It has been amazing watching #OccupyWallStreet grow over the past two weeks. As someone who has been involved in the social justice movement in New York for more than 30 years, it's a rare occasion that I get to watch a movement like this develop from the outside.
Over the past several years, while the big banks have destroyed our economy and working people have fought to make do with less and less, the richest 1 percent of Americans continue to take of more of the pie.
That's why I'm excited to announce that New York Communities for Change and many of our allies in community organizing and labor will be showing our support for #OccupyWallStreet next week.
No place is more symbolic of that gross inequity than Wall Street and there is no better symbol for what all of us are working to achieve than seeing Zuccotti Park full of people who are ready to say that the American people are not going to take it anymore.
The levels of inequity in this county, and in New York especially are out of hand -- and no one knows that more than the working families that make up the members of New York Communities for Change.
We've seen our mayor and our governor slash our social safety net in the name of austerity while turning their noses up at new sources of revenue such as renewing the millionaire's Tax and seeking claw backs for improperly used public subsidies. Even when elected officials like New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman take a stand against the big banks, corporations and the politicians in their pockets do everything they can do derail his efforts.
That's why NYCC members joined thousands of New Yorkers on May 12 to demand that Wall Street banks pay their fair share and it's why we'll be back on Wednesday Oct. 5 to continue our stand against the big banks and show our support to the protesters who have been on Wall Street for days.
Wednesday's solidarity march will be a precursor to a week of actions planned by many of the groups that participated in the May 12 coalition. The action will draw attention to the levels of inequity that exists in New York and demand that the wealthiest New Yorkers don't receive a tax break when the millionaire's tax expires at the end of this year. We hope that the energy, spirit and voices that are present in Liberty Plaza will be with us as we demand the governor renews the millionaire's tax.
When the big banks tanked our economy they took away millions of people's shot at achieving
the American Dream. It's about time all these people come together and hold Wall Street accountable for what they've done to our futures and the future of this country. Whether you're a union worker whose rights have been under attack, or a parent whose watched the funding for your child's school go into the pocket of a Wall Street CEO, or one of the millions of people, young and old, who are looking for work with no avail, on Wednesday we will stand together to demand justice.
And hopefully it will be the first day of many.
Robert Kuttner: Wall Street: From Protest to Politics
Dan Agin: Occupy Wall Street: A Bloomberg-Kelly Musical
Josh Silver: Wall Street Protests: A Right-Left Movement Must Emerge
David Wild: "Takin' It to the Streets": A Playlist for "Occupy Wall Street"
He knows the ways of Wall Street and the harm done to our country by corporate greed and power and this movement fits right in with his get the money out of politics petition.
Getting millions of signatures on the petition could be a good first goal of the movement.
And it is a movement/not just a protest.
I hope it is the beginning of the Amercian Spring!
Go ahead, blame the banks, blame this person or that person, but when it boils down to it, you all lack work ethic. The time you spend "occupying" could be spent working, making money to pay bills, going out and buying consumer goods, and stimulating the economy. Instead, you call for the fall of Wall Street, the very institution that helps provide jobs.
So sit on your Macs and tweet on your smartphones (all of those were developed by corporations, FYI), and continue to spout off your chants and play the blame game for as many days as you see fit. Because when it comes down to it, you'll achieve nothing.
Oh, and your ready, FIRE, aim! approach is laughable as well. At least figure out what the hell you want first. Lofty ideals and world peace don't count either, sorry.
Lofty ideals like tax policies that promote U.S. industry rather than tax policies that favor exporting our jobs?
Lofty ideals like tax policies that allow the richest in our society to bypass paying their fair share of taxes to the help the country that gave them their prosperity?
Lofty ideals like joining the rest of the industrial world in providing health care for ALL of their citizens?
Lofty ideals like disallowing foreign and domestic corporations to spend as much as they want in buying elections in the U.S. without having to publicly disclose such contributions?
Lofty ideals like expecting to receive the social security benefits the citizens have paid for all of their working lives?
Lofty ideals like taking care of our senior citizens who worked themselves literally to death to build the nation that allows the crooked corporations to rob the assets of the nation?
You want more? I have a long list of these "lofty ideals" that most of us feel are worthy of the effort to achieve.
And we will, while you scream and bawl how unfair it is that common citizens are taking back the nation they and their ancestors built for the common man. Imperialism is dying, so find yourself a skyscraper to jump off of in the near future.