The Whole World is Watching!
The Capitol Belongs to the People!
Urgent: Protesters Inside Wisconsin Capitol Need Your Support
Gov. Starts Punitive and Restrictive Measures
The Wisconsin Finance Committee Announces Plans to Eject Protesters this Sunday at 4 P.M.
Tell Gov. Walker, the Wisconsin Legislature and the Obama administration:
DON'T EJECT THE PROTESTERS!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://www.bailoutpeople.org/wisconsinworkerspetition.shtml
For 12 straight days peaceful protesters: high school and college students, families with children, workers from all of the unions including teachers, state workers, nurses and firefighters have continued a 24 hour presence at the Capitol.
The presence of the people inside is the only way to insure that the politicians and the bought and paid for Governor Walker heed the democratic will of the people.
The Capitol belongs to the people! We built it: we paid for it.
On Friday night, police were ordered to lock doors at 9 P.M. and to restrict people from bringing in bedrolls, blankets and air mattresses to make it more difficult for people to maintain their 24 hour people's lobby.
Prior to this, loudspeaker systems boomed all night long forcing people including the police to wear ear plugs.
None of this has daunted the spirit of those who are participating in the occupation.
But they need your support.
Many inside are prepared to go to jail if need be.
The time is critical-let Governor Walker, the Koch brothers and his rich cronies and all the politicians know that the whole world is watching!
Stop punitive measures! Defend the democratic right of protesters to stay in the Capitol! Eject Walker instead! Defend workers rights! Kill the bill!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://www.bailoutpeople.org/wisconsinworkerspetition.shtml
In solidarity,
Bail Out the People Movement www.bailoutpeople.org
Please donate! Go to http://www.bailoutpeople.org/donatewi.shtml
Sign-up for updates at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/bopmupdates.shtml
Showing posts with label Bail Out The People Movement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bail Out The People Movement. Show all posts
PROTEST OUTSIDE DEC. 3 WHITE HOUSE JOBS SUMMIT
UNEMPLOYED AND COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS TO DEMAND
MONEY FOR JOBS NOT WAR
AT 12 NOON IN FRONT OF WHITE HOUSE
“Fund A REAL JOBS PROGRAM instead of sending MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN!”
Unemployed people, along with groups representing the homeless and the poor from Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Detroit, Providence RI, Raleigh-Durham, NC, Cleveland, Baltimore, Virginia and elsewhere will protest directly in front of the White House at 12 noon on Thursday, Dec. 3 to declare the White House Jobs Summit too little and too late in the battle against depression level joblessness.
At 12 noon directly in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. between 15th and 16th Streets, women and men suffering from the 'jobless recovery' will call for a real jobs program that is as ambitious in scope as the Work Progress Administration (WPA) established during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The Protest will also draw attention to the sad and disappointing fact that the Government is perfectly ready to waste billions more dollars on the war in Afghanistan, but can only offer talk when it comes to the number one crisis in the country, rising joblessness.
In addition to the Bail Out the People Movement, the primary sponsor of the protest, other groups participating in the Jobs Summit protest are: The Rhode Island Unemployed Council; Picture The Homeless, NYC; The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut Offs, Mich.; Peoples Organization for Progress, N.J.; Rev. Graylan Hagler, Pres., United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice; Rev. Tom Smith, Pres., Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization; Anti-war Activist Cindy Sheehan; The National Network to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions; The Cleveland Family Center Connections; Charles Barron, N.Y. City Council Member; Chris Silvera, Sec.-Treas. Local 808 IBT, N.Y.; and the Rosa Parks Committee, Boston.
Sharon Black, jobs campaign organizer said, "We do not accept the argument that there is no money for a real jobs program." Black continued, "A government that can find literally trillions of dollars to bail out greedy and criminal bankers, and more money to fuel terrible wars, cannot maintain that there's no resources to bailout the unemployed. We must fund a real jobs program, not send more troops to Afghanistan."
A major jobs protest planned for spring will be announced.
For more information:
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: http://bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
MONEY FOR JOBS NOT WAR
AT 12 NOON IN FRONT OF WHITE HOUSE
“Fund A REAL JOBS PROGRAM instead of sending MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN!”
Unemployed people, along with groups representing the homeless and the poor from Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Detroit, Providence RI, Raleigh-Durham, NC, Cleveland, Baltimore, Virginia and elsewhere will protest directly in front of the White House at 12 noon on Thursday, Dec. 3 to declare the White House Jobs Summit too little and too late in the battle against depression level joblessness.
At 12 noon directly in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. between 15th and 16th Streets, women and men suffering from the 'jobless recovery' will call for a real jobs program that is as ambitious in scope as the Work Progress Administration (WPA) established during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The Protest will also draw attention to the sad and disappointing fact that the Government is perfectly ready to waste billions more dollars on the war in Afghanistan, but can only offer talk when it comes to the number one crisis in the country, rising joblessness.
In addition to the Bail Out the People Movement, the primary sponsor of the protest, other groups participating in the Jobs Summit protest are: The Rhode Island Unemployed Council; Picture The Homeless, NYC; The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut Offs, Mich.; Peoples Organization for Progress, N.J.; Rev. Graylan Hagler, Pres., United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice; Rev. Tom Smith, Pres., Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization; Anti-war Activist Cindy Sheehan; The National Network to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions; The Cleveland Family Center Connections; Charles Barron, N.Y. City Council Member; Chris Silvera, Sec.-Treas. Local 808 IBT, N.Y.; and the Rosa Parks Committee, Boston.
Sharon Black, jobs campaign organizer said, "We do not accept the argument that there is no money for a real jobs program." Black continued, "A government that can find literally trillions of dollars to bail out greedy and criminal bankers, and more money to fuel terrible wars, cannot maintain that there's no resources to bailout the unemployed. We must fund a real jobs program, not send more troops to Afghanistan."
A major jobs protest planned for spring will be announced.
For more information:
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: http://bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
Sign Online Petition To Drop Charges On G-20 Protesters & Against Police Repression
Click Here To Sign Petition
To: Pittsburgh Mayor Ravenstahl, Pittsburgh City Council, Pittsburgh Police Chief, Allegheny County Council
CC: PA Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the PA Legislature, Federal Officials, Pittsburgh business leaders, members of the Pittsburgh and national media
I demand that the military occupation of Pittsburgh be disbanded immediately; all charges against the people arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and 25 especially the youth – including those involved in direct action confronting the G-20 summit – be dropped. Everyone detained must be accounted for and released. I support an independent worker-community-student investigation of the homeland security occupation and repression during the G-20 summit.
Sincerely,
(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter to the right)
Click Here To Sign Petition
To: Pittsburgh Mayor Ravenstahl, Pittsburgh City Council, Pittsburgh Police Chief, Allegheny County Council
CC: PA Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the PA Legislature, Federal Officials, Pittsburgh business leaders, members of the Pittsburgh and national media
I demand that the military occupation of Pittsburgh be disbanded immediately; all charges against the people arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and 25 especially the youth – including those involved in direct action confronting the G-20 summit – be dropped. Everyone detained must be accounted for and released. I support an independent worker-community-student investigation of the homeland security occupation and repression during the G-20 summit.
Sincerely,
(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter to the right)
Click Here To Sign Petition
Struggle for jobs comes to G-20
By Brenda Sandburg, Bail Out The People Movement
Pittsburgh - More than 1,000 protesters marched through the streets of Pittsburgh on Sept. 20 demanding a real jobs program, like the public works program the Roosevelt administration enacted during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
It was the first demonstration related to the G-20 summit, a gathering of Treasury officials and central bankers from 20 countries that will take place in Pittsburgh Sept 24-25. The goal of the G-20 is to protect bank profits. The goal of the March for Jobs is to revive Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for the right of all to a job. The march was organized by the Bail Out the People Movement and the Rev. Thomas E. Smith, pastor of the Monumental Baptist Church, and endorsed by the United Steelworkers union and the United Electrical Workers.
The march garnered coverage and interest from major big-business media, both nationally and locally, including the Associated Press, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the French Press Agency and others. Organizers of the march attributed the media interest to the fact that the march addressed the crisis of joblessness and its devastating impact on the Black community.
People came from cities throughout the country to join a significant number of Pittsburgh area residents for the march. The cities represented included Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Cleveland, Akron, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Miami, New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Providence, the North Carolina Triangle area and Boston. Many have been laid off or lost their homes to foreclosures. Despite the crisis, people were spirited, drawing strength from being together and from building a movement.
“In honor of Martin Luther King we are continuing what he started in uniting people together in a poor people’s campaign,” the Rev. Tom Smith, pastor of Monumental Baptist Church and one of the organizers of the march, told the rally. “The G-20 is structuring deals to protect the corporations and not the workers. It’s time for the workers to come together and make a difference.”
