OccupyUpdate.org

OCCUPY TULELAKE, CA— “WHO are we? We are the 99% of Americans who have not benefited from the various financial bailouts, tax breaks, and other subsidies that the dominant 1% of the population have gained over the past several years. We are students, workers, veterans, the unemployed, those on Social Security benefits, and those whose savings and investments were either wiped out or greatly diminished by the economic fluctuations starting in 2007.

We are those who have had our homes foreclosed upon or are about to have it done to us, those whose homes are now worth a fraction of what we paid for them, and those who have never owned a home and don’t expect to ever be able to. We are the newly poor who wonder how everything for which we worked hard vanished so quickly and how we and our families are going to survive. We are the long-time poor, who have never had much of a chance, let alone a voice, to make our own way in our current social and economic system.

We come from all backgrounds, races, and religions. We are concerned about and more than a little scared by the directions in which we see our lives, and the lives of our families, friends neighbors going, the directions in which we see our nation and the whole planet going, and we are angry with those who have taken us in those directions. We are part of a much larger global and national movement that wants real changes in how the world is run. In short, we’re you, and you are one of us. WHAT do we want? We want an end to corporate money’s influence in politics, whether through campaign donations, PACs, or other groups. Money is not speech.

We want truly effective campaign finance reform, so that corporations and other interests have no overwhelming advantage over the rest of us in any part of American politics. We want far greater legal accountability for public officials and corporate executives, and we demand that, if found guilty of committing crimes while in office, they are made to pay for those crimes in full, like anyone else.

We want equal treatment from our justice system at all levels, and at every stage from investigations, through trials and sentencing for everyone, regardless of origins or social class. We want a moratorium on foreclosures, an end to the continual attacks on our social safety net and on the rights for workers to organize themselves and, if need be, to strike to get better pay, benefits, and working conditions.

We want secure and sustainable investments and improvements in our social infrastructure, like schools and libraries, and to create an America where everyone may actually live in a decent and dignified manner, an America where everyone's rights count and are respected by all. This is who we are and what we want. We ask for no more and shall take no less.

We are the 99%, and we will not be silenced.”

From: OCCUPY LAS VEGAS http://www.livestream.com/occupylasvegas