Our Union Brothers and Sisters are fighting for their jobs! Occupy Tulsa will stand in Solidarity with them, and join the demonstrations at the Tulsa International Airport. Here’s the info from the twu514.org blog:

Informational Picket, Tulsa International, 2-29-2012

February 28, 2012

Hello Brothers and Sisters,

There will be an informational picket at the Tulsa International Airport, on Wednesday, the 29th of February.

We need your participation.

It will run from 11:00 AM till 2:00pm.

This must be ON YOUR OWN TIME not on the clock!

We will be gathering at the TWU514 Hall @ 10:00am and no later than 10:30.

We will be handing out signs and instructions at this time.

Please call the Hall, 918-437-4300 and let them know you will be attending.

As always you are the backbone of this Union, and Thanks for all your help, Past, Present and Future.

Gary Elias

TWU514 Organizing

 

On Saturday, March 3rd, Occupy Tulsa will be holding a joint anti-war rally with the Tulsa Peace Fellowship on the Southwest corner of 41st and Yale Ave.. The focus is “Keep US out of Iran!”  for more information, go to: https://www.facebook.com/events/264160320325249/

Occupy Tulsa attended the Anti-Personhood Act Rally today in OKC on 02/28 – marching with other demonstrators for Women’s Rights:

10 February 2012, Tulsa OK -  Occupy Tulsa attended a community meeting at BC Franklin Park on Superbowl Sunday, called by concerned citizens of the community and the Tulsa chapter of the NAACP, in response to the city’s plans to demolish 4 recreation centers in parks around North Tulsa.
BC Franklin Park was the first park to be built in the north side of Tulsa during the 1960’s Model Cities Project, and its Recreation center provided enrichment to the lives of generations of kids in the community. The city officially abandoned the center 10 years ago, but various community groups continued to use the building until 2009. Falling into disrepair due to the city’s neglect, the center and two others like it face demolition by the City of Tulsa as part of the “Master Parks Plan” put together by the city Parks department several years ago without local citizens’ approval. The center is slated for demolition on March 16th.
At the meeting, Tulsa resident Byron Watson detailed a history of the city’s misappropriation of funds which had been earmarked to BC Franklin and other Parks like it in North Tulsa. The Third Penny Sales Tax of 2006 has been collected each year, and according to city officials, still remains in the account, but is not being used for the maintenance and upkeep of the parks to which the funds had been designated. Byron also highlighted other areas in the city’s budget which have been allocated for North Tulsa parks, but spent elsewhere or simply disappeared. Community leaders at the meeting called for an independent building inspector to re-evaluate the city’s estimate of required repairs to the center which the city claims amount to over $2.2 Million, a number which “changes every time we talk to them,” said NAACP official Regina Goodwin.
Occupy Tulsa Co-Organizer Stephanie Lewis attended a recent District 4 “City Hall in your Neighborhood” meeting, and reported that the issue of the parks was raised to Mayor Dewey Bartlett during the Q&A session. She said that Bartlett claimed to have met with nine local pastors from churches in North Tulsa, and brokered a deal to have the community’s children bussed to local churches for activities, rather than keep the Recreation Centers in the parks open. “This small group decided what would happen to the historic parks of north Tulsa” without actually consulting the people in the community that use them, Lewis said.
Occupy Tulsa has been involved in working to keep the Greenwood Cultural Center open, whose funding was cut by the state and city over 2 years ago. Now they are also joining the fight to save the Rec centers. Occupy Tulsa Organizer Daniel Lee spoke at the meeting hosted by the city about the parks demolition project at Rudisill Library the previous week, stating “Occupy Tulsa loves parks” to laughter in the room. He continued, “…and we are committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, with the citizens of North Tulsa, in front of the bulldozers if need be, to save these centers and the community.”

(Adapted from Portland Solidarity Statement)

To the City of Oakland, Oakland Police, and Mayor Quan,

On January 28th, 2012, Occupy Oakland took to the streets and attempted to turn an abandoned building into a social center to converge and organize and to continue to provide the community at large with the services they had been providing before their encampment was disbanded. In response, Oakland Police used rubber bullets, bean bag shot gun rounds, chemical weapons, and kettling techniques and arrested 400 people in order to terrorize political dissent into submission. Mayor Quan issued a call to ‘the national leadership of the Occupy Movement’ to disown the actions of Occupy Oakland.

