Recent information has been uncovered by Operation Clean House, a group dedicated to outing fraud groups attempting to profit from and/or coopt the Occupy Movement, that the group ‘The 99% Declaration’ run by attorney Michael Pollack, is actually the same group that attempted to co-opt and defraud members of the tea party movement. The group has long claimed to be aligned with OWS groups, such as Occupy Philly, and yet recently Occupy Philly formally denounced them. The group has been collecting donations, yet has no physical occupation to fund, no expenses other than self promotion, and no connection to the OWS movement. Repeated attempts to address these issues with the leadership have been rebuffed, and the only statements they have given are on the lines of “Many Occupiers at large are ready for the next step. Those are the people we need. Not the support of whoever decided they were comming to GA that night. We need people who can think for themselves. The GA’s DO NOT represent all occupier and their needs.” according to members on their facebook page.
Operation Clean House representatives have stated “The 99% declaration is NOT a part of OWS, and has been denounced by all occupations that have voted on it, while not a single occupation has endorsed it. But they are not the only group under investigation, and we pledge to root out ALL groups that attempt to profit or subvert the occupy movement. We believe in total transparency, and any group that collects donations or claims to represent our movement will be scrutinized so that the truth will out.”
3 Responses to Operation Clean House: Is the 99% declaration a fraud group? Questions persist.
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Well….at least you asked the question if The 99% Declaration is a fraud, even though you seem to state it as fact in the article. Now I have some questions for you. Who is Operation Clean House? Where did they receive the information they are claiming.
Having been involved with The 99% Declaration for several weeks now, I believe someone is passing along misinformation and I would like to clear it up some of the misconceptions.
1) The 99% Declaration was started as a working group in the OWS NYC GA in October. It has never to my knowledge said it was a part of OWS or any other Occupy group.
2) This group is registered as a not-for profit group with the IRS.
3) Funds being raised are to promote The 99% Declarations infrastructure and goals. I’m not getting into those details here. Go to the web site and see what they are for yourself. http://www.the99declaration.org
4) This is a fledgling movement just hitting the ground. While there is an interim board of directors, of which Michael Pollock resides, the group has up to one year to elect a permanent board.
5) Transparency is of utmost importance and steps are being taken daily to promote tansparency on many levels (fiduciary, organizational, committees, etc….)
What I would like you to know, and you are welcome to confirm through research, is that many involved with Occupy movements are attempting to discredit and bog down any progress this group tries to make by bombarding our Facebook pages with unfounded rederick. This is only nhibiting The 99% Declaration from being able to focus on the tasks at hand.
The 99 Declaration is a group of dedicated, hard working folks (99ers) who are attempting to help give voice for, us, the 99%. The99Declaration (99D) will be bringing folks together from each congressional district to serve grievances to the three branches of government. We have some upper income folks helping out a lot, not just monetarily but speaking out and speaking up against the injustice, that has become so obvious. I understand the concern and I am happy you, and others are watching out for folks who might be taken advantage of. 99D can, will and has answer inquiries and concerns. 99D is part of the 99, I thought OWS was too? I didn’t know OWS was for OWS and not the rest of us? From what I have seen thus far (99D is very very new) Occupy NYC-GA is open to hearing us and they seem interested in taking the time to get their questions answered from the 99D. Again thank you for watching out for people and I hope we/I/99D can resolve issues. So far financial reports have been posted on the the99declaration website, bio’s of board members are posted and it’s a work in progress. If you can, please provide me with the information you have about “”"‘The 99% Declaration’ run by attorney Michael Pollack, is actually the same group that attempted to co-opt and defraud members of the tea party movement.”" Please provide some information on this if you have it. Thank you.
99D is part of nothing but the 99D. OWS has across the board disavowed themselves from 99D and this site joins them in the opinion that the 99D is NOT a legit group that stands for any of the principles OWS does, and in fact is just trying to coopt and profit off of OWS.