People gathered in the morning at Monumental Baptist Church located in the historic African-American Hill district of Pittsburgh. A tent city dedicated to the unemployed had been set up next to the church the day before. Many of the protesters will stay at the tent city throughout the week with more people expected to join as the G-20 summit opens.
An opening rally was held before the march stepped off at about 2:30. People marched carrying hundreds of placards with the image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and chanting, “We got the right! We got the right to a job!” The march ended at Freedom Corner, where in 1963 people got on buses to go to the historic civil rights march in Washington, D.C.
Larry Holmes, an organizer of the Bail Out the People Movement, said the government claims a jobless recovery is on the horizon. He emphasized that this is unacceptable. “A jobless recovery is like a dead patient after a successful operation,” he said.
Monica Moorehead of the organization Millions for Mumia recognized the more than two million people in prison who couldn’t be at the demonstration. She introduced a taped message from political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
At the closing rally, Fred Redmond, United Steelworkers vice president, noted the need for universal health care and affordable education as well as jobs for all. “Enough of our kids are going to school where the rats outnumber the computers,” he said. “We have to assure that every child receives an education to equip them for the 21st century.”
Other speakers at the two rallies included Oscar Hernandez, a participant in the 11-month Stella D’Oro bakery strike in New York City; Clarence Thomas, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 and Million Worker March Movement; Brenda Stokely and Jennifer Jones, NYC Coalition in Solidarity with Katrina/Rita Survivors; Rob Robinson, Picture the Homeless; Rosemary Williams, Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign; Mick Kelly, Coalition for a Peoples Bailout; Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council; John Parker, Bail Out the People Movement organizer in Los Angeles; Sandra Hines, Michigan Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs; Rokhee Devastali, Feminist Students United, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart; Larry Hales, FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together); Larry Adams, People’s Organization for Progress; Pam Africa, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Victor Toro, an immigrant facing deportation and member of the May 1st Coalition for Worker & Immigrant Rights; Berna Ellorin, BAYAN-USA; Father Luis Barrios, Pastors for Peace; Kali Akuno, U.S. Human Rights Network; and Pennsylvania state Sen. Jim Ferlo.
Why people came to Pittsburgh
The march was a powerful draw for people, many of whom traveled long distances to be part of the event. Strikers from TRW Automotive, a seatbelt-making plant in Mexico, had been in Detroit speaking out about their struggle when they heard about the protest in Pittsburgh and joined the bus from Detroit. One member of the TRW group, Israel Mouroig of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, said it was necessary to forge alliances at the international level. “Corporations that generate billions of dollars a year produced the crisis in our country,” he said. “There is a lack of jobs because they see the working class as robots, as numbers. We have to appropriate the means of production and be the actors of our own history.”
Several people drove from Los Angeles, including Guy Anthony, who lost his job as an organizer with the Service Employees union in June. Now living in his car, he has traveled around the country writing a blog about his experiences (thedistantdrummer.com). “You can’t talk about joblessness without talking about homelessness,” Anthony said. He met people in Seattle who had set up “a fabulous tent city” on church property. He also stayed with people who set up a homeless community at a roadside stop off of Route 280 south of San Francisco. “You couldn’t want better neighbors,” he said. “Nobody went hungry. It was a beautiful socialist community.” The county recently shut the group down.
A large contingent from the Boston School Bus Drivers union, USW Local 8751, including Gary Murchison, former three-term president of the local, and Frantz Mendes, current president, showed up three days before the march to help organize and build the tent city.
Detroit activists, who organized a hugely successful tent city in June, brought a busload of people to Pittsburgh. “We had to be here,” said Sandra Hines of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition. “We have to mobilize, organize before they take every right we have away from us.” Latonya Lloyd, who was part of the Detroit delegation, recently battled the shut-off of utilities at the Highland Towers apartment building.
Mary Kay Harris came with about 40 other people on a bus from Rhode Island. A member of DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality), Harris said that as soon as they heard about the March for Jobs they decided they had to be there. Rhode Island, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, has a tent city of the homeless. “We feel that solidarity is the most important thing,” she said.
Activists in Cleveland also brought a busload of people, including a large contingent from the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. And a group of 18 youth came from North Carolina, including Tracy Gill, a member of FIST who said this was the first big protest she had ever been to.
Members of the Minnesota People’s Bailout Coalition also came to the march. Angel Buechner said the organization had fought for legislation last year that would have provided immediate jobs or income and a moratorium on foreclosures and on the state’s five-year limit on receiving welfare. But Gov. Tim Pawlenty defeated the measure. Despite the setback, Buechner is ready to continue the battle.
At the ending rally at Freedom Corner, Holmes announced—to the approval of the crowd—that the next step is to build a national march for jobs in Washington next April to continue Dr. King’s dream.
Photos By Leilani Dowell, Brenda Sandburg, Dante Strobino and G. Dunkel. Click here to see photos.
Videos of the Tent City and March for Jobs:
http://kdka.com/local/g20/tent.city.protest.2.1196577.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkUxvX5JNJg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-n2DrLrJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCnBqnB7j-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIVoFbILRIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoNtah2Fkcs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjg-FtB5xEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-fCmmxZd6Y
Pittsburgh - More than 1,000 protesters marched through the streets of Pittsburgh on Sept. 20 demanding a real jobs program, like the public works program the Roosevelt administration enacted during the Great Depression of the 1930s.It was the first demonstration related to the G-20 summit, a gathering of Treasury officials and central bankers from 20 countries that will take place in Pittsburgh Sept 24-25. The goal of the G-20 is to protect bank profits. The goal of the March for Jobs is to revive Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for the right of all to a job. The march was organized by the Bail Out the People Movement and the Rev. Thomas E. Smith, pastor of the Monumental Baptist Church, and endorsed by the United Steelworkers union and the United Electrical Workers.
The march garnered coverage and interest from major big-business media, both nationally and locally, including the Associated Press, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the French Press Agency and others. Organizers of the march attributed the media interest to the fact that the march addressed the crisis of joblessness and its devastating impact on the Black community.
People came from cities throughout the country to join a significant number of Pittsburgh area residents for the march. The cities represented included Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Cleveland, Akron, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Miami, New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Providence, the North Carolina Triangle area and Boston. Many have been laid off or lost their homes to foreclosures. Despite the crisis, people were spirited, drawing strength from being together and from building a movement.
“In honor of Martin Luther King we are continuing what he started in uniting people together in a poor people’s campaign,” the Rev. Tom Smith, pastor of Monumental Baptist Church and one of the organizers of the march, told the rally. “The G-20 is structuring deals to protect the corporations and not the workers. It’s time for the workers to come together and make a difference.”
People gathered in the morning at Monumental Baptist Church located in the historic African-American Hill district of Pittsburgh. A tent city dedicated to the unemployed had been set up next to the church the day before. Many of the protesters will stay at the tent city throughout the week with more people expected to join as the G-20 summit opens.
An opening rally was held before the march stepped off at about 2:30. People marched carrying hundreds of placards with the image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and chanting, “We got the right! We got the right to a job!” The march ended at Freedom Corner, where in 1963 people got on buses to go to the historic civil rights march in Washington, D.C.
Larry Holmes, an organizer of the Bail Out the People Movement, said the government claims a jobless recovery is on the horizon. He emphasized that this is unacceptable. “A jobless recovery is like a dead patient after a successful operation,” he said.
Monica Moorehead of the organization Millions for Mumia recognized the more than two million people in prison who couldn’t be at the demonstration. She introduced a taped message from political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
At the closing rally, Fred Redmond, United Steelworkers vice president, noted the need for universal health care and affordable education as well as jobs for all. “Enough of our kids are going to school where the rats outnumber the computers,” he said. “We have to assure that every child receives an education to equip them for the 21st century.”
Other speakers at the two rallies included Oscar Hernandez, a participant in the 11-month Stella D’Oro bakery strike in New York City; Clarence Thomas, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 and Million Worker March Movement; Brenda Stokely and Jennifer Jones, NYC Coalition in Solidarity with Katrina/Rita Survivors; Rob Robinson, Picture the Homeless; Rosemary Williams, Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign; Mick Kelly, Coalition for a Peoples Bailout; Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council; John Parker, Bail Out the People Movement organizer in Los Angeles; Sandra Hines, Michigan Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs; Rokhee Devastali, Feminist Students United, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart; Larry Hales, FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together); Larry Adams, People’s Organization for Progress; Pam Africa, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Victor Toro, an immigrant facing deportation and member of the May 1st Coalition for Worker & Immigrant Rights; Berna Ellorin, BAYAN-USA; Father Luis Barrios, Pastors for Peace; Kali Akuno, U.S. Human Rights Network; and Pennsylvania state Sen. Jim Ferlo.
