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Letter: Validate protest with solutions

The Columbian
Published: October 12, 2011, 5:00pm

I applaud the Occupy Wall Street movement for bringing public attention to the widespread discontent with the bad behavior of the financial sector. However, I am also somewhat critical of the movement for not suggesting solutions. Complaining is easy, but it’s hard to get what you want if you don’t ask for it.

The protesters need to recognize that the country is faced with a systemic problem; bankers and financial institutions will generally only misbehave as much as the law and political system allows them to. Some reasonable goals for the Occupy movement to work for might be:

  1. Re-institute the banking regulations put in place during the Great Depression.

  2. An amendment to the U.S. constitution stating that the word “person(s)” refers to living human beings only, and that corporations have only those privileges explicitly granted to them by legislatures.

  3. Perhaps the most important — require all political campaigns to be publicly financed, with no special interest money allowed.

John Radabaugh

Vancouver

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