Jobless Take Their Grievances Directly to Congress | NationofChange

Amer­ica's un­em­ployed work­ers brought their mes­sage of frus­tra­tion and de­spair di­rectly to the U.S. Capi­tol on Tues­day as they filled the con­gres­sional of­fices of dozens of law­mak­ers and re­fused to leave until they met with their elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives.
The sit-in style con­fronta­tions were the open­ing salvo of a three-day protest event dubbed "Take Back the Capi­tol," which is spon­sored by a coali­tion of pro­gres­sive or­ga­ni­za­tions.
The groups want Con­gress to pass Pres­i­dent Barack Obama's jobs bill, ex­tend the fed­eral pay­roll-tax break for work­ing Amer­i­cans and ex­tend the fed­eral emer­gency un­em­ploy­ment-in­sur­ance ben­e­fits that are slated to ex­pire Dec. 31.
While the protests over­whelm­ingly tar­geted Re­pub­li­can law­mak­ers who op­pose the Obama jobs plan, the groups also vis­ited with lead­ing con­gres­sional De­moc­rats such as Rep. Heath Shuler of North Car­olina and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mi­nor­ity Whip Steny Hoyer of Mary­land.
Un­daunted by a steady morn­ing driz­zle, hun­dreds of pro­test­ers emerged from their "tent city" on the Na­tional Mall and trekked to the Capi­tol, where they made good on their promise to "swarm the halls" and track down mem­bers of Con­gress to de­mand com­mit­ments on their pet is­sues.
"If they don't pass the jobs bill, we will get rid of them," said Oliver Hen­dricks, an un­em­ployed iron­worker from Boston who was among 250 Mass­a­chu­setts res­i­dents who came to protest.
As the Mass­a­chu­setts group made its way through the Mall chant­ing, "We are the 99 per­cent," Hen­dricks said he was anx­ious to chal­lenge Mass­a­chu­setts Re­pub­li­can Sen. Scott Brown's op­po­si­tion to the pres­i­dent's jobs bill and Brown's pre­vi­ous vote against ex­tend­ing job­less ben­e­fits.
"He has voted against every bill that would help us," said Hen­dricks, who hasn't found work since he lost his job in March 2010.

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Hen­dricks, 56, said he'd lost his home of 16 years to fore­clo­sure re­cently when the bank backed out of a loan mod­i­fi­ca­tion plan with­out no­tice and then tried to auc­tion off his prop­erty. He re­mains in the home while he chal­lenges the ac­tion in court, but he must pay monthly rent to the bank until his ap­peal is re­solved.
The cri­sis is test­ing his met­tle. "I'm a Chris­t­ian and I'm liv­ing only by the grace of God," Hen­dricks said. "I'm fight­ing for every­thing right now. I'm fight­ing for my life."
In many of the of­fice meet­ings with GOP law­mak­ers, staffers were po­lite but dis­mis­sive, telling pro­test­ers that the con­gres­sional rep­re­sen­ta­tives or sen­a­tors they sought were out of the of­fice or too busy to meet with them. At that point, most pro­test­ers de­cided to oc­cupy the of­fices or camp out until the law­mak­ers showed up.
Capi­tol Po­lice ar­rested at least one pro­tester for un­law­ful entry at the of­fice of Rep. Vicky Hart­zler, R-Mo.
About 40 pro­test­ers faced "strong op­po­si­tion" from staff at Cal­i­for­nia Re­pub­li­can Rep. Dar­rell Issa's of­fice be­fore se­cu­rity es­corted them away, said pro­tester Rikki Bradley, a Cal­i­for­nia state em­ployee with the De­part­ment of Hous­ing and Com­mu­nity De­vel­op­ment.
The staff for Rep. Dan Lun­gren, R-Calif., was much more hos­pitable, Bradley said. Lun­gren emerged from his of­fice after sev­eral hours and shook hands with the re­main­ing four or five pro­test­ers who'd de­cided to wait for him.
When pressed on his vot­ing record, Lun­gren said he'd voted for nu­mer­ous bills to cre­ate jobs in Cal­i­for­nia, Bradley said.
"Then we asked, 'What about the ex­ten­sion of un­em­ploy­ment ben­e­fits?' to which he turned around and walked out. He made a left out of the of­fice and kept going," Bradley said. "We were sur­prised he even talked to us, but we felt like he just heard us. He didn't lis­ten."
When 40 peo­ple showed up at Florida Re­pub­li­can Sen. Marco Rubio's of­fice, they de­clined of­fers to meet with the sen­a­tor's se­nior staff mem­bers.
"The staff has al­ways promised us that they'll get back to us and the sen­a­tor will even­tu­ally meet with us. This has gone on for months. We want to meet with the sen­a­tor now," said Jose Suarez, a spokesman for 1Mi­ami, a coali­tion of pro­gres­sive grass-roots or­ga­ni­za­tions.
"One hun­dred fifty peo­ple got on buses, took time out of their lives, left their fam­i­lies back in Miami for 18 hours to come and do this today, so we're not going to meet with any­one but the sen­a­tor," Suarez said. At 6 p.m. Tues­day, the group was still wait­ing. Suarez said they'd re­turn Wednes­day.
John Reat, 62, from Wor­thing­ton, Ohio, was among the 40 or so who were camped out out­side the of­fice of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, just off the Capi­tol Ro­tunda. Since he lost his in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy job in De­cem­ber 2009, Reat has re­ceived un­em­ploy­ment in­sur­ance ben­e­fits. But they'll ex­pire next month un­less Con­gress agrees to ex­tend the fed­eral emer­gency ben­e­fits.
Be­cause his wife still works, Reat's fam­ily isn't in dire fi­nan­cial straits. But as one of the face­less "99 per­centers," Reat said it was im­por­tant to come to Wash­ing­ton to make his voice heard.
"I just got up off my couch and said, 'I've got to say some­thing,' " Reat said. "I'm part of the 99 per­cent who play by the rules. We pay taxes. We save for re­tire­ment. But the 1 per­cent is play­ing fast and loose with the mort­gages, fast and loose with the re­tire­ment plans, and fast and loose with the jobs. And this just sim­ply has to stop. It can't con­tinue this way."
The protest ac­tiv­i­ties con­tinue Wednes­day, when the group walks to K Street to protest the po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence of cor­po­rate lob­by­ists. On Thurs­day, it'll host a na­tional prayer vigil for the un­em­ployed on Capi­tol Hill.