Why people came to Pittsburgh
The march was a powerful draw for people, many of whom traveled long distances to be part of the event. Strikers from TRW Automotive, a seatbelt-making plant in Mexico, had been in Detroit speaking out about their struggle when they heard about the protest in Pittsburgh and joined the bus from Detroit. One member of the TRW group, Israel Mouroig of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, said it was necessary to forge alliances at the international level. “Corporations that generate billions of dollars a year produced the crisis in our country,” he said. “There is a lack of jobs because they see the working class as robots, as numbers. We have to appropriate the means of production and be the actors of our own history.”
Several people drove from Los Angeles, including Guy Anthony, who lost his job as an organizer with the Service Employees union in June. Now living in his car, he has traveled around the country writing a blog about his experiences (thedistantdrummer.com). “You can’t talk about joblessness without talking about homelessness,” Anthony said. He met people in Seattle who had set up “a fabulous tent city” on church property. He also stayed with people who set up a homeless community at a roadside stop off of Route 280 south of San Francisco. “You couldn’t want better neighbors,” he said. “Nobody went hungry. It was a beautiful socialist community.” The county recently shut the group down.
A large contingent from the Boston School Bus Drivers union, USW Local 8751, including Gary Murchison, former three-term president of the local, and Frantz Mendes, current president, showed up three days before the march to help organize and build the tent city.
Detroit activists, who organized a hugely successful tent city in June, brought a busload of people to Pittsburgh. “We had to be here,” said Sandra Hines of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition. “We have to mobilize, organize before they take every right we have away from us.” Latonya Lloyd, who was part of the Detroit delegation, recently battled the shut-off of utilities at the Highland Towers apartment building.
Mary Kay Harris came with about 40 other people on a bus from Rhode Island. A member of DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality), Harris said that as soon as they heard about the March for Jobs they decided they had to be there. Rhode Island, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, has a tent city of the homeless. “We feel that solidarity is the most important thing,” she said.
Activists in Cleveland also brought a busload of people, including a large contingent from the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. And a group of 18 youth came from North Carolina, including Tracy Gill, a member of FIST who said this was the first big protest she had ever been to.
Members of the Minnesota People’s Bailout Coalition also came to the march. Angel Buechner said the organization had fought for legislation last year that would have provided immediate jobs or income and a moratorium on foreclosures and on the state’s five-year limit on receiving welfare. But Gov. Tim Pawlenty defeated the measure. Despite the setback, Buechner is ready to continue the battle.
At the ending rally at Freedom Corner, Holmes announced—to the approval of the crowd—that the next step is to build a national march for jobs in Washington next April to continue Dr. King’s dream.
Photos By Leilani Dowell, Brenda Sandburg, Dante Strobino and G. Dunkel. Click here to see photos.
Videos of the Tent City and March for Jobs:
http://kdka.com/local/g20/tent.city.protest.2.1196577.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkUxvX5JNJg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-n2DrLrJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCnBqnB7j-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIVoFbILRIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoNtah2Fkcs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjg-FtB5xEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-fCmmxZd6Y
A Labor Day Appeal: A Jobless Recovery Means Fight Back Or Starve!
SEPT. 20 MARCH FOR JOBS IN PITTSBURGH BEFORE THE G20 SUMMIT
"Fight or Starve" read the headlines of a leaflet being distributed by the Unemployed Council members in 1933. Flash forwards 76 years and it’s Labor Day 2009. A year ago the collapse of Lehman Brothers set off a worldwide melt down of the banking system and the biggest world economic crisis since the 1930s. One year later, after more than 13 trillion dollars of help from the government, they say Wall Street is okay. As finance ministers prepare for the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh this month, the spin is that the recovery is here or near and that U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke saved the country and the planet from a second great depression.
Saved who from a depression? The official unemployment rate in Detroit , Michigan is 29%. That’s depression-level unemployment. But it’s not just Detroit . While the official national unemployment rate just edged up to 9.7%, when the unemployed and underemployed who are not counted in the official rate are added, it’s really closer to 17%. For teenagers it’s a whopping 25% and for African-American young adults it’s closer to 50%.
We're talking about depression-level unemployment. The rate of home foreclosures continues to soar and it’s only going to get worse.
High unemployment affects every worker. Why? Because it drives down wages and benefits across the board and weakens or breaks union contracts. The real news is that things are never going to be the same unless we do something about it. The jobs that were lost are not coming back. The global economic crisis that hit the fan a year ago has ushered in a permanent and ever-escalating war on the working class and the poor. There will be no more respites of peace and prosperity for most of us.
The only question is what are the workers going to do about it? What are the labor unions going to do about it? What are organizations and activists who are dedicated to social and economic justice going to do about it? Will there be a massive fight back of the kind we haven’t seen since the workers said “we’re not taking anymore” in the early and mid-1930s and then proceeded to stop evictions, organize, strike, occupy factories and scare the hell out of the powers that be?
There’s no nice way of putting this. If poor and working people don’t start fighting back we are going to be destroyed by the greedy, profits before people, rich sociopaths from all the Wall Streets all over the globe.
The eyes of the world will be on Pittsburgh in a few days because the heads of governments and their head bankers will be meeting there to talk about how they can continue their jobless recovery on the backs of the working people of the world.
On Sunday, Sept. 20, the first day of the week of the G20 summit, there’s going to be a major march for jobs. Unemployed and homeless people and their supporters will be coming to Pittsburgh for the march for jobs. With the support of some labor including the United Steelworkers union--which is headquartered in Pittsburgh --and the support of the Black community in Pittsburgh , the march for jobs will assemble in the historic Black community of Pittsburgh known as “The Hill”. The goal of the march is to revive the dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. devoted the final days of his life to--a second civil rights movement for the right of all to a decent paying job. After the march and rally that day, many will return to a patch of land next to the Monumental Baptist Church on the Hill, where they will live in a tent city dedicated to the unemployed people of the world for the rest of the G20 summit week.
Everything has to start sometime and somewhere. Maybe we can help start the fight back in Pittsburgh this month. Will you be there? Find a bus, a car, a van or a train headed towards Pittsburgh and bring everyone you can with you. Go to BailOutPeople.org.
March For Jobs and Tent City Conveners include:
Bail Out The People Movement
Picture The Homeless
The Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign
Peoples Organization For Progress
May 1st Coalition for Immigrant and Workers Rights
United Electrical Union
United Steelworkers union
San Francisco Central Labor Council
Million Worker March Movement
Local 10 ILWU
Peoples Fight Back Campaign
Moratorium Now! Coalition Against Foreclosures and Evictions
Pastors For Peace
If your community, union or student group is not already on board—there is still time to get involved.
If you are going to be participating at the ‘Solidarity with the Unemployed’ Tent City following the March 4 Jobs—it’s critical to register to make sure there are resources and space available. Space is limited. Pre-registration is required.
Register at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/septg20register.shtml
"Fight or Starve" read the headlines of a leaflet being distributed by the Unemployed Council members in 1933. Flash forwards 76 years and it’s Labor Day 2009. A year ago the collapse of Lehman Brothers set off a worldwide melt down of the banking system and the biggest world economic crisis since the 1930s. One year later, after more than 13 trillion dollars of help from the government, they say Wall Street is okay. As finance ministers prepare for the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh this month, the spin is that the recovery is here or near and that U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke saved the country and the planet from a second great depression.
Saved who from a depression? The official unemployment rate in Detroit , Michigan is 29%. That’s depression-level unemployment. But it’s not just Detroit . While the official national unemployment rate just edged up to 9.7%, when the unemployed and underemployed who are not counted in the official rate are added, it’s really closer to 17%. For teenagers it’s a whopping 25% and for African-American young adults it’s closer to 50%.
We're talking about depression-level unemployment. The rate of home foreclosures continues to soar and it’s only going to get worse.
High unemployment affects every worker. Why? Because it drives down wages and benefits across the board and weakens or breaks union contracts. The real news is that things are never going to be the same unless we do something about it. The jobs that were lost are not coming back. The global economic crisis that hit the fan a year ago has ushered in a permanent and ever-escalating war on the working class and the poor. There will be no more respites of peace and prosperity for most of us.
The only question is what are the workers going to do about it? What are the labor unions going to do about it? What are organizations and activists who are dedicated to social and economic justice going to do about it? Will there be a massive fight back of the kind we haven’t seen since the workers said “we’re not taking anymore” in the early and mid-1930s and then proceeded to stop evictions, organize, strike, occupy factories and scare the hell out of the powers that be?
There’s no nice way of putting this. If poor and working people don’t start fighting back we are going to be destroyed by the greedy, profits before people, rich sociopaths from all the Wall Streets all over the globe.
