Occupy


Occupy Madison Endorses Jobs Not Cuts!

An Appeal to the Occupy Movement

The Occupy movement, beginning in the heart of the financial district of New York City, has now spread to hundreds of cities across the nation.  Where once it was largely ignored by the establishment, it has now thundered into to public consciousness and refused to be pushed aside. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have come out to occupy, march, donate and protest in support of this movement. 

Broad new layers of people, who have never participated in protest action before, have come to support this movement because they too realize that our government and financial structures have shut working people out.  As the police repression persists and winter approaches, many of these same people are asking themselves: "What is the next step for this movement?"

The Jobs Not Cuts campaign for a national week of action was called together to combat the historic cuts being put forward in November by the Congressional Super Committee, which was hatched by the rotten debt deal last summer. Right now, this unelected committee meets in secret to draft a bill that will slash social services (to the tune of $1.5 trillion!) and leave Wall Street untouched. Medicare, Medicaid, veterans programs, environmental protection and much more are all on the chopping block. 

The Jobs Not Cuts campaign has already received formal endorsements from authors and journalists like Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky; longtime activists like Cindy Sheehan and Jill Stein; and labor unions like the Teaching Assistants’ Association Local 3220 and the Massachusetts Nurses Association. 

Occupy Madison, in Wisconsin, the state famous for class struggle, unanimously endorsed the Jobs Not Cuts campaign and is helping to plan a mass protest.

We hope that the intense frustration with the status quo that Occupy has unearthed can be focused to come to the defense of working people who are about to see the services that they depend on pulled out from under them. Jobs Not Cuts is organizing mass action across the country under these demands:

  • Hands off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid! No cuts to education and social services!


  • We need jobs, not cuts! Fund a federal public works program to create millions of jobs for the unemployed.


  • Make Big Business Pay! For major tax hikes on the super-rich and corporations!


  • End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Slash Pentagon spending!

 
We ask that you join us in our cause to protect working people from these historic cuts. It is our hope that you will follow Madison's example in not simply endorsing, but mobilizing for this day of action as well. Your voice is needed now to let the world know that Occupy says, "hands off education and social services! We need jobs not cuts!"