Last Saturday, prior to the thousands-strong march of Wall Street protestors attempting to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, which ended in some 700 arrests, the first edition of The Occupied Wall Street Journal hit New York City’s streets. Within three days, all 50,000 copies had been snapped up and distributed by volunteers throughout the five boroughs, leading to another print run Tuesday ahead of the paper’s second edition, which comes out Friday.

The Journal, a 4-page weekly broadsheet funded entirely through online contributions at Kickstarter.com, is the latest manifestation of a social media-driven movement that is growing in real body numbers and gaining national momentum at alarming speed.

Since the occupation began in Liberty Square in lower Manhattan on Sept. 17, dozens of cities across the U.S. have gotten into the act, setting up occupied encampments in places as diverse as Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, Boston and Birmingham; Philadelphia, Austin, San Diego, Tampa and Salt Lake City. (The website occupytogether.org is great resource to follow the movement’s developments and learn how to get involved in your towns and cities.)

Initially portrayed in the media as a rag-tag band of young underemployed activists protesting without any specific demands, Occupy Wall Street has touched a national nerve because it embodies something far more potent, and obvious: a voice for the 99 percent of Americans whose interests are not being served by the corporate elites that govern Wall Street and Washington.

On Monday, a march around Wall Street by occupiers dressed as corporate zombies, devouring dollar bills, garnered national media attention. But visual actions like this ...

Corporate greed in the midst of increasing national poverty has inspired hundreds of students to camp out near Wall Street in Manhattan for going on over a week.

Occupy Wall Street began its encampment at Zucotti Park, also known as Liberty Square on Saturday, Sept. 17, claiming to represent 99 percent of the people in the country and protesting for an end to the greed and corruption of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.

“The monster that is the corporations is a beast that wants to devour us all-and for maximum profit,” Councilman Charles Barron told the Amsterdam News. “The police need to get a brand-new assignment-rather than harassing young Black and Latino males, they need to stop and frisk Wall Street and watch the fraud and corruption just come tumbling out of their pockets.”

Occupy Wall Street is a boisterous and seemingly committed group that reflects the beginning of a movement from a bygone era. In their protests, race and class issues are also being brought to the forefront.

“Mic check,” said Ted Actie.

“Mic check,” repeated the crowd of 100 people at the protest, amplifying his voice without a loudspeaker. The people’s mic rang loud and clear.

“Please don’t repeat me,” said Actie, standing tall, a well-built Black man among a mostly white crowd at the general assembly on Monday.

“I’ll be damned if I go on a limb and then get treated as second-class citizen,” he said, referencing some of the issues he saw among protestors. “We have a problem just as much as you do. If the police come, they get us first...This right here is not America, it’s the new America. Put that sh** to the side...if we’re going to change America, we’ve got to change our mindset, and we all need to work together.”

“Solidarity,” responded the crowd.

While many have pointed out the mostly ...

In its second week, hundreds of people have taken over Liberty Square as part of Occupy Wall Street. What started as a loosely organized protest against the corrupting impact that Wall Street and big financial institutions have had on our democracy seems to be growing into something larger.  The persistence and increasing organization of the mostly young protestors is tapping into the pain and disillusionment that millions of young Americans across the nation are feeling as they face bleak economic prospects that show little sign of improving. 

As the Occupy Wall Street protestors lift up the pain that young Americans are experiencing and take it directly to the heart of our country’s corrupted financial system, other movements composed of homeowners, the jobless, faith leaders and the growing ranks of the poor are doing the same.  And even better, these groups are demanding that the very banks that caused the economic mess in the first place take specific actions to clean it up and get the economy back on track.

Earlier this week in California, homeowners, community members, faith leaders and students protested and shut down an auction of foreclosed homes as part of a week-long series of actions to demand that the nation’s big banks stop the foreclosure crisis from wreaking any more havoc on their communities. 

In Ohio, community leaders and union members sent a clear message to U.S. Bank to “clean up the mess they caused” by delivering trash they had collected from a bank-owned foreclosed property to a bank branch.

And in Boston, at least 1,000 people are expected to take to the streets on Friday ...