The eyes of the world will be on Pittsburgh in a few days because the heads of governments and their head bankers will be meeting there to talk about how they can continue their jobless recovery on the backs of the working people of the world.
On Sunday, Sept. 20, the first day of the week of the G20 summit, there’s going to be a major march for jobs. Unemployed and homeless people and their supporters will be coming to Pittsburgh for the march for jobs. With the support of some labor including the United Steelworkers union--which is headquartered in Pittsburgh --and the support of the Black community in Pittsburgh , the march for jobs will assemble in the historic Black community of Pittsburgh known as “The Hill”. The goal of the march is to revive the dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. devoted the final days of his life to--a second civil rights movement for the right of all to a decent paying job. After the march and rally that day, many will return to a patch of land next to the Monumental Baptist Church on the Hill, where they will live in a tent city dedicated to the unemployed people of the world for the rest of the G20 summit week.
Everything has to start sometime and somewhere. Maybe we can help start the fight back in Pittsburgh this month. Will you be there? Find a bus, a car, a van or a train headed towards Pittsburgh and bring everyone you can with you. Go to BailOutPeople.org.
March For Jobs and Tent City Conveners include:
Bail Out The People Movement
Picture The Homeless
The Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign
Peoples Organization For Progress
May 1st Coalition for Immigrant and Workers Rights
United Electrical Union
United Steelworkers union
San Francisco Central Labor Council
Million Worker March Movement
Local 10 ILWU
Peoples Fight Back Campaign
Moratorium Now! Coalition Against Foreclosures and Evictions
Pastors For Peace
If your community, union or student group is not already on board—there is still time to get involved.
* Endorse – Organize – and Mobilize!VERY IMPORTANT: Please REGISTER for the Tent City.
* Distribute flyers and send out email notices.
* Bring a bus, van or car from your city, town or neighborhood – tell us so we can plan parking.
* Donate $ so that those without funds can attend.
If you are going to be participating at the ‘Solidarity with the Unemployed’ Tent City following the March 4 Jobs—it’s critical to register to make sure there are resources and space available. Space is limited. Pre-registration is required.
Register at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/septg20register.shtml
September 5: Raleigh Forum on Economic Crisis and G20
Fight for jobs, human rights, education, and an end to imperialist wars!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
12:00pm - 1:30pm
The Richard B. Harrison Library
1313 New Bern Avenue
Raleigh, NC
Sponsored by Triangle F.I.S.T. and the Bail Out the People Movement
Info: BailOutPeopleNC@gmail.com
Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144891892094
"If you don't have a job, fight to get one-
If you have one, fight to keep it"
"A new world is possible, but we must fight for it."
Unemployment, especially of youth and people of color, is skyrocketing, despite the misrepresentation in the mainstream media that unemployment is still low*. Many, many more are underemployed, often having to work two, even three jobs to barely make ends meet. Even more do not receive adequate benefits, such as affordable health insurance, from employment.
Many of those fortunate enough to have jobs are facing forced cuts in hours, pay, and benefits. Tuition is increasing and financial aid options are decreasing whilst class sizes continue increasing and the quality of education is decreasing.
On September 24-25, delegates from the 20 countries with the largest economies and delegates from the IMF and WTO will gather in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the G20 summit to discuss how they can further further corporate and imperialist interests.
To protest the G20, a Tent City march will occur outside from September 20-25.
Protests will commence with a mass March for Jobs on Sunday, September 20, where we will fight for jobs at a living wage for all.
On August 29, 2009, a panel of speakers will present on the aforementioned various issues working class people are facing in relation to the G20 (youth issues, unemployment, workplace oppression, along with general information on the G20) and answer your questions
Triangle F.I.S.T. and Bail Out the People Movement NC are organizing a caravan from NC to Pittsburgh for the march and summit. More information will be provided at this forum.
So, invite all your friends and build the movement!
*mainstream unemployment figures only take into account those who are still actively searching for jobs, not taking into account people who have withdrawn from the job market, are underemployed, and/or have resorted to working 2-3 part time jobs to make ends meet.
This is even worse for youth, as: “Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. … For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16 through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they’re catastrophic.” (source http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/opinion/11herbert.tm)
**NOTE: This forum is for anyone who's interested in the economic crisis at hand, unemployment, tuition hikes, budget cuts, repression in the workplace, and how to fight the increased burdens being placed on the backs of working people, NOT just people who are interested in going to the G20 march and/or tent city.
If you need a ride, we will provide it for you.**
http://raleighfist.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/aug-29-raleigh-meeting-to-build-for-g20-protest-jobs-march/#more-542
http://bailoutpeople.org/
Saturday, September 5, 2009
12:00pm - 1:30pm
The Richard B. Harrison Library
1313 New Bern Avenue
Raleigh, NC
Sponsored by Triangle F.I.S.T. and the Bail Out the People Movement
Info: BailOutPeopleNC@gmail.com
Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144891892094
"If you don't have a job, fight to get one-
If you have one, fight to keep it"
"A new world is possible, but we must fight for it."
Unemployment, especially of youth and people of color, is skyrocketing, despite the misrepresentation in the mainstream media that unemployment is still low*. Many, many more are underemployed, often having to work two, even three jobs to barely make ends meet. Even more do not receive adequate benefits, such as affordable health insurance, from employment.
Many of those fortunate enough to have jobs are facing forced cuts in hours, pay, and benefits. Tuition is increasing and financial aid options are decreasing whilst class sizes continue increasing and the quality of education is decreasing.
On September 24-25, delegates from the 20 countries with the largest economies and delegates from the IMF and WTO will gather in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the G20 summit to discuss how they can further further corporate and imperialist interests.
To protest the G20, a Tent City march will occur outside from September 20-25.
Protests will commence with a mass March for Jobs on Sunday, September 20, where we will fight for jobs at a living wage for all.
On August 29, 2009, a panel of speakers will present on the aforementioned various issues working class people are facing in relation to the G20 (youth issues, unemployment, workplace oppression, along with general information on the G20) and answer your questions
Triangle F.I.S.T. and Bail Out the People Movement NC are organizing a caravan from NC to Pittsburgh for the march and summit. More information will be provided at this forum.
So, invite all your friends and build the movement!
*mainstream unemployment figures only take into account those who are still actively searching for jobs, not taking into account people who have withdrawn from the job market, are underemployed, and/or have resorted to working 2-3 part time jobs to make ends meet.
This is even worse for youth, as: “Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. … For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16 through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they’re catastrophic.” (source http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/opinion/11herbert.tm)
**NOTE: This forum is for anyone who's interested in the economic crisis at hand, unemployment, tuition hikes, budget cuts, repression in the workplace, and how to fight the increased burdens being placed on the backs of working people, NOT just people who are interested in going to the G20 march and/or tent city.
If you need a ride, we will provide it for you.**
http://raleighfist.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/aug-29-raleigh-meeting-to-build-for-g20-protest-jobs-march/#more-542
http://bailoutpeople.org/
Steel & Electrical Workers Endorse March for Jobs and Tent City at G20 Summit in Pittsburgh - Register Today for the Tent City following the March
 | The March 4 Jobs before the G20 Summit is Growing! Breaking News Bulletin: United Steel Workers Union and United Electrical Workers have endorsed and are mobilizing. These are two powerhouse unions with a long and rich history with international headquarters in Pittsburgh Pa. |
Join USW – UE and many, many others on Sunday, Sept 20th, 2 p.m.
In front of Monumental Baptist Church, Soho Street & Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh
In front of Monumental Baptist Church, Soho Street & Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh
If your community, union or student group is not already on board—there is still time to get involved.
- Endorse – Organize – and Mobilize!
- Distribute flyers and send out email notices.
- Bring a bus, van or car from your city, town or neighborhood – tell us so we can plan parking.
- Donate $ so that those without funds can attend.
VERY IMPORTANT: Please REGISTER for the Tent City.
If you are going to be participating at the ‘Solidarity with the Unemployed’ Tent City following the March 4 Jobs—it’s critical to register to make sure there are resources and space available. Space is limited. Pre-registration is required.
Register at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/
We need your help:
- Funds are urgently needed to help subsidize buses and vans and to assist with organizing costs for the "March for Jobs." - http://bailoutpeople.org/
donate.shtml - Volunteer - http://www.bailoutpeople.org/
septg20volorgcents.shtml - Download leaflets at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/
pdfs/g20leaflecolor.pdf - Join the BOPM Facebook Group - http://www.facebook.com/
business/dashboard/?ref=sb#/ pages/Bail-Out-The-People- Movement/112781742929 - Follow BOPM on Twitter - http://twitter.com/
bailoutpeoplem
U.N. figures to greet NY 'People's Economic Summit' May 31
In front of UN at 47th St & 1st Ave,
Sessions and Panels: 11am to 5pm
Main Plenary starts at 1:pm
Byron Blake, United Nations ambassador for Jamaica and senior advisor to President of UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto-Brockmann, will bring greetings from UN President d’Escoto to the People's Economic Summit's plenary session on May 31 in New York. Ambassador Blake.
