http://www.afterpartyusa.org/
1. INTRODUCTION
We are human beings.
We live on a living planet with other living beings.
We have infinite worth and infinite ways of expressing our worth.
We must no longer sacrifice our boundless potential to profit.
We are told we are worth what we are paid.
We are told we are just consumers.
We are told there is no other way but capitalism.
We live in a toxic system based on greed and inequality.
A system where the majority of benefits go to the fewest people, while more than 20% of our kids live in poverty.
We are told to follow rules. We must conform. We must work longer hours for less pay.
We must serve the markets as if that’s what makes sense.
We are told lies.
We are told more lies.
We are not for sale.
We are not machines for the making of money and buying of things.
We are not consumers.
We are creators.
We are human beings with dignity.
We have had enough.
We are taking over.
2. WE ARE NOT REPRESENTED
We are not represented.
We have been usurped.
We have been usurped by millionaires and billionaires and banks and corporations.
We have been usurped by CEOs, hedge fund managers, corrupt politicians, Wall Street, defense contractors, lobbyists, the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank and the NSA.
We have been usurped by profit-seekers.
They write our laws.
They control our senators, congresspeople and president.
They have looted and continue to loot our wealth.
They take our homes.
They sell our privacy as data.
They spy on us.
They appropriate our most precious land so they may sell us oil.
They make “free trade” deals with each other that rob citizens in many countries of their economic freedom.
They use war as a tool for economic expansion in the name of democracy.
They imprison, torture and murder innocent civilians around the world.
They poison our water and contaminate our food.
They gouge us when we are sick.
They steal public money for private profit.
They use the drug war to imprison and exploit the labor of young black and latino men and women.
They use a militarized police force to occupy our neighborhoods.
They call themselves Democrats and Republicans.
They buy our votes through advertising.
They think we are stupid.
We are not stupid.
We were asleep.
But we are waking up.
3. OUR VISION
Every human being is entitled to food, shelter, education, employment, and healthcare.
By food, we mean food that nourishes.
By shelter, we mean clean and safe.
By education, we mean empowering and unfiltered.
By employment, we mean fulfilling and sustainable.
And by healthcare, we mean equal, free and accessible.
They say we can’t afford it.
Of course we can.
But not if we allow the greediest banks to gobble up our wealth and get bailed out.
Not if we let them make billions and sit on their mounds of cash.
Not if we let them stash trillions of dollars in offshore bank accounts.
Not if we let their lobbyists write the tax code.
We’re not broke.
It’s not a matter of money.
It’s a matter of commitment.
Now, we are committed.
4. THE EARTH
Clean water and air are the rights of all people.
Our resources are not commodities.
We acknowledge the state of our planet.
The acidification of our oceans. The destruction of our wetlands and forests. The extinction of one third of all species. A rise in temperature we have not seen in thousands of years.
If this continues, what will remain?
What will the survivors say of us?
As we stood by?
We must change.
We must change as drastically as the situation is drastic.
We must stop drilling and fracking.
We must stop fucking with our food.
We must stop recklessly growing our economy at the expense of our ecology.
We must get back to the land.
We must respect the Earth like we must respect each other.
5. MUCH TO LEARN
We have much to learn.
We listen to each other.
We listen first to those whom we’ve ignored.
Blacks, Latinos, Arabs, Asians.
Gay, bi and trans.
Women.
Children–with their simple wisdom.
We listen to those whom we’ve forsaken.
People of the First Nations who knew, so many years ago, what we must learn today.
We must coexist.
6. WE’RE DOING THIS
We are on the margins now.
But we move the margins to the center.
We run for school boards and city councils and mayorships. We take over local governments with believers in these principles. We change the government from within.
We protest and we stand behind protesters. We join with unions and workers fighting to unionize. A few of us have the courage to throw our bodies against the grinding corporate machinery. The rest of us offer our humble support and solidarity.
We form worker-owned cooperatives and fight for worker ownership of existing businesses.
We want alternative currencies based on sharing.
Most importantly, we serve each other.
We feed those who are hungry.
We educate those who wish to learn.
We care for the sick.
We house those whose houses have been taken away.
We are lucky.
We have arrived at just the right moment.
Every struggle in the past led to this one.
This is not ironic.
This is serious.
This is our country.
This is our planet.
This is our moment.
Another world is possible.
We are making it.
