The Founding Fathers would be on the side of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters and would show up to support the actions against corporations who make their money through the New York Stock Exchange, a retired Army command sergeant major said Sunday.
Although he only would give his first name - Joe - the Vietnam War veteran said those who created the United States more than 200 years ago did not envision corporations having more rights than American citizens.
Appropriately, the Bisbee Occupy Wall Street event, a phenomena which is happening across the nation, was held at Goar Park in the city's Brewery Gulch, outside a building which was the Bisbee Stock Exchange in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Today it is a bar, where some of the old exchange boards can still be seen behind glass.
Although many would think because of Joe's military service he would be conservative in his views, his comments to the Herald/Review proved somewhat different.
As more than 90 people gathered for the 5 p.m. start of the hour-long event, the retired senior noncommissioned officer - on his hat was a pin indicating he was awarded a Silver Star - brought a large American flag which was put up near a rendition of the Statue of Liberty with a sign stating "Help America. Tax Wall Street."
A woman held a sign stating "America, Land of the Fee$, Home of the $lave$."
Joe said his problem with the greed emanating from Wall Street, and corporate board rooms is, "A corporation doesn't bleed, doesn't die for the country," as members of America's armed forces are called upon to do.
And, "Corporations should not have more rights, than citizens," the retired soldier added.
The Rev. Rod Richards, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Southeast Arizona in Sierra Vista, read a statement put out by the Occupy Wall Street organizers in New York.
"This statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square on Sept. 29," he said.
The statement outlined a number of grievances "to express a feeling of mass injustice," Richards said.
The protests began in and around New York's Wall Street with small numbers but growing, leading to increasing arrests, with nearly 700 taken into custody the first weekend of this month.
The movement is spreading across the nation, including in Arizona, with one held in Prescott last week. One is scheduled to be held in Tucson on Saturday morning.
The Occupy Wall Street statement has a list of grievances, reading much like the Declaration of Independence in which the reason for seeking freedom from Great Britain in 1776 outlined the founders' rationale for severing ties.
However the statement seeks redress in their list, which Richards read, and includes:
"They (the corporations,) have taken our houses through illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
"They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.
"They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of ones skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
"They have poisoned the food supply through negligence and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
"They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
"They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay an safer working conditions.
"They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
"They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay."
The list continues accusing "they," the corporations, of influencing the judicial system, finding ways out of providing health insurance, being too directly involved in determining national economic policies "despite catastrophic failure" and donating money to politicians who are suppose to regulate corporations and other complaints in the statement, read by Richards.
For Alice Hamers, of McNeal, a self-confessed left progressive Democrat, she believes the unions are involved in the protest and sees no problem with that because of their organizational capabilities.
However, for her the majority of those who take to the streets must be individuals who have been badly impacted by corporation and politicians, of both parties.
Saying when President Barack Obama ran for president, before being selected by the Democratic Party to carry the banner in the 2008 election, she supported Dennis Kucinich.
But once Obama received the party's nomination she voted for him because she could not give her ballot of Republican Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain.
But, Obama has failed and is on the wrong path, she said.
The street protests, which are growing throughout the country, is as much is a warning to both major parties and to the technically unofficial Tea Party, Hamers said.
The politicians, of both parties "are to blame" for the nation's economic woes which can be seen by the horrendous deficit Congress and administrations created in the budget process, she said.
What is needed is a "people's budget," on from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Andrea Witte will outline the "American Dream Budget, aka The People's Budget," at the Sierra Vista Library, Hamers said of the free public meeting, Hamers said.
Joe said during his career, as an Army Ranger, he briefed retired Army Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf, when he was a lieutenant colonel battalion commander in Vietnam. Schwartzkopf led Operations Desert Shield/Storm against Iraq. The retired command sergeant major also worked with retired Gen. Colin Powell, when he was secretary of state.
With the growing unhappiness concerning the nation's political arena, he said if some of the founding leaders of the country were still alive he has no doubt they would support the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Saying he wished he brought his grandchild to the Bisbee event and believes children need to see American democracy at work, Joe said, "Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Paul Revere would be at the (current) protests, serving food."
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