US “occupy” movement spreads

Submitted by Matthew on 12 October, 2011 - 12:50

American socialist Dan La Botz explains the mood behind the sit-in protests on Wall Street, New York which are now spreading across the US, including his home city, Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is a microcosm of the country.

Thousands of Cincinnatians face high unemployment, live in poverty, or lack of health insurance, while a handful of multimillionaires live in luxury on the salaries paid by the national and multinational corporations headquartered here.

Like the rest of America, we in the 99% watch our community’s economic situation deteriorate while the 1% at the top increase their salaries, take home more stock option, and prepare their golden parachutes. Just as on the national level, the very wealthy, the CEOs of banks and corporations, dominate the Republican and Democratic parties, setting the political agenda in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, and Ohio. Here in Cincinnati, capitalism doesn’t work any better than it does at the national level.

Multi-billion dollar corporations—Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Macy’s, Western & Southern Financial Group, American Financial Group, Chiquita, and Fifth Third Bank—dominate the city. The chief executive officers earn salaries of several million a year, plus stock options and other remuneration. Robert McDonald, CEO of P&G takes home a salary of $13.1 million—this is 82 times greater than the average national CEO salary of $161,000. Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren gets $11.8 million. That is 337 times a department store manager’s average pay of $34,000 a year. The average Cincinnati CEO receives a net salary of $4 million.

The corporations that pay such enormous salaries also exercise enormous power and influence. They hire and fire the executives, middle managers and workers, determine their salaries, benefits and conditions. The corporations’ executives staff the boards of most of the major cultural and social institutions of the region. Their lawyers and lobbyists propose legislation to benefit their industries and companies.

Locally the major corporations join together to form the Cincinnati Business Committee (CBC) and the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) to promote their agenda of corporate rule and gentrification at the expense of local communities. Their corporate PACs and some of their stockholders contribute to the political campaigns for local, state and national office, to keep both major parties working for them. All of the reins of local power can be traced back to a hand full of people who live in Indian Hill or perhaps Hyde Park.

The official unemployment in Cincinnati stands at 8.5%, but most authorities believe the official rate underestimates discouraged workers. African American and Latino unemployment is generally estimated at twice that of whites, that is 16 or 17 percent. For youth the unemployment rate is 40 or 50 percent. And many of us have part-time jobs, rather than the full- time job we need. We have in our city tens of thousands of people who cannot find work, many of whom have exhausted or are close to exhausting their unemployment payments.

Cincinnati has, according to the last count, almost a quarter of a million Cincinnati residents are without health insurance.

Today almost no one in our area can feel secure in their job. Meanwhile, the Republicans at the state level and the Democrats in the city, cater to the needs of the corporations while they ignore the needs of the citizens. Disgracefully rather than creating jobs, they attack the unions that offer some protection to working people.

We need a new distribution of wealth in this country. We need to provide jobs for all. Good jobs at living wages. We need education and health care for all, and those should be free.

And it can be done too. We need to start by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by bringing all the troops home, and closing the hundreds of U.S. military bases around the world that do nothing to defend us and do a lot of harm to others. Most important: we have to change the system.

The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City adopted on September 30 indicts Wall Street as responsible for the joblessness, homelessness, environmental destruction, and many others. The Declaration describes the damage done by the capitalist system: unemployment, foreclosure, and others. It says:

“Our politics are the politics of people who recognize that something has to change. Our movement is made up of young people without jobs and who can’t afford school. Of working men and women who’ve lost their jobs. Of families who’ve lost their homes. Of African Americans and Latinos who never fully shared in opportunity. We are working together to build the power to create a new democratic system and bring justice to our society.”

How amazing and exciting that we will march here in Cincinnati, joining the protesters in New York, learning from the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, the indignados in the plazas of Spain, and the workers of Wisconsin. We’re part of a new, international movement for democracy and social justice around the world.

We’re part of a movement that can change history, that change the direction the world’s headed. A movement that can save the planet and its people.

• Dan La Botz is a Cincinnati-based teacher, writer and activist. He is on the editorial board of the socialist journal New Politics. Full text: here.

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