This past weekend, thousands of activists descended on Wall Street to occupy America’s financial district. Seven days later, hundreds are still occupying nearby Zuccotti Park (now renamed Liberty Park).
The activists highlight that, “the richest 400 Americans (now) own more wealth than half of the country’s population.” The occupation seeks to draw attention to wealth inequality and austerity measures, as well corporate censorship, political corruption, joblessness, poverty, war, and the lack of health insurance for millions of Americans. As noted recently by the Toronto Star, “40 per cent of the wealth in the United States is held by one per cent of the people, and a record one in seven Americans live in poverty, the highest rate in the industrialized world.”
The activists say, “Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants. …Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. The original call for this occupation was published by Adbusters in July…”
Well-known activist Michael Moore recently said, “This is really the very first — down on Wall Street, in the financial district — the very first attempt, since the crash of ’08, to take a real stand and it’s been powerful. And I gotta believe that even though it may only number in the hundreds right now, this is gonna grow — not only on Wall Street, but in communities all over America.”
A message from the occupation organizers have said they stand in solidarity with Toronto and Montreal, as well as Madrid, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Madison, London, Athens, Sydney, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Milan, Amsterdam, Algiers, Tel Aviv, Portland, Chicago, Phoenix, Cleveland and Atlanta.
Today, the Council of Canadians is expressing its solidarity with this peaceful occupation against austerity and corporate power.
For more from Michael Moore’s website, go to http://www.michaelmoore.com/.
