OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT GAINING MOMENTUM; ORGANIZED LABOR JOINS THE CAUSE

Protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement, including members of several labor unions, gather at Foley Square in New York, on October 5, 2011.
(Photo: Ove Overmyer/The Voice Reporter)

New York, N.Y.--  Class warfare has once again entered the vocabulary of mainstream national politics, but this time with a strange twist. Right-wing politicians such as Paul Ryan and various high-profile conservative media pundits and corporate-funded think-tank spokespersons have made visible what ruling classes have long tried to bury beneath the discourse of "wealth rules" and the myth of the classless society-- that is, the harsh consequences of class power, hierarchical rule and brutal inequality.

The Voice Reporter was in Manhattan this past week, and have several stories to report to our faithful readers.  We've run into socialists, old folk, communists, liberals, pseudo-intellectuals, gutter punks, Rastafarians and just plain thugs...and the truth is everybody is getting along very well. Stay tuned to video reports, slide shows and updated info on the week that was and how these developments will shape this blossoming movement. To see a slide show or video of the Solidarity March at Foley Square/Federal Plaza and the overnight guests camping out in Zuccotti Park, you can go here.

Testimonies from many people who have been camping out in the Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park area have been consistent with their message despite the big press narrative describing the movement as directionless. Protesters say, according to the ruling elite, the real class war is being waged against the belief in free and unfettered markets, the reign of unchecked capital, a culture of individualism and self-interest-- in spite of the fact that it is precisely these beliefs that serve the interests of Wall Street elites who brought the world to the brink of ruin in 2008.


photo:  Ove Overmyer



Protesters say the appeal to "earned success" and individual entrepreneurial rings hollow given the millions of dollars in bonuses paid to failed CEOs and hedge fund managers and an economic recovery that has only benefited banks. With CEOs taking in millions in salary and bonuses while major corporations are laying off thousands of workers each month, the assertion that an unrestricted market is the only mechanism ensuring one's hard work pays off appears both disingenuous and desperate. What many GOP operatives willfully omit is that any society in which morality disintegrates into self-interest and cruelty is celebrated as a central element of a market-driven social order has nothing to do with either freedom or democracy.

As thousands of young people, union activists and the disenfranchised march against corporate power and rallying in protest against the symbols of Wall Street greed across the United States, the political and economic elites respond by engaging in a form of class warfare and clinging to the celebration of the shark-like culture of casino capitalism, revealing all too clearly their own criminal behavior and how it represents a major threat to American democracy.

For more information about the Occupy Together movement, you can go here.