The People's Economic Summit, called by the U.S.-based Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM) and other organizations, was first called to show solidarity with the U.N. Conference on the Economic Crisis that had been scheduled for June 1-3. The summit will also discuss plans to organize protests in Pittsburgh, PA., in September to protest at the next G20 meeting.
The June 1-3 U.N. Conference was aimed at representing all U.N. members in confronting the worldwide economic crisis and not just the restricted elite powers of the G8 or G20. Pressure from some of the G8 countries forced the U.N. organizers to postpone the UN Conference to June 24-26. But those organizing the People’s Economic Summit say that the forced posponement simply means that the peoples struggle against the bankers is more important than ever and their summit must go on.
Hundreds of participants representing community organizations, solidarity groups, women's, lesbian/gay/bi/trans, workers' unions and other progressive organizations will join the Peoples Summit from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. in a summit tent city across the street from the U.N. on May 31 under a tent at 47th Street and Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza.
Besides Byron Blake, featured speakers include: Cynthia McKinney, Ramsey Clark, Ajamu Sankofa, Vinie Burrows, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Nellie Bailey, City Councilperson Charles Barron, Chris Silvera, Brenda Stokely, Larry Hamm, Lynne Stewart, Rev. Lucius Walker, Dulphing Ogan and Curtis Doebbler.
BOPM organizer Larry Holmes said that "because of recent developments, the May 31 Summit will not only be a critical opportunity to discuss the causes of the world economic crisis, hear the voices of those who are suffering the most because of this crisis and plan mass action, it will also be a protest against the G20 governments, especially the U.S. and European imperialist powers that have conspired for six months to either derail, discredit, or weaken the U.N. economic summit."
"The People's Economic Summit, Holmes added, "will be discussing such things as how can the mass movements work together, how can we elevate the organization of the unemployed in the struggle for jobs, and in specific terms how will the movement here respond to the next G20 summit meeting scheduled to take place in September in Pittsburgh, Penna."
Holmes concluded, "The campaign of the rich against the U.N. conference on the world economic crisis should and must serve as a reminder that changes from above are only possible if there is mass resistance from below. It is to this understanding and this purpose that the People’s Economic Summit is dedicated."
For more information:
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
http://www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: http://bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
Sessions and Panels: 11am to 5pm
Main Plenary starts at 1:pm
Byron Blake, United Nations ambassador for Jamaica and senior advisor to President of UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto-Brockmann, will bring greetings from UN President d’Escoto to the People's Economic Summit's plenary session on May 31 in New York. Ambassador Blake.
The People's Economic Summit, called by the U.S.-based Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM) and other organizations, was first called to show solidarity with the U.N. Conference on the Economic Crisis that had been scheduled for June 1-3. The summit will also discuss plans to organize protests in Pittsburgh, PA., in September to protest at the next G20 meeting.
The June 1-3 U.N. Conference was aimed at representing all U.N. members in confronting the worldwide economic crisis and not just the restricted elite powers of the G8 or G20. Pressure from some of the G8 countries forced the U.N. organizers to postpone the UN Conference to June 24-26. But those organizing the People’s Economic Summit say that the forced posponement simply means that the peoples struggle against the bankers is more important than ever and their summit must go on.
Hundreds of participants representing community organizations, solidarity groups, women's, lesbian/gay/bi/trans, workers' unions and other progressive organizations will join the Peoples Summit from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. in a summit tent city across the street from the U.N. on May 31 under a tent at 47th Street and Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza.
Besides Byron Blake, featured speakers include: Cynthia McKinney, Ramsey Clark, Ajamu Sankofa, Vinie Burrows, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Nellie Bailey, City Councilperson Charles Barron, Chris Silvera, Brenda Stokely, Larry Hamm, Lynne Stewart, Rev. Lucius Walker, Dulphing Ogan and Curtis Doebbler.
BOPM organizer Larry Holmes said that "because of recent developments, the May 31 Summit will not only be a critical opportunity to discuss the causes of the world economic crisis, hear the voices of those who are suffering the most because of this crisis and plan mass action, it will also be a protest against the G20 governments, especially the U.S. and European imperialist powers that have conspired for six months to either derail, discredit, or weaken the U.N. economic summit."
"The People's Economic Summit, Holmes added, "will be discussing such things as how can the mass movements work together, how can we elevate the organization of the unemployed in the struggle for jobs, and in specific terms how will the movement here respond to the next G20 summit meeting scheduled to take place in September in Pittsburgh, Penna."
Holmes concluded, "The campaign of the rich against the U.N. conference on the world economic crisis should and must serve as a reminder that changes from above are only possible if there is mass resistance from below. It is to this understanding and this purpose that the People’s Economic Summit is dedicated."
For more information:
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
http://www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: http://bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
May 31 People's Summit ON, protest G20's forced delay of UN EconCrisis Conference
The People's Economic Summit WILL go ahead on schedule Sunday, May 31 - Under Tents in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza
The G20 countries' forced postponement of the
UN Conference on the Economic Crisis
MEANS THAT THE PEOPLES STRUGGLE AGAINST
THE BANKERS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER!
Although pressure and hostility on the part of some G20 governments has resulted in the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development being postponed from June 1 to 3 until June 24 to 26, the People's Economic Summit this Sunday, May 31 will go on as scheduled. The summit will take place from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. in a summit tent city across the street from the UN in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, 47 St. and 1st Ave. The Bail Out the People Movement encourages all who have made plans to attend the People's Economic Summit on May 31 not to change those plans. The postponement of the UN meeting makes it all the more necessary that we meet on Sunday.
Because of recent developments, the May 31 Summit will not only be a critical opportunity to discuss the causes of the world economic crisis, hear the voices of those who are suffering the most because of this crisis and plan mass action, it will also be a protest against the G20 governments, especially the U.S. and European imperialist powers that have conspired for six months to either derail, discredit, or weaken the UN economic summit.
The governments and banking establishments of the U.S. and Europe, whose greed has pushed the world into the gravest economic crisis since the depression of the 1930s never wanted the UN economic conference because they don't want to listen to the poor of the world and they don't want their imperial hegemony over the world economy challenged even in the slightest way.
The rich want to use the UN, especially the Security Council, to legitimize U.S. occupation and war, or to condemn, isolate and starve countries like North Korea and Iran. The rich don't want the poor using the UN as a vehicle to demand or implement any measures that might make the governance over the world's economy, wealth and resources a little more democratic, or equitable, or less driven by greed and profits. The only UN meeting that Wall Street is interested in is one that rubber stamps the continued globalization of poverty for the maximization of their profits.
If you haven't done so yet, read the proposals in draft of the UN Economic Conference Outcome document made public on May 8 at http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/interactive/financialcrisis/outcomedoc.pdf. Amongst other reasonable measures, the document proposes that three trillion dollars, a mere 5% of the world's GDP, be allocated to bail out poor countries where the scourges of hunger, disease and homelessness have been made immeasurably worst by the worldwide depression. The bankers of the world, who have insisted that they get tens of trillions of dollars of bail out money, don't want to share any this fortune with anyone, least of all the poor of the planet.
Any measure in the May 8 document that calls for power and wealth being shared with the poor and working people of the planet will be furiously resisted by the powers that be.
The banks that the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve have given trillions of dollars to have recently demonstrated that they have the power to stop the U.S. Congress from doing anything meaningful to stop the mass eviction of millions due to home foreclosures. These very same banks believe they have the right and the power to stop the UN from bailing out the poor, and unless people organize and fight back, the banks will prevail.
The campaign of the rich against the UN conference on the world economic crisis should and must serve as a reminder that changes from above are only possible if there is mass resistance from below. It is this understanding and this purpose that the People's Economic Summit is dedicated to. The People's Economic Summit will be discussing such things as how can the mass movements work together, how can we elevate the organization of the unemployed in the struggle for jobs, and how do we respond to the next G20 summit meeting scheduled to take place in September in NYC. Please join us, take part in this important discussion and help realize the vision and plans that come out of it.
The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to a
People's Economic Summit in New York City
Another world is urgently necessary - but we must fight for it.
Sunday May 31--11 a.m.
Inside tents in DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, 47th St. & 1st Ave.
What you can do:
1) Endorse: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/peoplessummitendorse.shtml
2) Spread the word - forward this message to friends, fellow activists, community organizers, trade unionists, and student organizations. Ask them to endorse and participate.
