Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness joins with other peace organizations in support of Occupy Wall Street’s focus upon the growing disparity in wealth between the few and the many. In this coming election year we affirm the equal importance of caring for human need to that of fiscal viability. The moral imperative calls out for compassion within the spirit of fairness. Specifically we commit ourselves to:
- Highlighting the enormous social price which is paid to perpetuate inequality
- Correlating the expanding military budget with decline in domestic security.
- Confronting the loss of democratic process by concentrated wealth.
- Calling upon corporations and government to make decisions for the common good.
- Noting that the $24 billion Pennsylvanians spend in federal dollars for war in one year would pay for Head Start programs, teacher job creation, health care, or renewable energy.
We encourage people in the LIPW network to organize discussion groups around these issues, and commend these writings for discussion:
- Gary Dorrien, The Christian Century, November 15, 2011. Excerpt follows:
“Today, America’s super wealthy pay minimal or no income taxes while treating themselves to the capital gains rate–all perfectly legally, owing to the favors that Washington showers on the super wealthy. Investment managers earning billions of dollars per year are allowed to classify their income as carried interest, which is taxed at the same rate as capital gains. Thus, we have a system in which the top 10 percent of the population hold more than 70 percent of the wealth and the bottom 50 percent hold 2 percent of the wealth.”
- Bill Moyers, The Nation, Nov. 4, 2011, “How Wall Street Occupied America.” (Or the full speech Moyers gave in October at Public Citizen’s 40th-anniversary gala)
- Bernie Sanders, Six Demands to Make of Wall Street, Oct. 12, 2011, by CommonDreams.org