I am doing a persuasive speech on Occupy Wallstreet for my COMM 101 class. My preview (thesis / problem) statement is, tentatively, "The Middle Class is Dying."
The solution, of course, is "Support the Occupy Wallstreet movement and other progressive ideals."
But I need some data, and figured I would ask around here while I do my own research. I've seen several great diaries here and other resources linked from here about the goals of the Occupy movements and the death of the middle class -- income disparity, removal of the safety net, etc etc. I'm just not having much luck finding them now that I look.
Basically "Support Occupy Wallstreet" is a rather broad statement, and to back up other claims I'll be making in my speech to emphasize the problem:
(These are all, of course, tentative following fact checking, I've just read these things in various articles and would like to confirm them and get a source to back myself up before making them in my speech.)
* That no people went to jail or were even punished for destroying the economy.
* That the banks that were bailed out went back on their word in regards to lending habits
* That with inflation a single minimum wage job is no longer sufficient for an adequate standard of living.
* That the average CEO or even Executive makes an absurd amount more than their average employee.
* That taxes on the 1% and Corporations are at their lowest point in decades.
etc etc.
I've seen several Occupy websites with these factoids (and their sources) in easily digested segments, does anyone know what I'm talking about and have those urls available?
For the record, I'm going to a College in Southern Idaho, in an extremely red district with extremely red classmates (one of them was openly advocating "driving cars through the damned hippies tents" when OWS was brought up last time) -- so I'd like to knock this out of the park, or at least end my speech with a bunch of pissed off Conservative listeners and a big ol' Trollface grin.
I'm supposed to end with a call to action, my chosen call (again, tentative) will be to suggest people switch to a local credit union to disconnect themselves from the very banks that are working against their interests, and hand out applications for said credit union as a handout.
Any suggestions for a place to begin data mining to argue to a bunch of conservatives that supporting Occupy Wallstreet -- or at least some of it's ideals -- is in their best interests?