Fact sheet and news from Occupy Tucson

Occupy Tucson is on! from Anonymous

Occupy Tucson began their campaign at Armory Park today, October 15th, after two weeks of planning and meetings of various working groups such as the legal, PR and outreach, peace keeping, and art groups. About 1000 people over the day attended and about 350 marched orderly through downtown.

“”Everyone’s been very peaceful and cooperative,” said Lieutenant Danny Denogean of the Tucson Police Department, who was onsite at the park. “We don’t anticipate any problems.”” Tucson Police Chief Villasenor stated that the police will keep a low profile and that “We do not want to be the issue that causes the confrontation.” He also said that the protesters would be informed of the laws about park usage, including a 10:30 PM curfew, but that they weren’t prepared to start forcing people out of the park or create hostility. That is still to be seen, but let’s hope that all the outreach and communication we have had with the Tucson Police Department has created some good will and that the police will not create unnecessary conflicts like they have at other Occupy sites.

What follows is a fact sheet regarding economic inequality and corporate and political dominance of our government that has been used for the Occupy Tucson Movement. Hopefully others can use this list of facts to teach others and propel them to push for a change in our system.

Inequity

Record poverty rates:
A record poverty rate for  2010 was recorded at 15.1 percent, 46.2 million people, also a record.
CNN Money. http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/news/economy/poverty_rate_income/index.htm

Real Unemployment 16.2%
The real unemployment rate, the official rate plus discouraged workers no long looking for work plus part time workers who want full time work was 16.2% in June.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-08/markets/30031403_1_timers-workers-bad-number

Black unemployment is nearly double white unemployment and hispanic unemployment is 150% higher than whites. As of September, white unemployment was at 8.7 percent, the Hispanic unemployment rate was at 12.4 percent and the black unemployment rate was at 16.1 percent.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm

There are 2.3 million Americans in prison, and these prisoners are not counted in the unemployment statistics. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world at 743 per 100,000.
http://www.prisonstudies.org/images/news_events/wppl9.pdf

Lost Wages
Between 1979 and 2007 the average income of the bottom 50 percent of American households grew by 6%; the top 1% saw their income increase by 229 percent.”
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2008/05/pr20080505

44.2% unemployment for Blacks teenagers 16-19 years of age
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm 

Income Gap
The top 1% wealthy people in the U.S. control 34.6% and the top 20% wealthiest people in the U.S. control over 85% of the wealth leaving 15% for the rest of us.  http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Households have lost $8.7 trillion of wealth since 2007
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/09/news/economy/household_wealth/index.htm 

Minority Families hit Hardest
From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs-between-whites-blacks-hispanics/

Lenders foreclosed on 1 million homes in 2010 and 918,000 in 2009
http://www.foreclosurebusinessnews.com/home-foreclosure-statistics-for-first-time-in-history-foreclosures-top-1-million-thats-not-the-worst-of-it/

Wealthy Tax Evasion
One Quarter of Millionaires Pay a Lower Tax Rate than 10 Million Middle-Income Americans
From the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/10/millionaire_fast_facts.html

2/3rds of US Corporations Pay Zero Federal Taxes
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150387/2_3rds_of_us_corporations_pay_zero_federal_taxes%3A_us_uncut_movement_builds_to_make_them_pay_up/

Hoarding
American corporations have $1.8 trillion in reserve cash but Congress won’t raise the marginal tax rates for these companies to help create jobs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/04/AR2010070403856.html

The 2010 ratio between average worker and average CEO compensation was 325-to-1. CEO pay last year averaged $10,762,304
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2011_the_massive_ceo_rewards_for_tax_dodging/

America’s oil, gas and coal industry spent $44.5m in the first three months of 2009 in an effort to stop environmental regulations such as cap and trade.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/12/us-climate-bill-oil-gas

So far, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $2.3-2.7 trillion with no end in sight while teachers are being laid off in every state for lack of funding. 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629

Political influence

There was $3.5 billion spent lobbying Congress in 2010.
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php

The Financial Sector has given over $96 million in donations for the 2012 elections, businesses total of over $314 million in donations compared to $15.5 million for labor.
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php

Candidates for Congress with the most campaign money win over 90% of the time.
http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports/report-archives/campaign-finance-reform/campaign-finance-reform/the-best-elections-money-can-buy

Peace,
Tex “Occupy Tucson” Shelters
We are the 99%

Billionaires and their Allies tell the Occupy Movement to Stop It!

Image from http://www.dailykos.com

This is a call to all Americans to stop occupying things. Can’t you see that by making all this noise about how unjust our economic system is that you are hurting job creators. And we were just about to take our $1.8 trillion in surplus cash and create some jobs, but you had to ruin things.

Why is it that these occupy people hate capitalism. Capitalism is working quite well for us billionaires. And as Herman Cain makes clear, if you’re not a billionaire, you have only your self to blame. Sure we helped pass laws that benefit only us. You too can have laws written for you, but you are too lazy to buy Congress members to do your bidding. Why not hire some lobbyists who use free speech to get our agenda through Congress? President to be Cain was right; if your not rich, you have only yourself to blame.

First, you accuse us of sending jobs overseas. Well, if you want a job, move to China or Indonesia. We send jobs where the workers are, why don’t you move to where the jobs are?

Then you accuse us of manipulating the markets and betting against our overvalued mortgage bundles and by creating hedge funds.  If only you had created your own hedge funds, you too would have been rich.

