Thoughts and Perspectives on Occupy Wall Street

1) #OWS is a massive system that cannot and need not be easily understood. I don't agree with everything I see or read. There is no central body of leadership or canon of perspectives. Nor is there a standard code of conduct - I don't agree with violence, vandalism, or the other harmful activities that have occurred.

2) For me, the central message is that there is something very wrong with our democracy and current iteration of capitalism.

3) Wall Street is a symbol of our current iteration of capitalism.

4) Corporations are being targeted because there seems to be an imbalance in power. I don't think all corporations are bad. I don't think corporations should have equal opportunity of personhood under the law. The corporations that hold the majority of capital, those that are too big to fail, gain privileges not afforded to all citizens and all groups. Why do big banks get bailed out for making bad financial choices in a macrocosm when individuals making the same bad choices in the microcosm achieve no recourse.

5) I don't think the police are being targeted beyond protest for wanton abuses of power and unnecessary use of force.

6) I think that government and the corporate structures of capitalism are being held equally responsible. Again, Wall Street and our current iteration of capitalism has become the symbol for the injustices of a system that has failed to support equal opportunity for all.

7) I don't think the majority of protestors are asking for a hand out. I think the majority are asking for equal opportunity and justice towards those that deny this opportunity.

8) The demographics of this movement make this movement a cultural expression of frustration. Equal democrats and republicans. Equal men and women. All brackets of education are represented equally. All income brackets are represented equally. There are business people, veterans, active military personnel, politicians, mothers, blue collar workers, unions, and students.

‎9) This is not a movement of hippies, liberals, and socialists. This is a movement of Americans.

10) Capitalism as symbolized by our market has failed to provide the opportunities capitalism promotes because there is an imbalance in power. Point of case, our traditional remedies and guarantees have failed and this movement is the market in radical reorganization and correction