WG/Strategies/Ideas/First Declaration

DRAFT A First Declaration of the Occupation of Boston

As we gather in Dewey Square, in the shadows of Boston’s Financial District, we confront a world mired in crisis—a toxic mix of financial, social, and environmental disasters. While each of these disasters has its own ingredients, we believe they also all share a common root cause: the domination of our social, economic, and political lives by a system that serves the profit needs of a wealthy elite, at the expense of the vast majority of the population here and around the world. In the face of this system that threatens our lives, our livelihoods, our liberty, our humanity, and our common future, We, the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, believe that "business as usual" is no longer an option. As Occupy Boston, we are united in the belief that the corrupt status quo under which we live demands a profound, collective response, a popular and participatory response of the 99%.

Whereas the problems of economic inequality, unemployment, and crushing debt, as well as corporate greed and unaccountability, are all symptomatic of the larger corrupting influence money has on our political and social lives;

Whereas this influence has consistently been used to impede progress toward a more free, a more just, and a more sustainable society, and has often perpetuated crisis and war at home and abroad in furtherance of its own undemocratic agenda;

Whereas the pursuit of this agenda has had profoundly detrimental effects on all members of the 99%–and particularly on women, communities of color, immigrants, youth, LGBT people, the incarcerated, and all persons who are marginalized within this society– as well as on the environmental systems upon which our species depends, and

Whereas those pursuing this agenda also own or control, directly or indirectly, the media and legal apparatus which we require to stay informed of, and to attempt to rectify, their many abuses,

And, whereas our peacefully gathered democratic assemblies represent a rare uncorrupted arena in which to educate ourselves, to renew our faith in one another, and to plan our resistance,

Be it resolved that we, the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, acting in solidarity with occupations and peoples' movements across the United States and worldwide, do hereby declare our opposition to all systems of power that function to maintain these oppressive and undemocratic arrangements, just as we declare our affirmation in the belief that a better world is possible, and that it is our right and responsibility to begin creating it.

Let it be known that our occupation welcomes the participation and encourages the independent resistance of other members of the 99%.