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http://www.alternet.org/news/153613/..._iowa_caucuses

Occupiers from Around the Country Descend on Iowa Caucuses
The "people's caucus" is also going on in Des Moines.

A good friend of mine, Aaron Jorgensen-Briggs, gave the opening welcome for the People's Caucus on Tuesday night. The following was his statement (as seen on C-Span):

Friends, neighbors, members of the press, visiting Occupy delegates, honored guests, welcome. I’d like to begin with some words from a great American leader of the past. He wrote:

'I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.'

These words of President Abraham Lincoln, in 1864, resonate loud and clear tonight, in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2011.
We have gathered here tonight because the political system in the United States no longer represents the values of the American public. Just as President Lincoln predicted, the money-power of the country now resides in the hands of a tiny portion of the population, the 1%.

We are here tonight to overthrow money-power with people power. We are here tonight as citizens and patriots to preserve our democracy from the corrupting influence of Wall Street and big corporations. We are here tonight to raise our voices in defense of the American dream. We are here tonight to restore the American political system and American society, to make it human-centered, not profit-centered. We are here tonight to follow through on the vision of our founders and the vision of the great American social movements of the past, the movements that ended slavery, gave women the right to vote, ended racial segregation in our communities, established safe working conditions and good wages for hard-working Americans and their families. We are here tonight, because our political leaders are no longer able to lead us.

Now is the time for us to lead, for the people of the United States, the 99%, to rise up, and restore America, to recreate it, truly, as a nation of opportunity, equality, and justice. Honored guests, members of the 99%, we are here tonight because of you. 'Join Us!' we cried, and you have answered. And for that, we thank you, and we bid you welcome to the first-in-the-nation People's Caucus!