The Cost of Income Inequality

by Daniel C.

Find us on Facebook at Occupy Tri-Cities, TN Discussion Group. Join us at our weekly meetings every Saturday at 2:00pm at the old Kiwanis Park.
Our Mission Statement: We are Occupy Johnson City, a diverse group of peaceful, local people who are exercising our First Amendment right to raise our voices against bailouts for corrupt institutions, against corporate personhood and against rich lobbyists bribing our politicians and public servants. We are FOR the 99% the people and small businesses of Main Street USA. We stand in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Our local Occupy Johnson City group has been active since October 2011. Our previous actions include Mic Checks, protests, banner drops, stood up for justice for Travon Martin, and community outreach at HUD Housing, protesting a 400% increase in government housing. The Occupy movement as a whole has defended homes being foreclosed on by wealthy banksters who have taken billions of taxpayer bailout money. In most cases they do this by occupying the home with the protesters themselves, helping facilitate change through nonviolent means. The Occupy movement has raised awareness of the rising income inequality between the 1% and the 99% by massive protests.

Average Americans are losing buying power every year as the 1% hijack more and more of the GDP for themselves. Inflation has wiped out the 5% pay increase for workers over the past 20 years while CEO pay has increased by 400%. This disparity has created more poor and homeless than we have ever seen in this country. One example is Bank of America, whose top five executives made $500 million while 100,000 of their employees were laid off. It was more important to the executives to give themselves millions than to keep their workers employed. While the cost of living goes up every day for most of us, the 1% takes the millions their corporations earn for themselves, rather than give their workers a raise. The poorer they can make us, the richer it makes them.

Why does anyone need so much money? They use it to buy politicians so they can have control of the political system and make more laws that benefit only them, so they can make more millions without paying taxes. The corporations are the ones that benefit from good roads, airports, and the military that protects them, but they refuse to pay for it. The middle class and working poor are taxed more and more so the 1% can make more and more. They spend their money to make sure the politicians hear them and not us.

We are the 99% and we don't have the money for lobbyists, but WE WILL BE HEARD.

Interview from a Participant at NATO Summit Protests in Chicago

Mic Check: Why did you decide to attend the NATO protest in Chicago? Garon Joseph: I decided to attend the NATO protest because NATO is the army of the international capitalist class, it's responsible for 70% of world military expenditures, and its forces will be in Afghanistan long after the U.S. withdrawal. MC: How many people would you say were there protesting? If you watched CNN the day of the protests, they estimated less than two thousand people there. Why do you feel the protest was not reported on properly? GJ: I feel at the height of the protest on Sunday, May 20th, around 15 to 20 thousand were out in the streets. CNN and other mainstream/corporate media won't ever give an estimate even remotely accurate. If the American public knew the scale of these protests, this would seem less like the fringe group the media depicts and more like the mass movement it is. MC: How did police in Chicago handle the protesters? And do you feel like the amount of force used against the protesters was necessary. GJ: The police were militarized months before the summit. They were violent in the face of peaceful protests, and in one case even ran someone over with a van. ... After three days of innocent people being beaten, framed, and generally oppressed by this police state, militant defense was necessary. Protesters weren't aggressive they were defensive of their comrades.

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." Frederick Douglass, abolitionist , self-freed ex-slave, author Continued from back page
MTR pollutes our air and our water with toxic chemicals. It destroys forests and wildlife and exposes people to great health risks as well as killing jobs and communities. Join the fight against the greedy coal companies and their financiers who only care about profits at any cost. There are many sites and articles online about MTR. Here are a few reference sites and organizations fighting back against MTR. LK For further information, please see the movie The Last Mountain.

http://www.mountainjustice.org/ http://ran.org/ http://ilovemountains.org/ http://tnleaf.org/ List of TN State House and Senate committee members to contact. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mountain top_removal#October_2011:_Judge_rules_EPA_overst epped_MTR_permit_authority
What else is Occupy about? Ending student debt bondage, single-payer
healthcare for all people, taking money out of politics, equal pay for equal work, ending corporate personhood, stop bailing out banks, stop the foreclosure of homes, stop the destruction of the mountains, womens rights, lgbt rights. WP, BR

Around the world corporations are making record high profits

while demanding concessions from workers. Caterpillar union workers in Illinois have been on strike the past month after the company raised CEO pay more than 60% and created a new contract for workers that would cut the companys benefit pension

plan to be replaced by a worker-paid 401(k) plan, freeze already

stagnant wages, and raise the cost of employee healthcare. Collective bargaining rights are under attack. Workers need unions to defend our working conditions and dignity. Solidarity to the workers in Illinois!