I cannot be at Liberty Square. I have a child to care for and, thankfully, a job. But this diary is a message from me to Occupy Wall Street:
Thank you.
Thank you for standing for me, my family, and my city, which recently earned the distinction of having the largest share of its residents living in poverty.
Thank you for loving us, believing in us, and fighting for us.
I do not speak for Occupy Wall Street. But they speak for me.
We honor our military men and women who fight in foreign lands. This diary honors the unarmed civilians fighting the war here. Until recently this war was undeclared, and waged against ordinary Americans, now known as The 99 Percent.
The enemy: the banks and corporations, aided by those elected to represent us, which spread their virus of greed and exploitation around the globe.
Again, I do not speak for Occupy Wall Street; I wish only to thank it.
"War" aptly describes the enemy's ongoing seizure of public money, its willful destruction of the social safety net, and its theft of the most basic American right: one person, one vote.
"Enemy" is not too strong a word to describe these entities, afforded the rights of human beings despite their lack of soul or conscience.
This war is honorable and legitimate.
Occupy Wall Street did not start it. But the men and women of Liberty Square—joined now by thousands in other cities across the nation--met the enemy on its ground, and took it.
How long they keep it is irrelevant. Its victory is not measured by ground captured, but by hearts and minds converted.
Occupy Wall Street wages war on behalf of average Americans, including those who revile it, and for the soul of our country. Unwilling to surrender it to evil, Occupy Wall Street seeks to peaceably turn it toward the light of truth and justice.
The enemy wages war in court, in Congress, in the boardrooms of multinational corporations, and in the media, much of which it owns and operates for its benefit.
Casualties are mounting, lives vaporized by the enemy's assault.
More and more of us must choose between food or heat and medicine.
More and more of us are crushed by debt or have lost our jobs, health insurance, or homes—or all three.
Our children are denied a decent public education or a doctor's visit.
Our soldiers return from distant lands to find that they cannot forget what they saw or were ordered to do there, and that their government has in large measure forsaken them.
Occupy Wall Street, a human wave of justice, is cresting.
Peaceful but resolute, with national and international support, it claims public space to deliver a message to the enemy: No.
The enemy fouls our communities and the environment in the pursuit of outsized profit. In the name of The 99 Percent, Occupy Wall Street says no.
The enemy would deny us funding for basic needs, including food, warmth, and health care. In the name of The 99 Percent, Occupy Wall Street stands up.
The enemy strips us of a living wage, denies our humanity, sickens our bodies with toxic food, fouls our air and water, betrays us with the representatives it selects and pays for.
Occupy Wall Street has withdrawn its consent to be used, mocked, betrayed, and silenced. In the name of The 99 Percent, it speaks out—cries out—for justice.
Its support grows by the day.
Like our soldiers in foreign lands, the men and women of Liberty Square stand in harm's way, believing their cause just, and fight for the country they love.
Like our soldiers and veterans, they deserve to be called heroes.
They fight for the police officers who surround them and for those soldiers far from home, that they may return to a land lifted by hope, rather than littered with foreclosures.
It takes courage to confront arrest and pepper-spray and mockery, yet stand your ground and shout the truth.
Occupy Wall Street: Thank you for your service to this country.
Enemy: You meet a force you do not understand and will never defeat: an army of the righteous, whose only weapon is the truth.