DeafCaroline

Dangerous Minds | First ‘official’ statement from the Occupy Wall Street movement

First ‘official’ statement from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

Deafness

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Reba

Who are "they?"

What does the "*" attach to?

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Tell us the truth about Benghazi!

Banjo

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

posts from hell

i'm tired of these people... I ask them questions and they go "EDUCATE YOURSELF".... I then say, ok, what do I educate myself on.. "Go on the internet and research!"

bah, they're weak.

A lot of my close friends/family is going to occupy denver. I find it a waste of time.

Reba

Reba

They're setting one up for Charleston, too. That will be lovely for the tourists to watch. (Charleston is heavily dependent on tourism.)

The College of Charleston is located downtown, so it will be easy for them to build a crowd of young people and professors.

Oh, well. The weather is beautiful now. Perfect for outdoor activities. We're going to the shooting range with our grandson.

darkdog

Sounds like a mish mash of half-baked conspiracy theories. Oh well. I least it provides interesting news for otherwise slow news days.

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Playing guitar is my 2nd amendment right.

DeafCaroline

Conspiracy theories?

Every single item on that list is a conspiracy theory? Okay....sure.

posts from hell

I read this: They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

And think about the dude who was talking about how he didnt pay his mortgage and "challenging the bank to provide the title of the property" in order to get away with paying for it.

So with that as one of their backbone.. It's already really weak.

I stopped reading after that.

DeafCaroline

Oh, so the one dude who actually took the time to learn the laws is a valid reason to disbelieve that banks would take houses through illegal foreclosure processes OR that because that one dude challenged the bank and their practices, it's ok for banks to illegally foreclose on their clients.

Come on. Really? Because of one guy who actually had the smarts to know his rights and be on the right side of the law and made the bank get flustered when they were not upholding their end of the law, the whole occupy wall street is a wash.

I can't believe you live in America where millions of homes were illegally foreclosed by banks like Bank of America, even military soldiers serving overseas, in Iraq and Afghanistan, had their homes illegally foreclosed on them and you say, well, because of this one guy who actually stood up to the banks instead of letting himself be steamrolled, you can't be bothered to care when people are standing up and saying "enough of this bullshit already".

Oh well.

darkdog

Blocking alternative energy sources? Torturing and murdering people abroad? Squelching the free press with military and police? Sounds like conspiracy theories to me. Even those with some truth to them are distorted. For example:

I remember that whole AIG thing. They don't mention that the bonuses are contractually required and that those guys get compensated in the form of bonuses, not salary. If they didn't pay, the executives could have sued. Here's another:

Nobody put a gun against any student's head and said they had to take on these loans and study some soft field without good career prospects for paying back those loans.

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Playing guitar is my 2nd amendment right.

DeafCaroline

What's the unemployment rate in the US again? I do believe even those who did study with intents to get good career prospects are unemployed. I keep thinking about when I was 18, how clueless I was about credit and interest. Banks clearly exploited teens when giving them private loans. You're right, no one held a gun to their heads but they certainly should have had the morality to explain to 17, 18, 19 year olds how loans work and how long it would take to pay them off depending on interest and success of students to get work after graduation.

darkdog, what if you have an 18 year old daughter, who, unbeknownst to you, comes to me and asked for say, a $30,000 loan and I agreed, on the condition that it comes with 18% interest and that she has to start paying back the day she graduated, no matter what and that if she was unable to do so, that back interest and late fees are added. And that bankruptcy is not possible whatsoever. Your daughter would be in debt to me for decades if her first job wasn't $50,000 a year or more.

Then you find out from your daughter about this creepy loan shark who put her in a very bad place financially and basically holding her prisoner to her debt, you would say to your daughter "well, no one put a gun to your head and you should have studied for better career prospects. Your problem, not mine. Have a nice day, dear."

When it happens to others and not to your own family, it's really easy to shrug and say "so what? they're stupid and should have known better."

posts from hell

It's not that. This dude just decided one day he would not own up on what he bought. then he went and challenged the banks to prove it.

It's like the pastor squatting in the house.

Then I see THAT person being involved in Occupying.. Its like... cmon.

BTW - I have this great dislike towards banks.

DeafCaroline

Who is this dude exactly? any links so i can read his story?

darkdog

I see that as unlikely since I would have a plan in place. But supposing she decided to ignore that and found a seedy loan shark, I would say, "Why the hell did you do that? I taught you better than that! And we already had a plan in place! And why would you pick one with 18% interest?" Then, I would advise her to study engineering or computer science or some other field with a reasonable chance of having good career prospects that pay over $50,000 after a 4 year degree. Then, 4 years later, if she came to me with her degree in English and no job prospects and asked for money, I would say, "Let's look at various loan consolidation options. And let's see if any restaurants or video stores are hiring." If she balked at that, I would said, "Well, nobody put a gun to your head and you should have studied for better career prospects. Your problem, not mine. Have a nice day, dear." Then, I would turn to my wife, shrug, and say, "So what? She did something stupid, she didn't listen to my advice, and she should have known better." There's no better way to create a generation of brats than to insulate them from the consequences of their own stupid decisions. Help them and advise them? Sure, but take on the consequences so they don't have to? No way.

I am sympathetic to those who were told that it's best to get a degree no matter how much debt they have to take on, and I'm certainly sympathetic to those who can't find jobs in this environment, but still, we can't be nullifying contracts just because one of the parties gets in a bind. To say that a contract, which they voluntarily entered into, is like a hostage situation is a total distortion.

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Playing guitar is my 2nd amendment right.

posts from hell

It's my moms friend. And I doubt there's any links.

