Could any of us have imagined that in six short weeks, the people of this country would have found our voice? Most of you reading this have likely participated in Occupy activities in your town or city. IPS board member Barbara Ehrenreich worked with IPS interns to create a massive list of phone numbers of mayors of Occupied towns. They came up with over 400 places where people are standing up to be heard.

These are days of action. I’ve just returned with a group of IPS colleagues from the U.S. Treasury Department where National Nurses United led thousands of us in a protest for a measure that IPS has been advocating for years: a Wall Street tax that would curb financial speculation and generate tens of billions of dollars that can be used to create jobs and help the environment. Tomorrow night, IPS and the Other 98% and thousands more will march from Occupy DC to protest a gala dinner backed by the Koch brothers.

On Saturday, tens of thousands will join in a “move your money” day that uses our power to defund Wall Street banks and build up Main Street banks. And, on Sunday, thousands more will create a human chain to surround the White House to demand an end to an oil pipeline that would despoil land and water from Western Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

The 99 percent have found our voice and at IPS we are devoting every ounce of our energy to filling this new public space with the true picture of the obscene inequality that our corporations and U.S. policy have created over the past three decades. We have a team at IPS, led by Chuck Collins, that is both putting out daily facts and figures on inequality and is steering people toward creative action. Chuck himself is now working on a book to trace the gap between the 99 percent and the 1 percent (help us decide on a title for the new book).

And, working with allies at YES! Magazine and elsewhere, we have built up a New Economy Working Group that is illuminating the path from this failed Wall Street economy to a green Main Street economy – an economy that is ecology balanced, that eliminates extreme inequality, and that nurtures the democratic expression that is blossoming across this country. IPS is producing fact sheets, leading workshops at Occupy sites, sending op-eds to papers all over the country, and giving voice to the rising tide of moral outrage.

The Occupy outpouring is changing the entire debate in this country. Newspapers are reporting on inequality. Politicians are being forced to respond to the charge that their policies lavish favor on the 1 percent. Banks are canceling outrageous fees on consumers. Conservative officials in Ohio and Wisconsin are feeling more heat to maintain protections on workers and communities. As we change the national conversation, we can dismantle the barriers to change.

This is your moment and IPS is proud to walk down this path with you. Sign up to receive our Unconventional Newsletter every two weeks.