Three years after the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Wall Street, other corporations, and the very rich enjoy enormous riches through record profits and bonuses, while evading taxes and other regulations with impunity. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, unemployment remains high, people continue to lose their homes by the millions, and budget crises at all levels of government result in vicious cuts to programs and services which are needed now more than ever.
Together with organizing partners in IIRON and Make Wall Street Pay Illinois, SOUL and SSN are taking part in a multi-faceted campaign to address these core economic issues. Following the advent of Occupy Wall Street, we seek to build upon this movement moment, and take up the frame of “the 99% and the 1%” in ways that speak directly to the issues impacting people in our communities. We aim to bring debt relief to the 99%, to fight foreclosures and budget cuts, to tax the 1%, and to generally hold banks and other corporations accountable for the damage they continue to do to the 99% and the economy as a whole. Ultimately, we are working towards a fairer economy, where (in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) we as a society will no longer “take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.”
Components of the campaign include:
- Publicly fighting for principal writedowns on underwater mortgages
- Lobbying for ordinances and legislation at the municipal and state levels that would slow the wave of foreclosures
- Pushing for the renegotiation of disadvantageous deals between governments and the banks
- Fighting corporate tax breaks and other forms of corporate welfare
- Publicly protesting irresponsible banks and the elected officials who are acting in their service
Campaign Updates
11/17/11: SOUL members and SSNers Occupy LaSalle Street Bridge with Stand Up! Chicago to protest budget cuts and fight for jobs, calling attention to the need to rebuild our infrastructure.
11/7/11: SOUL joins the Jane Addams Senior Caucus to protest proposed Super Committee cuts. 43 seniors were ticketed for acts of civil disobedience.
10/10/11: In this week of actions, 150 SOUL members join thousands of downtown to demand accountability from the Mortgage Bankers Association in front of the Hyatt Regency where the MBA was holding its annual conference. The group marched to the Art Institute to join National People’s Action “Showdown in America” march. On 10/10/11, 16 SOUL members were arrested in an act of civil disobedience inside the Hyatt, calling national attention to our efforts to bring the foreclosure crisis back to the banks responsible.
