Alex Colao Blog

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

In a country where 1% of the population controls 24% of our economy’s wealth, the “other 99%” have begun gathering here to question the status quo. The unemployed and underemployed have come to camp out in the financial district to advocate for an end to anti-democratic corporate power.
The process of creating this community of positive change may seem alien to some. There are no leaders in Occupy Wall Street‘s General Assembly.
We recognize that the short-term thinking and top-down decision-making process that dominates our current political-economic system – government by a powerful minority – is what has led us to the problems we are protesting in the first place. In its place, we have chosen a slow, simple and direct way of initiating social change.
The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City – which you can read at www.nycga.net– lists more than 20 grievances against corporate power, including but not limited to the extraction of natural resources, illegal foreclosure, corporate bailouts, monopolization of the food supply, campaign financing, student debt and human rights violations for the sake of profits.