Thank you, Occupy Boston, for waking up America, and coming to the rescue of our embattled Democracy! As you know so well, the future of people, peace and planet is now hanging in the balance. Our very survival depends on taking our democracy back from Wall Street and reclaiming it for the rest of us.

I’m here as a fellow Democracy crusader who’s been challenging Wall Street politics in the electoral arena for the past decade -- as a two-time Green-Rainbow Party candidate for Governor. And I can’t tell you how miraculous it feels to see this eruption of inspired dissent – and your vision of a just and sustainable future  surging across the Occupation Nation.The human microphone you have created is not only an amplifier for our voices. It is a microphone for our humanity that has been silenced by corporate media and corporate political parties. We are a majority - a majority that has not been silent, but rather silenced. And what we’re talking about are those key priorities that solid majorities repeatedly call for in polls: a fair economy with secure good-wage jobs, the protection of workers rights, bailing out Main Street not Wall Street, bringing the troops and war dollars home, establishing health care as a human right, defending our civil liberties, and protecting the environment that our lives and economy depend on.

 As we contemplate specific future actions of the Occupy movement, it’s worth remembering that the Arab spring movements did not leave it to entrenched power to reform itself.  Egypt’s Mubarak, Tunisia’s Ben Ali and other oppressive Presidents tried to silence the demonstrations by asserting they themselves would be the agents of change if only the crowds would go home. The demonstrators were not fooled. The one demand that Arab spring movements united around was the removal of those who had been agents of oppression. The Occupy movement in America should insist upon no less.

 As you know, Wall Street’s surge to power over the past 20 years was engineered by both the Republican and Democratic Parties. And unfortunately, those betrayals of the public trust are continuing. Backroom bailouts are in the works right now even as we speak – and they will inflict further devastation to our jobs, pensions, retirement plans, homes, and tax system. We need to mobilize to stop the harm that is supported by both corporate parties.  And we must not be deceived by the ineffective window-dressing concessions being offered up by Obama and the Democratic Party who are working hard to hijack the Occupation.

It’s no secret that Wall Street still owns the Obama White House. Obama’s so-called reforms have intensified the crisis, not fixed it –hardly surprising considering his debt to Wall Street that was a leading funder of his 2008 campaign. Under Obama’s watch, the six largest financial institutions have now amassed assets equivalent to more than 60% of GDP. Only four of these big banks control 2/3rds of credit cards, ½ of mortgages, and 40% of bank deposits. Obama’s reforms – enacted with Democratic majorities in both houses – have left 3 of the 4 biggest bailed out banks even bigger than before.

It speaks volumes about Obama’s commitment to Wall Street that one of his first appointments in the midst of the financial meldown was Larry Summers, a major architect of the economic meltdown of 2009. Under Bill Clinton, Summers presided over the repeal of Glass-Steagall act – giving banks license to gamble with our hard earned money.  And he ushered in the unregulated new derivatives market that opened the floodgates to reckless speculation, corruption and abuse. Obama’s other key appointments boasted similar disregard for the public good – from Treasurer Tim Geithner (who turned a blind eye to Wall Street fraud while presiding over the NY Fed), Chief of Staff William Daley (a former director of one of the giant Wall Street Banks, JP Morgan Chase), and his jobs advisor Jeff Immelt, (the GE CEO who cut 20,000 jobs while closing 20 US factories and ducking US taxes).

And now a new betrayal appears to be on the way in the form of a backroom deal being cut by the Obama administration to limit the estimated $800 billion liability of corrupt big banks to a mere $20 billion.  This amounts to another bank bailout as bad as the first one. It will demolish any hope of recovering that vast wealth in pensions, retirement funds, home value and investments that Wall Street swindlers took from the American public. To prevent New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman from thwarting this dirty deal, the Obama administration had him thrown off the group negotiating the settlement.  Hopefully the national Occupation will mobilize to stop Obama’s latest backroom bailout from going through.

And here’s another piece of trickery to watch out for: the Obama jobs and tax plan. This is a Trojan Horse for more of same. Citizens for Tax Justice points out that Obama’s tax proposals make permanent 80% of the Bush tax cuts  – worth a whopping $3 trilion.  And though his proposals reduce income tax deductions and exclusions for high earners (over $250,000 in income), producing $886 billion in new revenue, this is small potatoes compared to the permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts. Obama should have aimed higher – creating more income tax brackets, and higher income tax rates at top.

In addition, the Obama tax plan ignores the mother of tax give-aways to the wealthy – the capital gains tax. At current rates the capital gains tax ensures that 80% of the wealth of billionaires is taxed at a rate 10 points lower than their secretaries pay on ordinary income.  This is just one of many fair tax reforms - including a Wall Street transaction tax and a tax on off-shore tax havens - that are bypassed by the Obama plan.

And finally, Obama’s proposal that will create 2 million jobs is just a smaller version of the 2008 stimulus that didn’t work three years ago, and won’t work now. It’s a shameful drop in the bucket compared to the 25 million workers in desperate need of full time jobs. It’s time for a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis – a Green New Deal that provides full employment while jump starting the green economic recovery, rescuing the climate for our children, and tackling the convergent water, food, fishery, forest, and fossil fuel crises that threaten our economy and very civilization. A Green New Deal would provide a government guarantee to create needed jobs in the community when people can’t find work in the private sector. It enables us to build the sustainable energy, transportation, agriculture and manufacturing infrastructure  - as well as the health and social infrastructure –  we urgently need for the 21^st century.  

The crumbs being offered by the Obama administration should not distract us from the jobs we really need, and the justice we deserve. Real solutions are within our reach – if we simply put an end to the needless waste of our resources for war, Wall Street bailouts, and tax breaks for the wealthy.

The Occupy movement has shaken things up because of your uncompromised vision and values. I urge you to keep your eyes on the prize. Resist the efforts to water down your ideals, and force you to settle for more of what’s brought us to this crisis in the first place.

In launching the Occupy movement, you are simply asserting your right to a just and sustainable future. In four short weeks, your integrity and creativity have revived our democracy in a way not seen in generations. People of conscience are indebted to you for this. Let’s keep at it, and together we can start to take our democracy back from Wall Street, and build the peaceful, just, secure green future we all deserve.