'Fear Wall Street, Not Us' [Video]

Approximately 50 people gathered outside of the Wayne municipal building Saturday afternoon to speak out against big banks, corporate greed and the continued shrinking of the middle class.

“The whole system that we’ve lived under for so long as been so corrupt for so long,” said Wayne resident Dianne Douthat, liason to the Montclair chapter of MoveOn, a national grassroots organization with more than 5 million members dedicated to the creation of a “more progressive America." The organization supports the Occupy movement that has sprung up across the United States.

“We know that this country didn’t get the way it is overnight and we don’t expect it to change overnight, but we must at least be heard,” Dianne said.

Members stood outside in a line on the side of Valley Road holding signs that read “Make Them Pay. Deadbeat Corps,” ‘Bail Out Schools, Not Banks,” and “When Money Talks democracy is Silenced”. Several drivers honked in support of the group as they drove by.

Ellen O’Shea, a Wayne resident, held up a sign that read: “Fear Wall St. Not Us.”

Douthat and the group want to start at the bottom. They want local political leaders to genuinely listen to their concerns and then work their way up the political hierarchy in order to affect change.

Wayne resident Peter Esser appeared at the rally with a petition urging drastic changes to the way municipal officials are elected. Esser wants everyone to be able to vote for the ward council members every four years. Currently, people may only elect their ward representative, the at-large candidates, and the mayor. More than 800 people have signed the petition to date.

“We need to have checks and balances, right now we don’t have them,” Esser said. “For the most part, the residents of this town don’t have a choice in terms of who they choose to represent them. These are the people who vote on the municipal budget, which is funded by our tax dollars.”

Some of changes the group wants to see enacted on a national level are:

• Stop funding the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

According to Madelyn Hoffman, executive director of New Jersey Peace Action, a grassroots organization that encourages non-military solutions to international conflicts.

“If we weren’t in Afghanistan we would have no state budget deficits and we wouldn’t have to attack public employee unions,” Hoffman shouted to the group.

• Governing by common sense.

Montclair resident Ann Rea said that the middle class, which used to be dominate class in the country due to its size and fiscal buying power, is shrinking due to the “unknown, unelected puppeteers” and lobbyists that have “rigged the political system” to suit their own needs.

“We also want full transparency with campaign finance reform,” Rae said.

• Putting an end to tax cuts for the rich.

“Why is it that General Electric can manipulate the system and get a tax credit,” Marcus Muncy, a Vernon resident asked. Muncy said that there is a “alive and persuasive idea” that somehow tax cuts for the rich will lead to economic growth, which isn’t true.

Kurt Greiner said that he isn’t against the government or against capitalism, but he is against the way people have been cheated out of a system that was created to give everyone an equal chance of prospering in a free-market economy.

“President Obama certainly hasn’t done enough to help us that’s for sure,” Greiner said. “He had a lot of momentum coming out of the election and that’s all gone now. Now, people on both sides of the political aisle will be promising change, but it’s all just political posturing to get elected into office.”