3) Donate to help with organizing expenses: http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
4) Volunteer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
5) Become a local organizer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
http://www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: http://bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
The G20 countries' forced postponement of the
UN Conference on the Economic Crisis
MEANS THAT THE PEOPLES STRUGGLE AGAINST
THE BANKERS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER!
Although pressure and hostility on the part of some G20 governments has resulted in the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development being postponed from June 1 to 3 until June 24 to 26, the People's Economic Summit this Sunday, May 31 will go on as scheduled. The summit will take place from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. in a summit tent city across the street from the UN in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, 47 St. and 1st Ave. The Bail Out the People Movement encourages all who have made plans to attend the People's Economic Summit on May 31 not to change those plans. The postponement of the UN meeting makes it all the more necessary that we meet on Sunday.
Because of recent developments, the May 31 Summit will not only be a critical opportunity to discuss the causes of the world economic crisis, hear the voices of those who are suffering the most because of this crisis and plan mass action, it will also be a protest against the G20 governments, especially the U.S. and European imperialist powers that have conspired for six months to either derail, discredit, or weaken the UN economic summit.
The governments and banking establishments of the U.S. and Europe, whose greed has pushed the world into the gravest economic crisis since the depression of the 1930s never wanted the UN economic conference because they don't want to listen to the poor of the world and they don't want their imperial hegemony over the world economy challenged even in the slightest way.
The rich want to use the UN, especially the Security Council, to legitimize U.S. occupation and war, or to condemn, isolate and starve countries like North Korea and Iran. The rich don't want the poor using the UN as a vehicle to demand or implement any measures that might make the governance over the world's economy, wealth and resources a little more democratic, or equitable, or less driven by greed and profits. The only UN meeting that Wall Street is interested in is one that rubber stamps the continued globalization of poverty for the maximization of their profits.
If you haven't done so yet, read the proposals in draft of the UN Economic Conference Outcome document made public on May 8 at http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/interactive/financialcrisis/outcomedoc.pdf. Amongst other reasonable measures, the document proposes that three trillion dollars, a mere 5% of the world's GDP, be allocated to bail out poor countries where the scourges of hunger, disease and homelessness have been made immeasurably worst by the worldwide depression. The bankers of the world, who have insisted that they get tens of trillions of dollars of bail out money, don't want to share any this fortune with anyone, least of all the poor of the planet.
Any measure in the May 8 document that calls for power and wealth being shared with the poor and working people of the planet will be furiously resisted by the powers that be.
The banks that the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve have given trillions of dollars to have recently demonstrated that they have the power to stop the U.S. Congress from doing anything meaningful to stop the mass eviction of millions due to home foreclosures. These very same banks believe they have the right and the power to stop the UN from bailing out the poor, and unless people organize and fight back, the banks will prevail.
The campaign of the rich against the UN conference on the world economic crisis should and must serve as a reminder that changes from above are only possible if there is mass resistance from below. It is this understanding and this purpose that the People's Economic Summit is dedicated to. The People's Economic Summit will be discussing such things as how can the mass movements work together, how can we elevate the organization of the unemployed in the struggle for jobs, and how do we respond to the next G20 summit meeting scheduled to take place in September in NYC. Please join us, take part in this important discussion and help realize the vision and plans that come out of it.
The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to a
People's Economic Summit in New York City
Another world is urgently necessary - but we must fight for it.
Sunday May 31--11 a.m.
Inside tents in DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, 47th St. & 1st Ave.
What you can do:
1) Endorse: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/peoplessummitendorse.shtml
2) Spread the word - forward this message to friends, fellow activists, community organizers, trade unionists, and student organizations. Ask them to endorse and participate.
3) Donate to help with organizing expenses: http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
4) Volunteer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
5) Become a local organizer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
http://www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: http://bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
Demand G20 Head of State participation in U.N.World Economic Crisis Conference!
Sign the Petition Online Now - http://www.iacenter.org/uneconconf
Support U.N. Economic Crisis World Conference
AN URGENT CALL TO G-20 COUNTRIES: Treat the UN G-192 ECONOMIC CRISIS Summit Seriously
The June 1-3 UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis needs the highest level of participation from all countries
Initiated by 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award winner Ramsey Clark
Based on the global capitalist economic crisis which is wreaking havoc on the lives of hundreds of millions of people world wide, United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto-Brockman is organizing an urgent Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, to take place on June 1-3 at the United Nations in New York City. This international gathering, sometimes called the G-192 because every member nation of the UN will participate, is virtually tenfold the participation of nations in the G-20. This summit of world leaders will for the first time give an equal opportunity to those who represent the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, those who are suffering the most but who have been left out in the decisions which have caused this systemic failure, to express their people’s needs to the world and make known their suffering caused by arbitrary acts and excesses of rich nations. The powerful financial institutions that have long been entrusted to manage national and global financial and economic systems have failed. It is time to give all the others a voice and a choice. It is critical that the United States and the other G-20 nations treat this conference seriously and send their heads of state to participate fully to hear what the most impacted nations have to say.
Let President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Congressional leaders, Governments of G20 countries, U.N. General Assembly President D'Escoto-Brockman, U.N. Secretary General Ban, members of the U.N. Security Council, U.N. member states, and Major media representatives know you support this urgent call initiated by 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award recipient Ramsey Clark for all countries, and particularly the G20 countries, to fully support the U.N. June 1-3 Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development including by participating in the conference at the Head of State level.
Sign the Petition Online Now - http://www.iacenter.org/uneconconf
The eyes of the world as well as the eyes of many here in the U.S. will be focused on the important UN conference.
Indeed, activists and social movements from the U.S. and around the world will hold a “Peoples Economic Summit” in conjunction with the UN Conference on Sunday May 31, under tents in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 47 St. and 1st Ave. (directly across the street from the UN). For more information on this event see www.bailoutpeople.org
Petition Text:
AN URGENT CALL TO G-20 COUNTRIES: Treat the UN G-192 ECONOMIC CRISIS Summit Seriously
The June 1-3, 2009 UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development Needs the Highest Level of Participation from all Countries
To: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Congressional leaders, Governments of G20 countries, U.N. General Assembly President d'Escoto-Brockmann, U.N. Secretary General Ban, members of the U.N. Security Council, U.N. member states, and Major media representatives:
General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockman will convene a critical, high level United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, to be held at UN headquarters, on 1-3 June 2009. This international gathering, sometimes called the G-192 because every member nation of the UN will participate, is virtually tenfold the participation of nations in the G-20. The Conference's goal is to identify emergency and long-term responses to arrest and reverse the worst world global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and assure that such a self-inflicted human tragedy never happens again.
This summit of world leaders will for the first time give an equal opportunity to those who represent the world's poorest and most vulnerable people, those who are suffering the most but who have been left out in the decisions which have caused this systemic failure, to express their people's needs to the world and make known their suffering caused by arbitrary acts and excesses of rich nations. The powerful financial institutions that have long been entrusted to manage national and global financial and economic systems have failed. It is time to give all the others a voice and a choice.
This Conference must be the starting point in a process that will allow a reevaluation and reform, or replacement of the institutions and policies that have failed to meet the urgent and growing needs of the world's developing countries for investment in human capital. The present institutions and policies have totally failed to meet the most fundamental challenges of the 21st century that must protect all nations and people from devastating economic collapses that are more deadly and costly than ever, including the challenge to protect our Mother Earth from the rapacious destruction that threatens us all.
If the United Nations is to meet its responsibility to assure stability and sustainability to the international economic and financial order, then all the nations of the world must participate. This is the G-192.
For this Conference to be successful, I join in calling upon all countries, and especially the richest and most powerful countries that are members of G-20, to lend their full support to it and wherever possible to send their heads of government to attend. There is no issue that will have greater impact on the future of humanity, even war which is most often the child of economic conflict. I urge the widest dissemination of this international conference's proposals, documents, initiatives. and an unrelenting commitment to the creation of economic and financial policies and institutions that will achieve freedom from want for all.
Sincerely,
Initiated and signed by
Ramsey Clark, winner, 2008 U.N.Human Rights Award and Founder, International Action Center
Add your signature to this letter now - go to http://www.iacenter.org/uneconconf
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May 31: PEOPLE'S ECONOMIC SUMMIT IN NEW YORK CITY
Endorse this Call: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/peoplessummitendorse.shtml
The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to a: PEOPLE'S ECONOMIC SUMMIT IN NEW YORK CITY
Another world is urgently necessary - but we must fight for it.
Sunday May 31--11 a.m. to 5:30pm
DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, 47th St. & 1st Ave. NYC
(in conjunction with the UN Summit on the World Economic Crisis, June 1-3 in NYC)
Two meetings on the world economic crisis are taking place in NYC in less than a month.
