The New Progressive Alliance is a 100-percent volunteer organization of working men and women dedicated to rekindling the brand of Progressivism which, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, made America the world leader in workers' rights, stewardship of the planet, and caring help to the downtrodden. We oppose the say-one-thing, do-something-different neo-liberalism (and conservatism) which have made overt and covert military interventions, espionage and torture America's new legacy, and have shifted our stature from one of the most respected nations on earth to one of the most reviled.

The privileged treatment our sold-out government now accords corporate elites, defense contractors and Wall Street swindlers has kept workers like us struggling to get by, launched and perpetuated illegal wars, shipped manufacturing overseas, despoiled our environment, and stolen money from public coffers. It has permitted gargantuan, wealthy industries to obtain corporate welfare (Wal-Mart "associates" are the single largest employee group using Medicaid and food stamps, for instance) even as the taxes these international syndicates contribute to the public good vanish. Are we really willing to accept that record increases in the poverty rate have no relationship to these facts?

We believe that by modeling our movement on the success of America's first Progressive Era - a public response to the robber barons of 100 years ago which transcended political party affiliation - we too can restore the public good to its rightful, topmost place in our society, and this time make the victory permanent. The heart and soul of our organization is the Unified Platform.

We are focused on electoral activism, but recognize that fundamental change has never come in America without people demanding it in the public square. We therefore support peaceful, determined protest and civil disobedience to awaken the sleeping masses which blindly accept false claims that government lacks responsibility for the well-being and success of the people it serves.

Look, we know you are tired. So are we. We work all day - many of our volunteers have worked an entire life, in fact, and retired only to find that they cannot in good conscience lay in a hammock and pretend corporate greed is not destroying America. It is up to all of us to give whatever time we can to counter the lobbyists who, drowning in money from corporate America, fight every day to keep us under their thumbs.

We utterly reject the notion - and the codification - of corporations as people. They are not; we are. And we the people must, through a combination of strategic protest, grassroots organizing, and voting for candidates who put people above party, corporate donors and political expedience, remind our modern-day robber barons that they serve us, not the other way around.

We invite you to join the NPA in building a trans-generational movement to eliminate corporate involvement in government and restore America's status as the people-first bastion of personal freedom and social reform which made our first Progressive Era an example to all the world.