2011-10-07 The Occupied Wall Street Journal

We are globalizing the rebellion.
-- Eric Ribellarsi and Jim Weill, The Occupied Wall Street Journal

Near the lower tip of New York City lies the epicenter of a movement that is rapidly spreading throughout the U.S. The "Occupy Wall Street" protests consist of a loosely-knit group of disenfranchised citizens who are learning the process of revolution as they go along. Lacking any hierarchy or single spokesperson, these leaderless protesters have instead published their own newspaper, The Occupied Wall Street Journal (OWSJ). OWSJ serves as a main mouthpiece for the movement, which one of its writers describes as the "nucleus of a revolt that could shake America’s power structure as much as the Arab world was upended." Here are a few excerpts from its first edition:

From "The Revolution Begins at Home," by Arun Gupta:
Our system is broken. More than 25 million Americans are unemployed. More than 50 million live without health insurance. Perhaps 100 million live in poverty. ... The Wall Street occupation can force those in power to offer concessions as happened this year in Spain, Greece and Egypt ... if we unite there is a potential to transform a corrupt political process and realize a society based on human needs, not hedge fund profits ... thousands gather every day to debate, discuss and organize what to do about our failed system that has allowed the 400 Americans at the top to hoard more wealth than the 180 million Americans at the bottom. ...

The Wall Street occupation has succeeded in revealing how corporations, politicians, media and police have failed us as institutions offering something positive to humanity. ... That's why more and more people are joining the Wall Street occupation. They can tell you about their homes being foreclosed, months of grinding unemployment or minimum-wage dead-end jobs, staggering student debt loads, or trying to live without decent healthcare. They represent a generation of Americans who are told to believe in a system that only offers them "Dancing With the Stars" and pepper spray to the face. ... it is only through common struggle, debate and popular democracy that we will create genuine solutions which have legitimacy. And that is what is occurring down at Wall Street. ...

If we focus on the possibilities and shed our despair, our hesitancy and our cynicism, and if we collectively come to Wall Street with critical thinking, ideas and solidarity, we can change the world. For too long our minds have been chained by fear, by division, by impotence. The one thing that most terrifies the elite is a great awakening. That day is here. Together, let us seize it.

From "Declaration of the Occupation," approved by consensus on Sept. 29, 2011 at the New York City General Assembly in occupied Liberty Square:
We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies ... a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth ... no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process ... They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace ... They have poisoned the food supply through negligence ... They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education ... They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay. They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility. ...

They have sold our privacy as a commodity. They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit. ...

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil. ... They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt. They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas. ...

From "No Excuses Left. It's Now or Never," by Chris Hedges:
Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

Choose. But choose fast. The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. ...

The only word these corporations know is more. They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves. Let the sick die. Let the poor go hungry. Let families be tossed in the street. Let the unemployed rot. Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs. Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters. Let torture continue. Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed. Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close. Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

If you do not shake off the 1% very, very soon they will kill you. ...

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires selfsacrifice [sic] and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us.

From "NYC – Occupy Together," by Michael Levitin, Grim & Jed Brandt:
In just over ten days, over 40 cities have emerged to join the Occupy Wall Street effort. ... many are feeling the hope that real change can emerge from this leaderless movement in which people are leaving their homes to occupy thier [sic] communities. ...

Meetings are being held almost daily to start a nationwide Occupy effort in October; already the list of cities that have signed on is jaw-dropping, and surprising. Birmingham. San Diego. Las Vegas. Omaha. Boston. Lexington. San Francisco. Philadelphia. Kansas City. Washington. Tampa. Denver. Pittsburgh. Buffalo. Charlotte. Richmond. Austin. Salt Lake City. Asheville. Miami. With new occupations popping up every day. If occupiers cannot get answers and solutions from government through the ballot, they will do it through the power of their presence in an "inconvenient space." We are at the beginning of a monumental change in this country, and the world. The system won’t change itself. It's up to us: our bodies in the street, our talents put to work, our passion given life. Systemic change requires more than "protesters" and "activists." You. Your family. Your friends. Your neighbors. All of us. Now.

The Occupied Wall Street Journal is accepting contributions.