Occupy Wall Street: The Sequel

I'd like to begin this piece by quoting a protester:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street....Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags....the politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children … starve to death every year in the U.S. and 100,000 shop girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for bread....

There are thirty men in the United States whose aggregate wealth is over one and one-half billion dollars. […] [1]

Does this sound familiar? It should. This is the rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This is what the people are protesting about this very instant. Do you know who said these words? Were they spoken a few weeks ago by a Wall Street protester? Think about it for a minute...










Time's up.



They were spoken by a woman named Mary Ellen Lease. Does this name ring a bell? She was a political activist and this quote of hers is from in 1890! Yes, you read that right.

For everyone who believes that we need to “take America back” to a “better” time you need to learn your history. There has never been a “better” time to go back to. There has never been a country “for the people, by the people,” but a country for the rich and powerful, by the rich and powerful. It's been over a century and nothing has changed. Perhaps people need to wake up and think about an actual reorganization of society and not allow another one-hundred years to pass by and allow ourselves to become entrapped in this same situation all over again.




1. A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present, by Howard Zinn; 288