Shakespeare on the OWS movement

Coriolanus, Act I, scene i:

Menenius: What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where you go
With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.

First Citizen: Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too.

Menenius: Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbors,
Will you undo yourselves?

First Citizen: We cannot, sir, we are undone already.

Menenius: I tell you, friends, most charitable care
Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves as life them
Against the Roman state, whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity
Thither where more attends you, and you slander
The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,
When you curse them as enemies.

First Citizen: Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us.

Sharing the wealth

Considering the latest hysteria from the Right about Obama's diabolic plot to "share the wealth" and steal hard-earned dollars from hard-working Americans and give it to lazy, shiftless, no-good welfare queens, I thought it'd be an appropriate time to remind them what Jesus had to say about the matter (especially as so many Rightists claim to be "Christians"):

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." Matthew 19:21 (NKJV)

"Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.... Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles' feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need." Acts 4:32, 34-35 (NKJV)

And you remember what happened to Ananias and Sapphira - they held back and God struck them dead (Acts 5:1-11 [NKJV]).

Just sayin'