One of the meetings is the June 1 - 3 UN General Assembly's International Conference on the Global Economic and Financial Crisis. On Sunday, May 31, the day before the UN meeting, the People's Economic Summit will take place directly across the street from the UN building, under tents in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. The theme of the Peoples Economic Summit is "A NEW WORLD IS URGENTLY NECESSARY–BUT WE MUST FIGHT FOR IT."
It remains to be seen whether these important meetings will get the same kind of attention that the U.S. and world corporate media give to a meeting of the G20--the Group of Twenty finance ministers and central bank governors. This is because in different ways, these meetings are a challenge to the domination of the world economy by the economic system and governments of the G20, especially the U.S. and the other longstanding imperialist powers that still comprise the so-called G7 nations. World events have forced these imperialist powers to incorporate the major developing countries into a broader framework that is now the G20.
The UN conference on the economic crisis, which some are referring to as the G192 Summit--for the 192 member nations of the UN--is, at its most elementary level, a response to exclusionary character of the G20 meetings. On another level, the UN meeting is an attempt by some of the more progressive governments to challenge both the hegemony of the major imperialist powers over the world economy, as well as the capitalist system.
After recently meeting in Cumaná in the Venezuelan state of Sucre, representatives of several governments including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua issued the April 21 Declaration of Cumaná. Wasting no time to get to its central point, the Cumaná statement begins: "Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis."
The statement asserts: "It is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on: solidarity and complementarity, not competition; a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources; a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries; a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars; in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise."
In anticipation of the UN meeting, the statement affirms: "The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order."
Because of the unique nature of the June UN conference, a broad coalition of forces is coming together to hold a People's Economic Summit in conjunction with the UN General Assembly Conference on the World Financial and Economic crisis. The goal of the one-day People's Economic Summit is to bring together activists, organizers and leaders from the various movements and struggles most impacted by the devastating global crisis around the region, the country, and some from around the world--the people who are losing their homes, livelihoods, healthcare, education and futures. These are the voices that must be heard by all the governments.
The biggest worldwide economic crisis since the 1930 has re-raised, with even greater urgency, the need for people in the U.S. and people everywhere to liberate themselves from the grasp of the capitalist system, for the sake of self-defense and self-preservation.
One of the panels during the People's Economic Summit, entitled "Another World is Urgently Necessary," will examine the roots of the financial and economic crisis, as well as the case for alternatives to capitalism and imperialism. Another panel, entitled "But We Must Fight For It," will take up the critical discussion of building the mass movement/s and formulating a program and strategy essential to the task of bringing into being a serious mass struggle for jobs, an end to foreclosures and evictions, and new rights for working and poor people.
Along with these and other panels there will be workshops on "Resisting Imperialist War and Occupation," including the central importance of the Palestinian liberation struggle. A major session of the People's Economic Summit will be dedicated to planning major protest at the Next G20 Summit, which is being planned for NYC in late September.
Representatives of progressive governments participating in the UN conference are being invited to participate in the People's Economic Summit.
The views of the governments that signed the Cumaná statement represent the interests of the overwhelming population of the planet, but it may not represent many of the 192 member governments of the UN. Some governments want to limit the UN conference to a discussion of merely reforming the world financial system. A few imperialist super-powers are threatened by any challenge to their global domination. It is not clear whether the U.S. government will attend the UN economic crisis conference, or boycott it as they did the recent UN conference on racism in Geneva.
The main importance of this UN conference is that it is a forum for widening the political struggle against imperialist global hegemony. Our hope is that the May 31 People's Economic Summit will amplify the struggle inside the UN, strengthen it and make it relevant to the struggle in the streets.
A People's Summit will also be held in Detroit, Michigan - June 14 to 17 to oppose the National Business Summit.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1) Endorse: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/peoplessummitendorse.shtml
2) Spread the word - forward this message to friends, fellow activists, community organizers, trade unionists, and student organizations. Ask them to endorse and participate.
3) Donate to help with organizing expenses: http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
4) Volunteer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
5) Become a local organizer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
Bail Out the People Movement Solidarity Center 55 W. 17th St. #5C New York, NY 10011 212.633.6646 www.BailOutPeople.org Email: bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to a: PEOPLE'S ECONOMIC SUMMIT IN NEW YORK CITY
Another world is urgently necessary - but we must fight for it.
Sunday May 31--11 a.m. to 5:30pm
DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, 47th St. & 1st Ave. NYC
(in conjunction with the UN Summit on the World Economic Crisis, June 1-3 in NYC)
Two meetings on the world economic crisis are taking place in NYC in less than a month.
One of the meetings is the June 1 - 3 UN General Assembly's International Conference on the Global Economic and Financial Crisis. On Sunday, May 31, the day before the UN meeting, the People's Economic Summit will take place directly across the street from the UN building, under tents in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. The theme of the Peoples Economic Summit is "A NEW WORLD IS URGENTLY NECESSARY–BUT WE MUST FIGHT FOR IT."
It remains to be seen whether these important meetings will get the same kind of attention that the U.S. and world corporate media give to a meeting of the G20--the Group of Twenty finance ministers and central bank governors. This is because in different ways, these meetings are a challenge to the domination of the world economy by the economic system and governments of the G20, especially the U.S. and the other longstanding imperialist powers that still comprise the so-called G7 nations. World events have forced these imperialist powers to incorporate the major developing countries into a broader framework that is now the G20.
The UN conference on the economic crisis, which some are referring to as the G192 Summit--for the 192 member nations of the UN--is, at its most elementary level, a response to exclusionary character of the G20 meetings. On another level, the UN meeting is an attempt by some of the more progressive governments to challenge both the hegemony of the major imperialist powers over the world economy, as well as the capitalist system.
After recently meeting in Cumaná in the Venezuelan state of Sucre, representatives of several governments including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua issued the April 21 Declaration of Cumaná. Wasting no time to get to its central point, the Cumaná statement begins: "Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis."
The statement asserts: "It is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on: solidarity and complementarity, not competition; a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources; a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries; a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars; in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise."
In anticipation of the UN meeting, the statement affirms: "The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order."
Because of the unique nature of the June UN conference, a broad coalition of forces is coming together to hold a People's Economic Summit in conjunction with the UN General Assembly Conference on the World Financial and Economic crisis. The goal of the one-day People's Economic Summit is to bring together activists, organizers and leaders from the various movements and struggles most impacted by the devastating global crisis around the region, the country, and some from around the world--the people who are losing their homes, livelihoods, healthcare, education and futures. These are the voices that must be heard by all the governments.
The biggest worldwide economic crisis since the 1930 has re-raised, with even greater urgency, the need for people in the U.S. and people everywhere to liberate themselves from the grasp of the capitalist system, for the sake of self-defense and self-preservation.
One of the panels during the People's Economic Summit, entitled "Another World is Urgently Necessary," will examine the roots of the financial and economic crisis, as well as the case for alternatives to capitalism and imperialism. Another panel, entitled "But We Must Fight For It," will take up the critical discussion of building the mass movement/s and formulating a program and strategy essential to the task of bringing into being a serious mass struggle for jobs, an end to foreclosures and evictions, and new rights for working and poor people.
Along with these and other panels there will be workshops on "Resisting Imperialist War and Occupation," including the central importance of the Palestinian liberation struggle. A major session of the People's Economic Summit will be dedicated to planning major protest at the Next G20 Summit, which is being planned for NYC in late September.
Representatives of progressive governments participating in the UN conference are being invited to participate in the People's Economic Summit.
The views of the governments that signed the Cumaná statement represent the interests of the overwhelming population of the planet, but it may not represent many of the 192 member governments of the UN. Some governments want to limit the UN conference to a discussion of merely reforming the world financial system. A few imperialist super-powers are threatened by any challenge to their global domination. It is not clear whether the U.S. government will attend the UN economic crisis conference, or boycott it as they did the recent UN conference on racism in Geneva.
The main importance of this UN conference is that it is a forum for widening the political struggle against imperialist global hegemony. Our hope is that the May 31 People's Economic Summit will amplify the struggle inside the UN, strengthen it and make it relevant to the struggle in the streets.
A People's Summit will also be held in Detroit, Michigan - June 14 to 17 to oppose the National Business Summit.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1) Endorse: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/peoplessummitendorse.shtml
2) Spread the word - forward this message to friends, fellow activists, community organizers, trade unionists, and student organizations. Ask them to endorse and participate.
3) Donate to help with organizing expenses: http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
4) Volunteer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
5) Become a local organizer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
Bail Out the People Movement Solidarity Center 55 W. 17th St. #5C New York, NY 10011 212.633.6646 www.BailOutPeople.org Email: bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
May 31: People's Economic Summit in New York City
The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to a
People's Economic Summit in New York City
Another world is urgently necessary - but we must fight for it.