DeafCaroline

Well, without knowing the whole story, I can't really comment on some dude your mom knows who just refused to pay his mortgage, no reason given.

sallylou

PFH, the banks have been illegally foreclosing on homes. There is a very specific legal process. In particular, the bank must be able to come up with the title. Title and proper filing of the title in the appropriate county is very important. Many banks cannot do that because of robo-signing and the sloppy process of securitizing the mortgages into derivatives. It's just a legal mess. All of this has been reported in the financial sections. It will take a while to sort all of it out. Be forewarned that you should be wary about title when purchasing real estate now.

ETA: There was a lot of fraud in mortgages during the frenzy of the bubble. Someone said that she got paid to sit and sign fraudulant documents as an agent of a bank. She was just someone they pulled off the street and paid hourly to sign documents. She signed a made up name. Crazy stuff going on then.

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DeafCaroline

It is like a hostage situation when bankruptcy is not allowed. It is like a hostage situation when this contract gives no consideration to factors that could happen to the student after graduation such as illness, inability to gain employment, whatever. It's the morality of banks enacting such contracts knowing fully well the student may not be able to pay it all back for years and years, only so they could sell that debt on the open market and profit even more.

In Canada, I got my student loan from the government. The interest is on average, 4.5% interest and this loan is entirely interest free for the entire duration I'm in school and in fact, it can be interest free for up to six years from the day the loan was issued depending on variables like employment after graduation. The interest would start only when you start paying the loan back. And should you choose to go back to school, the loan and its interest would be suspended until you're out of school, no back interest, no late fees. And if you were unemployed, it would be suspended until you are employed. If you became sick and unable to work, the loan would be suspended. No penalties.

furthermore, if you're a single mother, the government would substitute part of the loan as a grant, if you had a disability, same thing, and if you were like me, a disabled single mother, there is no loan at all. It's 100% free for me to attend university in Quebec AND daycare for my kids would be 100% free - any daycare I choose. It's slightly different in Ontario where I applied for my first loan. When I applied the second year after moving to Quebec, I was able to take advantage of Quebec's student loan program and was then able to continue attending university entirely for free for the following three years.

Newfoundland and Labrador have no interest at all on their provincial student loans.

Those are examples of responsible government-regulated student bank loans.

Journey

I think the majority of list include cherry-picked partial truths of a much bigger sequence of events.

DeafCaroline

Partial truths of what bigger sequence of events?

sallylou

Well, the Supreme Court ruling definitely happened so corparations are people (legally). Corporations may now donate unlimited money to politicians anonymously.

The economic bail out actually happened. The amounts and payees of the bailout are now known (after a long struggle to get the Fed to release that information). The beneficiaries of the bail out included corporations and foreign banks.

The Fed bought and is holding all of the "shit" (was that Goldman's term?) and will take any losses that should have been taken by shareholders. The Fed is buying more shit at inflated prices.

No one has been held repsonsible for fraud that existed. No legislation to stop the wide-spread fraud and prevent another economic crisis has been passed.

That's enough to get my support.

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Foxrac

Occupy Wall Street is just like left wing of Tea Party.

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In Moto We Trust

posts from hell

Thats what I thought. My point is I see these people taking part of this stuff... They have a weak ground to stand on when it comes to the deal.

It's probably a good idea. Effective, I doubt it.

sallylou

Yea, those old WWII vets who showed up are real lefties! Glad to see so many old vets out and about.

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whatdidyousay!

I got late notice from my bank , saying I am behind in my mortgage! My mortgage was not at the bank I use, I when to my bank and got a copy of my canceled check that proved I was up to date. I brought it to the bank and showed it to them and said you "had cash my check,and that I want a statement saying I am up to date on my mortgage and I am not leaving until I get it'"! This happen to me two times! The bank tried to say I was late and they had my money ! The second time I had to take time off work and I was bullshit! That bank is no longer in business, gee I wonder why!

TXgolfer

The current unemployment rate for those with college degrees is 4.2%

Table A-4. Employment status of the civilian population 25 years and over by educational attainment

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. - Romans 12:21


Sometimes at night, I see their faces. I feel the traces they've left on my soul

sallylou

The U-6 is considered a more accurate representation of unemployment and it it currently 16.5%. I don't have the breakdown on the numbers. Younger workers, older workers, minorities and people without a degree are the hardest hit. There are also huge regional differences so it would be interesting to know the regional breakdown.

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TXgolfer

A hostage situation....

Well one they entered into willingly maybe. It's up to the borrower to consider what "could happen" It's about personal responsibility.

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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. - Romans 12:21


Sometimes at night, I see their faces. I feel the traces they've left on my soul

DeafCaroline

why does it say there's only 46,915 college graduates in September 2011? Am I missing something here? is this a table based on data they got from people who actually did fill out the census and mailed it in?

And what's the average age of a college graduate today? You are listing age 25 and over.

According to the same website you linked to - "By educational attainment, the distribution of those jobless for a year or more was similar to the distribution for total unemployment. (See table 1.) Joblessness for a year or longer has increased regardless of educational attainment."

And here: Table 2. Labor force status of persons 16 to 24 years old by school enrollment, educational attainment, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, October 2010

it says that 9.9% the men between ages of 16 and 24 who have a college degree of higher are unemployed, 9.3 percent of women (16-24) with a college degree or higher are unemployed.

Youth Unemployment Hit A Record High This Summer

In July, 51.1 percent of Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 years old were unemployed, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This marks the first time since 1948, when the government first started collecting this data, that less than half of all U.S. youth were employed in July.