Larry Klayman
October 23, 2011
Time for all of us to 'occupy'
By Larry Klayman

Conservative television and radio commentators from Sean Hannity to Bill O'Reilly to Glenn Beck have denounced the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations as the work of Marxists bent on destroying the capitalist system. That certainly may be true with a number of them, but the "fact of life" is that that "We the People" have serious grievances with the elite establishment, be it on Wall Street or elsewhere! This is hardly a phenomenon of the extreme left! The tea-party movement, which preceded the Occupy demonstrations, underscores this.

I have been predicting for months that Americans and indeed citizens of the globe would soon rise up to wage revolution. The U.S. and world economy is in the tank and sinking fast; a dangerous and explosive situation exists in the Middle East with its Obama-assisted march to radical Islam; worldwide oil supplies are thus in jeopardy; and the moral and spiritual decline of our nation in particular is growing day by day.

That some youth would take to the streets, whatever their political persuasion, was not only inevitable, it is a healthy sign that at least they are not asleep at the wheel. Regrettably, much of our younger generation are more interested in social-network flirtation, dating and the other mindless nonsense that occupies Facebook and other Internet sites than the harsh reality of the state of the planet. And, the Occupy demonstrations, which are continuing across America and are spreading into Europe and elsewhere, are not just the work of idealistic and desperate youth who cannot find a job, among other complaints. The older generation is joining in with a French mantra of "Egalite, Paternite and Fraternite," the slogan of the brutal French Revolution.

The bottom line is that persons of all stripes, all social and economic strata and all political persuasions have been cast out, ignored and screwed over by their respective establishments — and in economic hard times, this is a formula for domestic and worldwide revolution, plain and simple.

Last Tuesday, the liberal New York Times, of all media, in a front-page story, again highlighted that the revolution has begun from all corners of society. Here are a few excepts of what this venerable daily conceded in its article entitled "Countless Grievances, One Thread: We're Angry," by Marc Lacey.

"Ken Alandt's guitar, which is covered with bumper stickers and waved in the air at the Occupy Phoenix protest on Monday, is a symbol of the movement itself — a mélange of disparate causes, all of which prompt his blood to boil. ..."

"'Bro, I have been lied to so may times that I don't know who to believe,' Mr. Alandt said. 'All the world's problems run downhill and I'm at the bottom.'

"There may be no common manifesto or list of goals — something that has drawn criticism from both inside and outside of the movement — but there is one common thread: anger. Some have looked for jobs for months; others have lost their homes to foreclosure. Angry they all are.

"'What brings me out here? Outrage — outrage with what's going on in this country,' said Lucy Horwitz, 79, who participated in Occupy Los Angeles. 'Right now, the first issue on my mind is that corporations can buy congressmen.'

"In Lower Manhattan on Monday afternoon, protesters were drawn by a vast array of concerns: stark income inequality in the city, their family's suffering from salary cuts, the embarrassment of resorting to food stamps despite working 40 hours a week.

"In Chicago, where 175 protesters were arrested over the weekend for curfew violations, a crowd outside the Federal Reserve Bank marched to the beat of improvised drums. 'Education is a part of it; jobs are part of it,' said Maryam Alyhabib, 34, who left her three children with her mother to protest for an hour and a half on Monday for the first time.

"In London, where thousands of protesters occupy a space under the soaring dome of St. Paul's Cathedral ... a bearded man ... George Barda, 35, engaged in a heated debate with a passer-by, Naveed Somani, 24, who works in development for the Commonwealth Secretariat, an intergovernmental organization.

"Mr. Somani has stopped to express skepticism that such a nebulous movement could succeed. Mr. Barda said he hoped that all the Occupy protests around the world would unite, in time, to lay out concrete aims. 'What we need to do is come up with demands that are common sense, inevitable, ' Mr. Barda said."

Perhaps envious that the left has seized the initiative of worldwide revolution, one conservative, Russell Pierce, the admirable architect of Arizona's anti-illegal immigration legislation — which is now before the U.S. Supreme Court — waxed sour grapes in Phoenix, during the demonstrations there, about the Occupy phenomenon. The New York Times quoted him as saying that "Even the anarchists have a right to march down the street and hate America."

As much as I like Mr. Pierce, he and many other conservative and heretofore anti-establishment public figures like Hannity, O'Reilly and even Glenn Beck — who I have lauded for his courageous work — have missed the point!

We conservatives, libertarians and people of faith have even stronger grievances with the establishment than do our leftist brethren, particularly given all that President Obama and his socialist minions have done not only to dismantle the vision and reality of our Founding Fathers, but also based on their own dastardly and incompetent performance in office. While even the left, at home and abroad, now recognize that blowhard and corrupt establishment leaders like Obama have failed them and are, as a result, taking concrete actions in the "street," we conservatives have not been so bold and courageous.

Yes, its time for all of us — left, right and center — to unite and take the establishment apart, and rebuild upon the foundations of our great nation. We all have serious grievances, the complaints of "We the People" have not been heard and addressed, and the time for revolution is upon us. Let us, too, man the barricades!

As of today, only the left and some others have gotten the point!

© Larry Klayman

 

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Larry Klayman

Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, is known for his strong public interest advocacy in furtherance of ethics in government and individual freedoms and liberties... (more)

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