I have a dream (redux)

I stole this from Zero Hedge. It is a reworking of MLK's most famous speech in light of the OCCUPY protestors (who have a legitimate gripe, even when their solutions suck).

This is
I HAVE DREAM (SLIGHT RETURN)

(it is surprising how little of this needed to be rewritten or edited to be apropos.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as
the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

In 1776, the founding fathers, in whose symbolic shadows we stand
today, signed the Declaration of Independence. This momentous decree
came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Americans who had
been seared in the flames of withering political and economic
injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their
political and economic captivity.

But almost 250 years later, ordinary Americans are still not free. Two hundred and fifty years later, the life of ordinary Americans is sadly crippled by the manacles a government that is operating under the credo "by the corporation and state and for the corporation and state", rather than "by the people for the people."

Two hundred and fifty years later, countless Americans are living in a lonely island of poverty, struggling to get by on government handouts, in the midst of a vast ocean of obscene prosperity in many instances subsidized by their government.

Two hundred and fifty years later, Men women and children of all color are languishing in the corners of a privileged society controlled by the few and find themselves an economic exile in their own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would
be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, Washington DC together with it's financial enablers on Wall Street, have given the American people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "Too Big To Fail."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of economic opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of opportunity and the security of economic justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to
rise from the dark and desolate valley of "moral hazard" to the sunlit path of creative capitalism. Now is the time to save our nation from the quicksands of chronic bailouts and "Too Big to Fail" to the time proven solid rock of creative destruction and economic opportunity. Now is the time to make economic justice a reality for all of our children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of economic discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of transparent economic growth and opportunity. Nineteen sixty-three was not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that it was just the Negro who needed to blow off steam
and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation continues to allow Wall Street and much of corporate America to operate "business as usual."

And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until Americans are returned their citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which is engulfing America must not lead us to a distrust of all wealth, for many of our successful brothers in business, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their economic success is inextricably bound to our success.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking, "When will you be satisfied?"

We can never be satisfied as long as outspoken Americans are the victims of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

We can never be satisfied as long as our country continues to be pillaged by greed and corruption.

We cannot be satisfied as long as Americans individually and as a people are
forced to struggle under the chains of unsustainable debt.

We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by pepper spraying goons protecting signs stating: "Keep
off the Grass."

Not only can we not be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote but equally as long as an ordinary person on Main Street USA is forced to accept that his worth less than those in the privileged club of Wall Street billionaires.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.
And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for economic freedom and opportunity left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered
by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to downtown New York City, Oakland, Boston, Detroit and LA and the rotting housing tracts of California, Ohio, Massachusetts, Nevada, Florida and Arizona, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, not corporations or banks but men, are created equal."

I have a dream today!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro
spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!