The idea that the 1% are the problem is a red herring.

The problem is the systems of thought, laws, activity, and ignorance that support the structures which -encourage- acts of aggressive predation and the development of domineering methods by which to ‘work’ the available system for its assets.

Don’t be distracted by the people at the top. They are the result of the systems we’ve assembled.

The strangely flat ideas that create and sustain our cultures are toxic. If we do not solve this now, changing the distribution of wealth will not only fail to help us, it will utterly fail to create a sustainable, intelligent, humane and healthy way for us to form collectives.

And that is what we must accomplish. The basic ideas that underlie our collective identity must change, and they must become and remain ceaselessly accessible to such change. This was, indeed, the intention of those who understood the principles upon which our text-based nation was founded.

Success for the Occupy movement doesn’t simply mean a new nation. It means a new way of assembling human collectives. Our concerns related to wealth distribution represent an important diagnostic topic, and must be addressed, but we must seek a return to the capacity to deploy our work, hearts, and beliefs in mutual interest… in ways that encourage the principles that we most highly value… and discourage or punish their mimicry for the sake of domination or profit.

To settle for anything less than new ways of assembling the collectives we call nations would be a deadly undervaluation of what is at stake in our time.