Then there are those of you so lazy as to point out that the top 5% of earners is the only group to have their real wages increase in the last twenty years. If you want high wages, why do you choose to be poor? It’s not our fault that 95% of America doesn’t know how to manage their money and become rich. The top 5% deserves their raises, the rest of the America does not. Otherwise, you would have earned them.

Some liberal whiners want to TAX the job creators. My Dollar Almighty! Why should we have to pay our share of the benefits we reap from society when we are the only ones contributing to the wealth? The occupy movements have it all wrong. We should get things for free and you should pay our taxes for us, for without us job creators, you wouldn’t exist. It’s a tribute you must pay to us because of our magnificence. At least we won’t chop off you heads like Genghis Khan would have if you didn’t pay tribute, yet.

The occupy movement has no focus, because without one talking point, it’s too hard to understand. Do you expect us to read your manifesto? That’s over 600 words and we are too busy laying people off and paying out bonuses to read things.

Here are a few of the things our members think they saw on Wall Street and why you should be afraid of the protesters. We know they hate capitalism, are violent and will invade your homes; Bill O’Reilly and Fox News told us. If you watch the videos of protesters being beaten and pepper sprayed, you will see how dangerous they are.

But that’s not all. We interviewed other reliable sources on how to fear the protesters.

“There are witches on Wall Street that want to turn you into a toad, or worse, make you poor,” says Salem Tribunal II. “I swear I saw them fly around on brooms.”

“They are pod people from outer space who will invade the bodies of Wall Street bankers and ruin us all,” screams Connie Spiracy III.

Christian Striker of the Alien Defense League Enforcement Division, A.D.L.E.D., testifies, “They are mutants, with mutant powers, and they will control your minds and invade your bead at night and make you believe that the top 1% don’t deserve all our nation’s wealth and political control.

An anonymous source states that, “They are Yeti abortion communists!”

The facts are in. The occupy movement is dangerous because they remind you how good we billionaires have it at your expense. But mostly they are dangerous because they make average Americans realize they can make a difference and have a voice.

Find and Occupy Group in your area: http://www.occupytogether.org/

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Tex Shelters Salutes The Reagan Library

Reagan with the Mujahideen from globalresearch.ca

Recently, the Republican party held a presidential debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Ca. While the library is a wonderful living tribute to the Patriarch of our party, and many of the exhibits are worthy of this great man, it lacks what us modern conservatives loved most about him.

The Ronald Reagan library is a great place, with a panel from the Berlin Wall that Reagan pulled down, Air Force One and Reagan’s papers and oval office furniture. But it is missing some exhibits that would complete the collection. Here is what real modern Conservatives want to see to complete the Reagan library.

The Tomb of the Unknown Dead Central American Peasant. Reagan doesn’t get nearly enough credit for the deaths of Central American peasants at the hands of right-wing governments and death squads funded by the United States. We need to rectify this.

A special adjunct to the Tomb of the Unknown Dead Central American Peasant would be the Morning in America, nightmare for Nicaragua exhibit including photos of dead nuns and priest who got in the way of U.S. freedom seeking bullets and death squads.

The just say no exhibit of the war on drugs. The war on drugs was one of the greatest wars Reagan fought. The exhibit would feature syringes, cokes spoons, crack pipes, bongs and other drug paraphernalia that we assume millions of people didn’t use because of Reagan’s policies and Nancy Reagan saying “no”. The federal sentencing laws, the death penalty for drug king pins that put marijuana drug growers on death row, the return of minimum sentencing guidelines, and increase in the prison population are all highlights of Reagan’s war on drugs that you would have to be high to miss.

Freedom Fighter Display and Exhibit. Exhibits featuring photos, videos and the written testimony of freedom fighters who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Mujahideen. A video time line called “Mujahideen over the years” with be played every 30 minutes showing how they transformed themselves in the Taliban and started using the weapons the Reagan White House sold them against the Afghan people, our allies and our soldiers.

Reagan doesn’t get nearly enough credit for arming terrorists organizations in Afghanistan and creating the enormous profits our companies make fighting this U.S. armed fighters. President Reagan’s patriotic actions and active obsession with destroying the already collapsing Soviet Union at whatever costs helped Bin Laden gain power and eventually led to the attacks on 9/11.

We would add quotes that we find important that the Ronald Reagan Library exhibit left out. Of course they feature the famous, “Gorbachev, tear down this wall” and  “It’s morning in America.” And there’s also the advice he gives of a personal nature: “There’s nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse.” and “Man’s yearning for freedom can be satisfied in only one way, freedom.”  We need to include more quotes to set the record straight on Reagan’s conservative credentials.

Like global warming deniers of today, Reagan went after the tree hugging hippies logic when he famously stated the hidden facts that, “trees cause more pollution than automobiles.”

President Reagan had a great influence on President George W. Bush and today’s Republican Congress when he said, “They say hard work never hurt anybody, but, I figure, why take the chance?”

And he gave sage advice to all politicians in American when he said, “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.”

So won’t you please spread the knowledge of this great man that the library left out. The world needs to see a complete picture of our greatest president who was a former actor with a chimp and once married to Jane Wyman.

Link for more quotes:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/06/1086460157435.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20040606/ai_n12895821/

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Endangered Billionaire Job Creators

 

 

Peace,
Tex Shelters