The protests of the groups named 99% seem to continue igniting fury all over the world since they occupied Wall Street at Liberty Square in Manhattan’s financial district. By now, they claim at OccupywallSt.org that the protests are being held in more than 1500 cities around the world (virtual map). In all those cities the protests have taken different shapes and discourses. They seem to cry for different things. Their leaders emphasize their own agendas and it has been hard for me to identify a common single demand.
Curiously, most of these protesters most surely do not recall that on a day like today more than 200 years ago a public meeting similar to theirs was first organized. It was in October 16, 1773 that the First public meeting of protest against the Tea Act took place in Philadelphia. These protesters demanded from their rulers (The British Parliament) a respect of their rights to property and individual rights. They asked for the Parliament to respect their right to elect their own Representatives and to be taxed by those representatives only.
Three years later, after their demands were not listened by the British government the United States Declaration of Independence was signed by the representatives of thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain. It was the first Declaration ever written in history that considered as its core that all men had unalienable Rights and that among these rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Since then, these rights were slowly forgotten and captured by government. Slowly, the sons and daughters of these revolutionary protesters forgot the reasons that created such a wonderful Declaration. Now, the protests of the Occupy movements face a similar contradiction. As The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights argued in their article What the Tea Party Movement Must Stand For, it is necessary for them to organize against one single claim: They should demand for a Moral Revolution in which their government returns to them their rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It is until now Ayn Rand the only philosopher who has provided a moral defense for these revolutionaries. As she wrote in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal,
“The world crisis of today is a moral crisis–and nothing less than a moral revolution can resolve it: a moral revolution to sanction and complete the political achievement of the American Revolution. . . . [YOU] must fight for capitalism, not as a “practical’ issue, not as an economic issue, but, with the most righteous pride, as a moral issue. That is what capitalism deserves, and nothing less will save it.”
Globalization & Capitalism 
“They seem to cry for different things. Their leaders emphasize their own agendas and it has been hard for me to identify a common single demand.”
You are not hearing a single, unified demand because it is a true majority of a true cross-section of the population. The only single, unified demand you will hear is for fairness. I am curious what “leaders” you heard “emphasizing their own agendas” and what those agendas were?
The reason there is no particular leader is that this is a mass rejection of the corrupt game that has been played in America. Part of that rejection is the game itself — one leader steps forward with an agenda, battle lines are drawn, one wins, one loses. Which blade of grass is the grass leader, and what is his agenda? We’re not playing your divisive game anymore.
I know this must be a terrible thing for a Randian. Rand hated nothing more than human beings, and human beings working together for the good of all really horrified her.
Ayn Rand, who railed against “collectivism” and mindless following, had her own cult of mindless followers. The inside group was called “the collective.” No joke! She told her followers what books to read, who to be romantically involved with, even what music and food they should choose.
There is a reason academics don’t study Rand’s “philosophy.” One of her inner circle “collective members,” Alan Greenspan, admitted under oath at a congressional hearing that Rand’s philosophy was a disaster and did not work. Her “philosophy” is so inconsistent, so full of holes, that it can be debunked in minutes by anyone of moderate intelligence who is not lured in by the lie that selfishness is virtue.
Rand insisted that her cultists smoke cigarettes, then contracted lung cancer. Her book money had run out, and she lived on Social Security during her illness.
She was a horrible bitch, who died without a single friend in the world, attended only by a caretaker paid by Medicare.
Because it makes no sense. You’re a young man, don’t ruin your life with this idiotic woman’s ramblings.
Xavier, thanks for visiting. You raised lots of points that are important. I agree with you that the difference of people’s judgements of values is veeeery different from the US to London and to Tokyo. However, my point is similar to yours in regard to “fairness”. The first question that someone would rise here is: Of fairness to whom? and by which standard are we to measure it? This brings (I think) you and me into a very similar discussion. That of discussing in regard to values and morality; to seek for a universal measure of what is fair and that could be applied without it being affected by cultural differences. My proposal is that the universal measure should be the following:
That Fair is that which allows all of us to pursue our Happiness without anyone (privileged groups of rich men) or anything (governments and groups of pressure) interfering in our projects.
What do you think of considering this as a common cry for Fairness? Would this unite us and help us identify that right now we are targeting just a small group (the corrupt Corps) and that we need to expand this into a more (epistemological) wider fight?
In regard to your comments to Ayn Rand; I don’t agree with them but you are in your right to think as you do. I just recommend you to read her again because I don’t see anything of what you have commented in her writings nor in her personal life.
Best regards,