Jobless Take Their Grievances Directly to Congress | NationofChange

CHART: Thanks To The 99 Percent Movement, Media Finally Covering Jobs Crisis And Marginalizing Deficit Hysteria

By Zaid Jilani on Oct 18, 2011 at 2:30 pm

Raucous protests across the country are refocusing media attention.

Part of the reason economic policymakers have failed to properly address the poor economy is because the nation’s news media has not properly covered the unemployment crisis. For example, at the beginning of August, when Washington, DC was debating the debt ceiling crisis, the national debt dominated the airwaves. While it was appropriate for the media then to be covering the deficit due to the debt ceiling debate at the time, there was a stunning lack of coverage of the jobs crisis. A ThinkProgress review of the media coverage of the last week of July found that the word “debt” was mentioned more than 7,000 times on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, and “unemployed” was only mentioned 75 times:
Yet now, things have changed. With the debt ceiling debates behind the country and thanks partly to the pressure being brought upon politicians and the media by the 99 Percent Movement and the occupations taking place all over the country, it looks as if the press is finally focusing on the jobs crisis and the behavior of Wall Street instead. A ThinkProgress review of the same three networks between Oct. 10 and Oct. 16 finds that the word “debt” only netted 398 mentions, while “occupy” grabbed 1,278, Wall Street netted 2,378, and jobs got 2,738:

When Occupy Wall Street started last month, a wide variety of news outlets complained that the protesters would not accomplish anything or that they did not have clear goals. It now appears that the resulting 99 Percent Movement has scored at least one victory: successfully re-framing media coverage onto the jobs crisis and real economy rather than trumped-up fears about the national debt or deficit.

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/18/346892/chart-media-jobs-wall-street-ignoring-deficit-hysteria/

A Stark Reminder why the 99% are Occupying

Foreclosure

Photograph by John Moore, Getty Images

Children lie in an empty living room as an eviction team removes their family's furniture during a home foreclosure on October 5 in Milliken, Colorado. The owners had stopped making mortgage payments some 11 months before, and the bank took possession of their home, according to Getty.
Foreclosures began to slow last fall when problems surfaced with the ways some lenders were handling paperwork, according to the AP. In response, many of the country's largest banks temporarily ceased all foreclosures.
But now the number of first-time default notices being issued has increased, AP reports, signalling renewed activity that could soon see an uptick in the number of active foreclosures.