Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power major banks and unaccountable multinational corporations wield against democracy, and the role of Wall Street in creating the economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in nearly a century. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and around the world, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people is writing the rules of a dangerous neo-liberal economic agenda that is stealing our future.

It is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing they all have in common is that “We Are The 99%” that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. They are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve their ends and encourage the use of Satyagraha (non-violence) to maximize the safety of all participants and people around.

This movement is about empowering communities to form their own general assemblies, to fight back against the tyranny of the 1%. OWS is fighting to strengthen democracy, and to end the domination of big money interests. But unlike a traditional protest, which identifies the enemy and fights for a particular solution, OWS just sits there talking with itself, debating its own worth, recognizing its internal inconsistencies and then continuing on as if this were some sort of new normal. It models a new collectivism, picking up on the sustainable protest village of the movement’s Egyptian counterparts, with food, first aid, and a library.

They are suggesting that the fiscal operating system on which the US is attempting to run their economy is no longer appropriate to the task. They mean to show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture. OWS creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.

I also support OWS!