This is a draft mission statement for Occupy Eureka
Pleas add any suggestions in the comments or Talk to me at the occupation to get your ideas included. This is the 2nd revision.
We are Occupy Eureka and we have decided to stand up to the perverse desire of corporations to wring every penny of profit from every enterprise. They deliberately push beyond the limits of laws and regulations with disastrous consequences to the workers and the environment. When caught they lie, deny and obfuscate. Corporate America has funded wars and neglected schools. Corporate America has legalized robbery and called it the free market. Corporate America has destroyed our standing in the world by committing torture and other war crimes including aggressive war. The people have lost our fundamental human rights with corporations spying for the government then being granted immunity from prosecution. National security is used as a blanket excuse to prevent persons from receiving redress in the courts. To that end we are requiring fundamental changes to our system.
We demand an end to the privatization of government functions. The system of no bid contracting and crony capitalism that permeates our government must end now. We will not accept banks charging fees on the poor to collect benefits or prisons and jails run as for profit entities.
We will not accept the national debt being settled on the backs of the working class and the elderly. Look to the example of Greek austerity measures and that governments failure to provide for it‘s people. We will not accept cuts to programs for the poorest members of society while continuing to grant tax cuts to billionaires. We will no longer stand by and watch corporations pollute our air and water while they plunder the natural resources of the commons.
We have endured a 30 year assault on working people with wages remaining stagnant while CEO pay skyrockets and we say enough. We demand the end to classifying earnings as capital gains. The income from labor is as valuable to society as that earned by the investor class and shall no longer be taxed at higher rates.
We require an Immediate moratorium on foreclosures of owner occupied dwellings. Too many people are living on our streets and too many people are being thrown out of their homes with fraudulent documents.
End the War in Afghanistan. End the occupation of Iraq. Stop the bombings and drone attacks on the peoples of Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. If we lack the resources to adequately feed and house our own people we can no longer afford to make war on others nations. This is to include the army of mercenaries known as security contractors. We further demand that no new country be attacked without a declaration of war by congress. The tyranny of the unitary executive must end now. The president does not have the right to order indefinite detention of or the execution of the citizenry. We further demand an end to secret prisons and the indefinite detention of political prisoners.
We demand a single payer not for profit healthcare system. Repealing the farce of the Affordable Care Act, a homage to corporate greed and replace it with Medicare for all.
As the federal reserve is loaning money to corporations at an effective zero interest rate from the discount window in secret we require that the same rates be extended to the generation of students buried under a mountain of debt preparing for jobs that those same corporations destroyed.
A financial transaction Tax, A small fee imposed on the buying and selling of equities and securities, should be instituted to reduce the effects of speculators in the market place. If the capitalists are going to rain their “Creative Destruction” down on the 99% we require them to contribute to the rebuilding.
We require that the Glass Steagall act regulations of 1933 be reinstituted to separate speculators from the banking industry.
Corporations are not living breathing entities and are not entitled to human rights. Commercial speech is not political speech and is not entitled to 1st amendment protection. If a corporation lies it is committing fraud and corporate fraud should be prosecuted without exception. Corporate personhood must be abolished.
The hiring of paid lobbyists should be outlawed. Freedom of speech should not be a scalar concept based on monetary value but is a fundamental human right. Overturn the decision of the supreme court in Citizens United granting corporations the right to spend unlimited funds to influence the outcome of elections undermining democracy.
We demand an end to the war on workers rights to organize and the elimination of the fictitiously named right to work.
We demand an end to the war on women’s reproductive health and that the basic human right to health care not be dependent on gender.
We demand that equal protection under the law be enforced for the LGBT community. End separate but equal marriage laws that are patently unconstitutional.
We demand immigration policies that allow workers the same freedom of movement that capital is permitted. We demand an end to so called free trade agreements. We will no longer stand for the lowering of standards for worker safety and environmental protection that these agreements permit. We will not accept trade agreements with nations such as Columbia that openly murder labor activists.
Capitalism unchecked leads to monopoly and that has proven disastrous. We must end too big too fail. We must no longer except giant agro business creating monoculture diets and hormone ridden food.
This list is not intended to be all inclusive and in no way limits further demands to be determined at later dates.
This list is not intended to be all inclusive and in no way limits further demands to be determined at later dates.
