Parallels between the Occupy Wall Street Proclamation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence

Basic statement of human rights

U.S. Declaration

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

OWS Movement

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights… We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.

Appeal to world opinion

U.S. Declaration

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

OWS Movement

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies… We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

The remedy for tyranny

U.S. Declaration

… That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government… 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 Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…

OWS Movement

A democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

List of abuses of power

One superficial difference between the declaration of OWS and the U.S. Declaration of Independence is that the latter was directed at King George III, while the former is directed at corporate and economic power in general. Otherwise, the two lists contain many parallels. My comments are incorporated in these excerpts {in parentheses} in order to clarify some of the parallels


Political rights

U.S. Declaration
The issue of political rights differs between now and then. In 1776 the American colonists were subjects of the British monarch. Formally, they and the people of England lived under a constitutional monarchy. But George III and the British parliament were insensitive to the rights of the American colonists, requiring their obedience without providing them with meaningful representation in their government, as explained in several passages in our Declaration of Independence, referring to King George III:

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only…

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people…

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries…

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

OWS Movement
Because the OWS movement focuses primarily on corporate power, rather than on a single leader, its emphasis is much less on political rights than on economic rights. In theory, our government is a democracy. But in reality, our government has so allowed corporate money to influence the decisions that affect the lives and livelihood of its constituents that in practice it is barely recognizable as a democracy. There is one clause in the OWS Declaration that gets right to the heart of the matter and constitutes the problem at the root of the corruption of our political process:

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

Indeed they have, and that has created a vicious cycle that continues to spin out of control: Too many of our elected representatives have come to rely on corporate money for their campaigns. So in return, they bestow legislative favors on their donors, thereby enriching them at the expense of the other 99% of their constituents, and enabling their wealthy donors to become wealthier yet, providing them with ever greater opportunity to corrupt our legislative processes to their own advantage.


Economic rights

U.S. Declaration
The grievances listed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence emphasize political rights over economic rights, recognizing that economic rights suffer proportionately to the extent that our political rights are diminished. But there are a few clauses that speak more directly to economic rights:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good…

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world…

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

OWS Movement
The OWS Declaration emphasizes economic rights over political rights, in accordance with its emphasis on corporate power. However, it is crucial to recognize that our lack of economic rights flow from the corruption of our political system by corporate money. Here is a list of economic grievances contained in the OWS Declaration:

They have taken our houses through an 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 continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and 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…

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance…

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce…

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit…

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization…

Abusive use of the military and police

U.S. Declaration

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures {Consider presidential executive orders for the assassination of U.S. citizens without trial}.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. {Consider the fact that it is now common practice in our country for Presidents to take our country to war without the consent of Congress, as required by our Constitution}.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. {consider the violent and repressive police actions against peaceful demonstrators}

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

OWS movement

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

A declaration of freedom from the abusive forces that oppress us

U.S. Declaration

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, 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 these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved.

OWS Movement

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!

Clearly, the OWS Declaration is not as assertive in calling for independence from its current government as was the U.S. Declaration of Independence. But, as its declaration says, “This is a living document” – meaning that it is evolving over time, in response to circumstances.


On the evils of excessive corporate power

As noted above, the grievances listed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence emphasized political abuses by their King, to the exclusion of grievances against corporate power. The fact of the matter is that corporations in those days manifested only a minute fraction of the power that wield today. Yet, the potential for corporate abuse did not go unnoticed, even in those days. In the early years of our nation there was much (justified) suspicion that the corporation could turn into a sort of Frankenstein’s monster if we let it. Thomas Jefferson (not coincidentally, the primary author of our Declaration of Independence) said in 1816, “I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations.” An article titled, “Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States” notes:

For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

But by the 21st Century corporate power has risen beyond the power of government to control it. It has corrupted our political processes and fused with the most corrupt of our elected representatives to become an oppressive monolith that tyrannizes the American people and will require radical measures to counteract. That is what the OWS movement is aimed at.


One major difference

The greatest moral stain on the U.S. Declaration of Independence was its failure to address two huge issues that faced our fledgling nation and contradicted its own basic message: slavery and our violent suppression of and stealing the land of the Native Americans who occupied that land before the American colonists did.

That issue was not ignored by our Founding Fathers. It was discussed at great length. The most liberal line of thinking, of which Tom Paine was the most outstanding representative, was exemplified by the most radical political phrase the world had ever known, that “All men are created equal”. However, that ideology was not considered a viable framework on which to construct a national constitution, if for no other reason than that the American South would never abide the abolishment of slavery, let alone providing the former slaves with equal civil and political rights. A fight for independence against the most formidable military machine the world had ever known was considered a great long shot even for a unified nation. Without a unified front it was considered an impossibility. Even following military victory, it was not believed that the fledgling nation could survive long without the participation of the South.

Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence in late June of 1776. Congress revised or deleted about 20% of Jefferson’s draft. The revisions primarily involved deletion of anything that was critical of slavery – at the insistence of the South. Yet 55 words at the beginning of the document survived Congressional edits:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to pursue these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Joseph Ellis explains in his book, “American Creation”, the importance of the survival of those words into the final version of our Declaration of Independence:

These 55 words would grow in importance to become the seminal statement of the American creed. With these words, Jefferson had smuggled the revolutionary agenda into the founding document… planting the seeds that would grow into the expanding mandate for individual rights that eventually ended slavery, made women’s suffrage inevitable, and sanctioned the civil rights of all minorities…

Abraham Lincoln put it most poignantly in 1858: “All honor to Jefferson – to the man who… had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce… an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, so that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of the re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”…

Lincoln was right. There they were, the magical words of American history… lying dormant until subsequent generations awakened to their implications, an awakening process that, truth be told, continues into the 21st century… We can say with considerable confidence that these were destined to become the most potent and consequential words in American history… They became the political fountainhead for all the liberal reforms that would seep out and over the nation, and eventually much of the world.

The OWS movement is not faced with the problem that faced our Founding Fathers. That is why the OWS Declaration more specifically recognizes the universality of the rights that it espouses, as demonstrated in this clause:

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

CONCLUSION – ON THE POTENTIAL OF THE OWS MOVEMENT

Katrina vanden Heuvel, in an article titled “Will Occupy Wall Street’s Spark Shape our Politics”, summarizes what she sees as the potential of this movement:

It wants corporate money out of politics. It wants the widening gap of income inequality to be narrowed substantially. And it wants meaningful solutions to the jobless crisis. In short, it wants a system that works for the 99 percent. Already Occupy Wall Street has sparked a conversation about reforms far more substantial than the stunted debate in Washington. Its energy will supercharge the arduous work other organizations have been doing for years, amplifying their actions as well as their agendas.

Occupy Wall Street is now in more than 800 cities and counting. Each encampment has its own character, from thousands marching in San Francisco to a handful gathering in Boise. These are authentic grassroots operations, so each one will reflect the local culture of protest while reproducing what seems right from the original.

Republicans have reacted bitterly.