Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
Occupylosangeles.org
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must keep an eye on what brought us together. We write so that all people wronged by corporate forces of the world will know that we stand together as allies. We are here until the fairness that is already law is actually applied to banks, hedge funds, corporations, the military, and the White House. As ONE people, united, we acknowledge that: - The future of the human race requires the cooperation
- Our system must protect our rights
- If the system is corrupt, it is up to individuals to protect rights
- A democratic government derives its (just) power from people
- Corporations do not have our consent to extract Earth's wealth
- No real democracy is attainable when economic power rules
We come 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.
But WHY are you occupying major US cities?
But WHY are you occupying major US cities?
- Corporations have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure, despite not having the original mortgage.
- Corporations have taken bailouts from [corrupted politicians on the backs of] taxpayers with impunity, yet they continue to give their executives exorbitant bonuses.
- Corporations have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on skin color, age, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
- They have poisoned the air, water, and food supply and undermined farming through monopolization.
- They have profited from illegal torture, unjust confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhumans and actively hidden these practices.
- They have stripped employees of the right to negotiate for living wages and safer working conditions.
- They hold students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, a human right provided to earlier generations.
- They have outsourced labor and used that as leverage to cut workers’ health coverage and pay.
- Corporations have corrupted the courts to have the same rights as people, with none of the responsibility.
- They have spent millions on legal teams to look for ways to evade taxes and get out of health insurance contracts.
- They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
- They have bought and traded pollution as a commodity.
- They have used our police and military to end freedom of the press.
- They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products in pursuit of profits.
- They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have and continue to produce.
- They have lined the pockets of politicians who are supposed to regulate them.
- They HIDE and block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil, gas, plastic, war, coal, and pollution.
- They block generic chemicals that have already reaped great profits violating patent promises.
- They block and outlaw natural remedies, therapies, vitamins, and supplements.
- They promote synthetic poison pharmaceuticals and tainted vaccines.
- They purposely cover up oil spills, accidents, criminal bookkeeping, and harmful ingredients in pursuit of profit.
- They keep us disinformed, misinformed, and fearful by control of the media.
- They accept private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious evidence of their innocence.
- They perpetuate colonialism occupying us at home and others abroad.
- They encourage and engage in torture and the murder of innocent civilians overseas.
- They behave as a military-industrial EMPIRE that has little regard for US citizens.
- Corporations create, deploy, and sell weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
As long as they don't come to DC, I don't care what they do. You won't fund my re-election? Well, these hippies have got to be dealt with with the full authority vested in my office.People of the world,
We the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you: Assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we all are facing; generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
We will make our voices heard!