Your request for Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations to “disown” Occupy Oakland shows a failure to understand the nature of this movement and does a disservice to those you were elected to represent. Oakland wants change, and so do we. Rubber bullets and tear gas are violence, opening a social center is not. The use of physical violence against Occupiers, including children, is a disgrace. We stand with our fellow Occupiers not with a city and mayor that condones the use of violence against non-violent protestors and those building community in the face of struggle. It is you, Mayor Quan, who must answer to the rest of the Occupy movement and not our brethren at Occupy Oakland.

If our cities spent as much money providing services for the hungry and homeless as they did cracking down on Occupy and if the federal government spent as much money on confronting social and environmental problems as it does on waging war and bail-outs for the financial industry, then we would not have nearly as much cause to Occupy in Solidarity with one another. Until our elected leaders, including you Mayor Quan, stand with those who are building community and peacefully assembling rather than with those who are injuring and bullying citizens on the streets of Oakland we will Occupy in Solidarity with one another. Until you respect the right to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, we will Occupy in Solidarity with one another.

When Occupiers anywhere are confronted with police brutality, Occupiers everywhere will stand with them. We issue the following statement to law enforcement and city government engaging in the silencing of dissent or asking us to disown our brethren everywhere:

When you use chemical weapons, rubber bullets, bean bags, or other violence, when you kettle and arrest in mass non-violent protesters, we will not be silenced or divided. When occupiers anywhere are brutalized, occupiers everywhere will stand with them.

Occupy Tulsa will be holding a Peoples Assembly at the Greenwood Cultural Center on Saturday at 11am in the Library room. Join us and help plan upcoming actions, get informed on current issues, and let’s work to start up the action committees!
Current actions to be discussed:

- Greenwood Center fundraising ideas

- Actions to raise awareness / help North Tulsa

- Plan Equality Rally

- Plan Teach-In

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Occupy Tulsa Will Occupy Congressman Sullivan’s Office Downtown

Event is part of nationwide “Occupy Congress” Call to Action.

16 January, 2012 Tulsa, OK – Occupy Tulsa announced today that it would occupy Congressman John Sullivan’s office downtown on Tuesday at 10 am. The action is part of a larger campaign taking place nationwide, and centering on the capitol in Washington, DC. The Tulsa group will present a list of grievances as part of the protest, and will issue a statement demanding the Congressman listen to the voice of the people, instead of the lobbyists of the corporations. The public is invited to join and make their voices heard. Further information about the nationwide effort can be found at: http://www.occupyyourcongress.info/ .

(Copypasta from http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/12/05/the-few-the-proud-the-very-rich/)

Sylvia Allegretto, labor economist, Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics | 12/5/11

Much of the current political and popular discourse has focused on inequalities that exist in the U.S. In particular the Occupy movement has brought the huge disparities in wealth to the forefront. There are a few questions floating around about wealth. First, how skewed is the distribution? Second, it is true that the rich have gotten much richer over time? —a statement I often heard my Grandma make.

Well, there is a plethora of statistics (e.g. here, here, & here) out there but here are two. The share of wealth held by the top fifth is about 87.2 percent while the bottom four-fifths share the remaining 12.8 percent of wealth—so the Occupiers are correct in their assessment. And, the riches of those in the top 1 percent are about 225 times greater than that held by the typical family—it was 125 times in 1962—so, Grandma was correct too.

But, let’s look a bit further. The triennial Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is one of the best sources for data on wealth in the U.S. And, of course the Forbes 400 estimates the worth of the wealthiest amongst us—all 400 wouldn’t be captured in the SCF. If we look at both the SCF and the Forbes 400 we can glean some interesting insights.

In 2007 (the most recent SCF) the cumulative wealth of the Forbes 400 was $1.54 trillion or roughly the same amount of wealth held by the entire bottom fifty percent of American families. This is a stunning statistic to be sure.

Upon closer inspection, the Forbes list reveals that six Waltons—all children (one daughter-in-law) of Sam or James “Bud” Walton the founders of Wal-Mart—were on the list. The combined worth of the Walton six was $69.7 billion in 2007—which equated to the total wealth of the entire bottom thirty percent!

BTW the new 2011 Forbes 400 has the inherited worth of these six Waltons at $93 billion. The 2010 SCF data that is slated for release spring of 2012 will almost certainly show a further widening of the wealth gap given that corporate profits, stocks and CEO pay have all recovered while housing values & equity (the lion’s share of wealth for average American’s), wages and family incomes have yet to turn around.

These revelations renewed my interest in the inheritance and estate tax debates. Also, didn’t I just read somewhere that Wal-Mart is substantially rolling back health care coverage for part-time workers and significantly raising premiums for many full-time staff?

We’ve got to get serious about reversing the long term trend of the ever increasing concentration of income and wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. At stake is nothing less than our economy and our democracy.