from YES! Magazine:
Occupy A New Conversation
America is a tale of two economies: one serves Wall Street, and the other is accountable to the rest of us. Which one will we choose?by David Korten
posted Nov 16, 2011
Occupy Wall Street announced itself to the world September 17, 2011, when a thousand people gathered in New York’s famed Wall Street financial district. Modest by the standards of mass protest, it was largely ignored by media.
Within a month the protest—inspired in part by the Egyptian occupation of Tahrir Square and other protests of the “Arab Spring”—involved hundreds of thousands of people in hundreds of encampments in the United States and around the world. It had become a major media event, and attracted hundreds of millions of sympathizers. An October 11 poll found that 54 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of the protest and overwhelmingly agreed that:
Wall Street and lobbyists have too much influence in Washington (86 percent)
The gap between the rich and poor in the United States is too large (79 percent)
Executives of financial institutions responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008 should be prosecuted (71 percent)
The rich should pay more in taxes (68 percent).
Wall Street is the symbolic center of an economic system that works for the richest 1% at the expense of the other 99% and uses its outsized financial and media muscle to corrupt government and deepen the divide. ............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-breakthrough-15/occupy-a-new-conversation