Sunday May 31--11 a.m.
Inside tents in DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, 47th St. & 1st Ave.
(in conjunction with the UN Summit on the World Economic Crisis, June 1-3 in NYC)
Two meetings on the world economic crisis are taking place in NYC in less than a month.
One of the meetings is the June 1 - 3 UN General Assembly's International Conference on the Global Economic and Financial Crisis. On Sunday, May 31, the day before the UN meeting, the People's Economic Summit will take place directly across the street from the UN building, under tents in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. The theme of the Peoples Economic Summit is "A NEW WORLD IS URGENTLY NECESSARY–BUT WE MUST FIGHT FOR IT."
It remains to be seen whether these important meetings will get the same kind of attention that the U.S. and world corporate media give to a meeting of the G20--the Group of Twenty finance ministers and central bank governors. This is because in different ways, these meetings are a challenge to the domination of the world economy by the economic system and governments of the G20, especially the U.S. and the other longstanding imperialist powers that still comprise the so-called G7 nations. World events have forced these imperialist powers to incorporate the major developing countries into a broader framework that is now the G20.
The UN conference on the economic crisis, which some are referring to as the G192 Summit--for the 192 member nations of the UN--is, at its most elementary level, a response to exclusionary character of the G20 meetings. On another level, the UN meeting is an attempt by some of the more progressive governments to challenge both the hegemony of the major imperialist powers over the world economy, as well as the capitalist system.
After recently meeting in Cumaná in the Venezuelan state of Sucre, representatives of several governments including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua issued the April 21 Declaration of Cumaná. Wasting no time to get to its central point, the Cumaná statement begins: "Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis."
The statement asserts: "It is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on: solidarity and complementarity, not competition; a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources; a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries; a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars; in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise."
In anticipation of the UN meeting, the statement affirms: "The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order."
Because of the unique nature of the June UN conference, The Bail Out the People Movement decided to call a People's Economic Summit in conjunction with it. The goal of the one-day People's Economic Summit is to bring together activists, organizers and leaders from the various movements and struggles around the region, the country, and some from around the world.
The biggest worldwide economic crisis since the 1930s has re-raised, with even greater urgency, the need for people in the U.S. and people everywhere to liberate themselves from the grasp of the capitalist system, for the sake of self-defense and self-preservation.
One of the panels during the People's Economic Summit, entitled "Another World is Urgently Necessary," will examine the roots of the financial and economic crisis, as well as the case for alternatives to capitalism and imperialism. Another panel, entitled "But We Must Fight For It," will take up the critical discussion of building the mass movement/s and formulating a program and strategy essential to bringing into being a serious mass struggle for jobs, an end to foreclosures and evictions, and new rights for working and poor people.
Along with these and other panels there will be workshops on "Resisting Imperialist War and Occupation," including the central importance of the Palestinian liberation struggle. A major session of the People's Economic Summit will be dedicated to planning major protests at the next G20 Summit, which is being planned for NYC in late September.
Representatives of progressive governments participating in the UN conference are being invited to participate in the People's Economic Summit.
Of course, the views of the governments that signed the Cumaná statement do not represent most of the 192 member nations of the UN. Other governments want to limit the UN conference to a discussion of merely reforming the world financial system. It is not clear whether the U.S. government will attend the UN economic crisis conference, or boycott it as they did the recent UN conference on racism in Geneva. In either case, few harbor any illusions that the UN conference will bring about any important change. Its main importance is that it is a forum for widening the political struggle against imperialist global hegemony. Our hope is that the May 31 People's Economic Summit will amplify, strengthen, and make relevant to the struggle in the streets, the struggle inside the UN.
What you can do:
1) Endorse: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/peoplessummitendorse.shtml
2) Spread the word - forward this message to friends, fellow activists, community organizers, trade unionists, and student organizations. Ask them to endorse and participate.
3) Donate to help with organizing expenses: http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
4) Volunteer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
5) Become a local organizer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
People's Economic Summit in New York City
Another world is urgently necessary - but we must fight for it.
Sunday May 31--11 a.m.
Inside tents in DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, 47th St. & 1st Ave.
(in conjunction with the UN Summit on the World Economic Crisis, June 1-3 in NYC)
Two meetings on the world economic crisis are taking place in NYC in less than a month.
One of the meetings is the June 1 - 3 UN General Assembly's International Conference on the Global Economic and Financial Crisis. On Sunday, May 31, the day before the UN meeting, the People's Economic Summit will take place directly across the street from the UN building, under tents in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. The theme of the Peoples Economic Summit is "A NEW WORLD IS URGENTLY NECESSARY–BUT WE MUST FIGHT FOR IT."
It remains to be seen whether these important meetings will get the same kind of attention that the U.S. and world corporate media give to a meeting of the G20--the Group of Twenty finance ministers and central bank governors. This is because in different ways, these meetings are a challenge to the domination of the world economy by the economic system and governments of the G20, especially the U.S. and the other longstanding imperialist powers that still comprise the so-called G7 nations. World events have forced these imperialist powers to incorporate the major developing countries into a broader framework that is now the G20.
The UN conference on the economic crisis, which some are referring to as the G192 Summit--for the 192 member nations of the UN--is, at its most elementary level, a response to exclusionary character of the G20 meetings. On another level, the UN meeting is an attempt by some of the more progressive governments to challenge both the hegemony of the major imperialist powers over the world economy, as well as the capitalist system.
After recently meeting in Cumaná in the Venezuelan state of Sucre, representatives of several governments including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua issued the April 21 Declaration of Cumaná. Wasting no time to get to its central point, the Cumaná statement begins: "Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis."
The statement asserts: "It is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on: solidarity and complementarity, not competition; a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources; a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries; a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars; in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise."
In anticipation of the UN meeting, the statement affirms: "The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order."
Because of the unique nature of the June UN conference, The Bail Out the People Movement decided to call a People's Economic Summit in conjunction with it. The goal of the one-day People's Economic Summit is to bring together activists, organizers and leaders from the various movements and struggles around the region, the country, and some from around the world.
The biggest worldwide economic crisis since the 1930s has re-raised, with even greater urgency, the need for people in the U.S. and people everywhere to liberate themselves from the grasp of the capitalist system, for the sake of self-defense and self-preservation.
One of the panels during the People's Economic Summit, entitled "Another World is Urgently Necessary," will examine the roots of the financial and economic crisis, as well as the case for alternatives to capitalism and imperialism. Another panel, entitled "But We Must Fight For It," will take up the critical discussion of building the mass movement/s and formulating a program and strategy essential to bringing into being a serious mass struggle for jobs, an end to foreclosures and evictions, and new rights for working and poor people.
Along with these and other panels there will be workshops on "Resisting Imperialist War and Occupation," including the central importance of the Palestinian liberation struggle. A major session of the People's Economic Summit will be dedicated to planning major protests at the next G20 Summit, which is being planned for NYC in late September.
Representatives of progressive governments participating in the UN conference are being invited to participate in the People's Economic Summit.
Of course, the views of the governments that signed the Cumaná statement do not represent most of the 192 member nations of the UN. Other governments want to limit the UN conference to a discussion of merely reforming the world financial system. It is not clear whether the U.S. government will attend the UN economic crisis conference, or boycott it as they did the recent UN conference on racism in Geneva. In either case, few harbor any illusions that the UN conference will bring about any important change. Its main importance is that it is a forum for widening the political struggle against imperialist global hegemony. Our hope is that the May 31 People's Economic Summit will amplify, strengthen, and make relevant to the struggle in the streets, the struggle inside the UN.
What you can do:
1) Endorse: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/peoplessummitendorse.shtml
2) Spread the word - forward this message to friends, fellow activists, community organizers, trade unionists, and student organizations. Ask them to endorse and participate.
3) Donate to help with organizing expenses: http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
4) Volunteer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
5) Become a local organizer: http://www.bailoutpeople.org/g20-peoplessummitsvolorgcents.shtml
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
www.BailOutPeople.org
Email: bailoutpeople.org/cmnt.shtml
Wed., April 29 & Fri., May 1: Protest at Bank Of America HQ in Charlotte, NC
On Wed., April 29 & Fri., May 1, 2009:
Join the protests at Bank Of America for Economic & Environmental Justice
Unite with labor, students, environmental, anti-war, anti-racist, community activists & others
Wed., April 29, 2009 at 9 AM
BOA Shareholders Meeting
Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
130 N. Tryon Charlotte, NC
*******************
May Day Rally for Jobs, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Workers, & Immigrants Rights at Bank Of America National Headquarters
YES to: Jobs, Housing, Pro-Worker Immigration Reform, Employee Free Choice Act & Money for the People!
NO to: Raids, Deportations, 287(g), