Occupy Wall Street

I have a lot of thoughts about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I personally have not yet physically participated in the Occupy movement by tent camping anywhere.

I do believe that it's impressive and admirable that such a large number of people have taken to sleeping in the cold streets- allowing themselves to pepper sprayed, tear gassed, verbally abused and beaten to show just how serious they are about demanding fundamental change be made to the current system in this country, which serves to funnel vast amounts of wealth into the hands of an increasingly smaller and smaller number of increasingly wealthy individuals. 

I have found the television and print news coverage of the Occupy movement to be severely lacking in depth in terms of presenting the legitimate demands of the Occupy protestors.  From what I've seen the typically coverage highlights only spectacular displays of police force and the most bizarre looking of the members of the protest.  Any serious discussion of the economic realities that have driven people to occupy the streets or specific suggestions as to how wealth could be better distributed in our post-industrial world have, to my knowledge, not yet taken place on the 24 hour news channels or nightly network television news. 

Thankfully, the New York Times recently published an article describing what the founder of Adbusters magazine, Kalle Lasn, has to say about the protest.  To my way of thinking, the following offers an excellent statement of purpose for the Occupy movement:

Mr. Lasn [Founder of Adbusters magazine] has long believed that Wall Street and vast corporate wealth have sent the United States into what he calls “terminal decline.” But unlike many people involved in the protests, he also has specific goals he would like to see reached. He wants to see, among other things, “a Robin Hood tax” on all financial transactions, a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act that erected barriers between banking and investing, a ban on certain types of high-frequency trading and the overturning of the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case. 

 Here is a link to the full article.

TL;DR: I'd suggest giving the indented paragraph above from the New York Times a quick read.