The Occupy movement has been chided for not having a list of demands, a program, or a manifesto. Maybe we can take a page or two from an earlier resistance movement; with a few updates, it still looks quite serviceable (sorry Mr. Jefferson, but yours is in the public domain):
Declaration of People's Grievance
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the institutional bonds which have defined their economic relations with each other, and to resume among the powers of the earth the equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natural Justice entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humanity requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to pursue such action.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal; that they are endowed by their inherent Nature with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and peaceful Enjoyment of the fruits of their labor; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among them, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Institution of Society becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to establish new Institutions, laying their foundations on such principles and organizing their powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Liberty, Equality and Prosperity. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Institutions long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the legal forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Institutions, and to provide new Foundations for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the world's peoples; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former economic System. The history of the present economic Order is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over humankind. To prove this, let these Facts be submitted to a candid world.
The Wealthy, Privileged Elite has blocked the passage of Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
It has forbidden its bought legislators to enact programs of immediate and pressing importance, unless corrupted in their operation such that they served only the Elite; and when so corrupted, it has ruthlessly suppressed attempts to reform them.
It has contrived global financial Institutions to subjugate whole nations by threatening their governments with bankruptcy, nullifying their peoples' rights of Representation in Government, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
It has called together public officials at places unusual, luxurious, and distant from reminders of their public Duties, for the sole purpose of bribing, cajoling and intimidating them into compliance with its machinations.
It has corrupted Representative bodies repeatedly, lest they oppose with courage and firmness its invasions on the rights of the people.
It has refused for a long time, by blatant collusion, to allow candidates of merit and integrity to be elected to public office; whereat the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have instead been bent to violate the rights of the people; the State thus coming, over time, to pose a greater danger to the people's Liberty than invasion from without, or convulsions within.
It has endeavored to prevent the people of all nations from holding their governments to account; for that purpose obstructing through Laws, financial barriers and even force of violence such candidates and leaders as have challenged its rule; depriving others of the liberty to engage in public discourse, and raising the conditions of electoral candidacy.
It has corrupted the Administration of Justice, by promoting unjust Laws that abuse Judiciary powers.
It has made Supreme Court Justices subservient to its Will alone, for appointment to their offices, and for the amount and payment of their outside incomes.
It has erected a multitude of New Privileges and sent hither swarms of Rent Seekers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
It has sent among us, in times of controversy, PR Firms to gain control over the terms of public discourse.
It has affected to render the Corporation Person independent of and superior to the Public Interest.
It has combined with others to subject us to intrusions foreign to our Constitution, and unsupported by fact or Reason, imposing by stealth and fraud Acts of purportedly needed Legislation:
For Dispatching large bodies of armed troops to distant lands:
For protecting them, without Trial, from punishment for any Murders or Atrocities which they should commit on the Inhabitants of the earth:
For manipulating the terms of our Trade with all parts of the world for its own profit:
For imposing Prohibitions on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be imprisoned and tortured for contrived offenses:
For eviscerating the free System of Common Law, establishing thereby an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Powers so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into other Nations:
For taking away our Liberty, enacting the most harmful Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For emasculating our own Legislatures, and securing to itself power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
It has overmastered Governments everywhere, treating the people as undeserving of justice and waging Class War against us.
It has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, desolated our cities, and destroyed the livelihoods of our people.
It is at this time establishing large private Companies to deploy paid Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of civilized people.
It has constrained our fellow Citizens to be taken Captive from our own communities, to be imprisoned for contrived offenses, and to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren in absurd "Wars" begun in deceit and prosecuted in corruption.
It has imposed domestic impoverishment upon us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our nations the merciless Corporate Persons, whose known rule of class warfare is an undistinguished exploitation of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. An Elite whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to govern the institutions of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our privileged brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their minions to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the generally dubious circumstances of their elevation to positions of wealth and power. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common humanity to disavow these usurpations, which must inevitably interrupt and reverse the advance of human civilization.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of community. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which compels our resistance, and hold them, as we hold the rest of humankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Defenders of the 99%, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of the world, solemnly publish and declare, That we the World's peoples are, and of Right ought to be Free and Equal Persons; that we are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Privileged Elite, and that all political obligation between our governments and that Elite, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Equal Persons, we have full Power to reject War, conclude Peace, contract Partnerships, engage in Commerce, and to exercise all other Powers and Liberties which Equal Persons may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the World's Scrutiny, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
