowing unlimited immigration with open borders these people would be driving wages even lower than they are today. If you increase the supply of labor, you drive down the price of labor. Maybe if these people had their “free college” they would have taken economics 101.
There are more equally hilarious demands on the Occupy Wall Street website. Feel free to head on over there and read them in full if you are feeling kind of sad today and need a laugh.
You're misinformed. The Official Demands are here and ready for anyone to vote on them:
http://ow.ly/6MbcP
And make no mistake — you might be taking sides, but the Occupy movement isn't. We're working for ALL of the 99% (which includes you AND me) — our ONLY opponent is the 1% who control DC.
…so you folks OFFICIALLY stand for nothing?
Wow. What a perfect movement for the post-modern, post-responsibility age! My generation will be all over this.
That website you sent me has a direct link to a "9/11 Truth" section talking about how the September 11th attacks were all a cover up. Any credibility that I afforded you when I clicked your link was lost immediately upon seeing that statement.
ooohhhh…..well THAT explains it…actually not so much, its not really an OFFICIAL List of Demands if you are still soliciting votes, at least the Occupy Wall Street Site has the decency to supply a concrete (albeit ill conceived) list. You, dearest Rob, who is probably only attempting to drive traffic to your poorly written and conspiracy laden website. Get a few more followers on FB then we'll talk, oh and maybe close the voting, make a decision, and get that crack legal team on the job and off the weed….
your a moron, politicians are run by corporate money right now. Our legislation is written by lobbyists. The people that are voted into office are only sympathetic to their financial contributors. Our government officials only pass laws that protect corporations and the wealthiest 1% in America. The American middle class is dying out, 1 in 4 kids are living in poverty in a lot of states including Michigan, over 50 million people don't have health insurance, and unemployment is higher than its been since the Great Depression. All the while corporations are making record profits. Some of our billionaires actually make more money than some Countries. We are broke, tired, and sick of it. This is why we protest. We want amnesty from student loan debt as a bail out for us. The banks got it to save the economy from crumbling, we should get it as a stimulus. If they get bailed out why can't we.
by the way I see your a coward and all statements have to be made through moderation. If your so sure of your point why not let every one post openly?
That is not an official list. Unfortunately this movement is a little messy and there isn't an official anything. However, there is another list of demands that are much more sane and realistic and a list that I think will come to the front now. Seven demands here:
http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall…
Whenever someone posts for the first time their comment must go through moderation. Once a post is approved, so long as that person is logged in as the same name and IP address it will go through automatically. We get a tremendous amount of span so this is unfortunately necessary.
However, we NEVER censor comments or disapprove someone for saying something that we do not agree with. So long as a comment is not within some breach of the law, it will be posted. If it takes a few hours for the comment to be moderated into the site we apologize, but we do have lives outside of the internet.
"We want amnesty from student loan debt as a bail out for us."
Who made you go to college?
YOU gambled on higher education. Either because of the bad economy or your personal shortcomings or some combination of the two, you failed. Get over it; get up tomorrow and try again. We're all struggling out there. It's the human condition.
And moreover, why should the taxpayers pay for your mistake? Keep in mind that, between income and corporate taxes, the "rich" corporate folks you're complaining about already pay over 50% of the tax load. You want to kill the golden goose.
Just another selfish, spoiled western brat "occupying" a sea of cultural decay. You are a disgrace to every WWII veteran who died for your right to be uninformed and inarticulate. Have some self-respect and start sending out resumes instead of occupying city streets and making it harder for the adults in our society to work and pay for you.
I enjoyed reading your article, many thanks.
This list is hilarious, but in all fairness, it's not an Occupy Wall Street list of demands. It's a forum post.