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Harsanyi: The Occupy Wall Street manifesto

By David Harsanyi
Creators Syndicate
Updated:   10/07/2011 03:23:10 PM MDT

Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement march though Lower Manhattan on October 5, 2011, in New York City. Thousands of protesters
Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement march though Lower Manhattan on October 5, 2011, in New York City. Thousands of protesters including union members and college students from an organized walkout joined the rally and march. (Mario Tama, Getty Images)

We, the Occupy Wall Street people, hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, women and transgendered — and any other human who is able to elude the tyranny of work for a couple of weeks — are created equal. We gather to be free not of tyranny, but of responsibility and college tuitions. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that a government long established and a nation long prosperous be changed for light and transient causes. So let our demands* be submitted to a candid world.


. . . but down with the modern gilded age!


We demand a minimum wage of $10 . . . no, make it $20. We earned it. And we demand the end of "profiteering," because there is no better way to end joblessness than stopping the growth of capital.

We demand the institution of direct democracy, because if a bunch of people say it's OK, it's OK. And everyone deserves to have his or her voice heard. Except Mr. Moneybags, who we demand stop contributing his own money to candidates we disagree with.

We demand the end to bailouts and corporate subsidies, unless we're talking about companies that feature sunflowers or sun rays in their logos, because that's the kind of morally gratifying institution we approve of, and thus, they should totally be fast-tracked and bailed out with your money.

We demand the end to a corrupt Wall Street because banks hold too much power. We demand that government consolidate authority so that elected officials can make prudent choices for us. All that cash in banks was printed by the war god Mars and has nothing to do with the voluntary deposits by ordinary Americans, so we do not consider this theft.

We demand the end to corporate censorship, because if we can't force private news organizations to run the types of stories with which we agree, there can't be a healthy democracy. So actually, we demand the end of all corporate news organizations in the name of free speech.

We demand the end to health profiteering, because everyone knows that all the wondrous and lifesaving advances in modern medicine were invented in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos. Smart people work for the good of humanity, not because they're greedy.

We demand these rights because of the mass injustice of being able to freely protest against racism and corporatism without any real fear of imprisonment in the most diverse city on Earth. And to the wiseguy who walked by the other day and claimed that I'd be writing this manifesto with a quill pen on parchment paper if it weren't for capitalism, we have two words for you: Koch brothers. Think about it.

This is the fifth communique from the 99.9 percent. We are occupying Wall Street, and we're not going home until it gets really cold.

* These grievances are not all-inclusive.


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