by Gene Marrano
Wholesale music distributor Bill Hunter was so moved by the events going on in Zuccotti Park in New York City – ground zero for the Occupy Wall Street movement in Lower Manhattan – that he grabbed a few hours of sleep after running a sales route in Northern Virginia, then drove to New York in the wee hours of the night. Hunter spoke at an Occupy Roanoke rally a week later at Elmwood Park,
Hunter is a Vietnam veteran and Roanoke resident who also had experience as a stockbroker and commodities trader. He called the Roanoke rally “more of an intellectual showing of different forms of government, and ways to run [them].” Hunter gathered about 100 people before he spoke, telling of them of the trip to New York and his thoughts on how to right the country. He says “I think I sparked some conversation there.”
Some did not like what he had to say – Hunter thinks all young people should have two years of mandatory military service, similar to countries like Israel. Some of his other thoughts, like limiting compensation for top executives (“how much money do you need?” he asks) and raising salaries for everyone that helps make a company profitable were more agreeable to a movement that’s still trying to come in to focus.
“There are some very conservative ideas that these people have; there are some very liberal ideas,” said Hunter, adding “nobody’s going to agree on all points. It’s a general outcry against the massing of wealth by a very low percentage of people.”
He also doesn’t think it’s a bad idea to sell some of the gold reserve at Fort Knox, in order to pay down the country’s debt, and believes that credit default swaps “which helped bring down the country,” may need to be outlawed or further regulated.
“It’s an outcry right now; it’s not an agenda,” said Hunter, who is also an entertainer on the side. “The time will soon come [for that].” There were 900 venues around the country that held events last weekend said Hunter, inspired by Occupy Wall Street, where thousands, including many young people, have railed against what they say is the domination of corporations in America, to the detriment of others. Hunter traveled to New York “just to see what it was all about.”
Hunter “took a little nap” after making sales calls in Northern Virginia, then he headed to New York. After getting lost at 4 a.m., he arrived in Lower Manhattan, a speech in hand, but found out there was no real forum at which to deliver his viewpoints. He recalled a Bible verse from Ephesians: “’if you expose the darkness with your light, then you yourself become the light.’ I thought those young people [in New York] had such good ideas. I told them they were the life of our country. They felt so encouraged in hearing that.”
Hunter said he met many college graduates, “good quality young people,” at Occupy Wall Street, which has been visited by a handful of celebrities over the past few weeks. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would let the protesters remain as long as they don’t break the law, referring to the arrests for blocking building entrances and the like.
“I was very much inspired,” said Hunter of the protest movement. “Everybody sort of has [a feeling] in their gut these days that there’s something wrong with our country, when we see no resolutions [in Congress] to the problems that we have.
These young people are the voice of that welling up.” Hunter expects his own baby boomer generation to stay involved, helping to lend a voice to those that are now occupying Wall Street. “I’m not sure where this is going to go,” said Bill Hunter, “but I’m sure it has some legs to it.”
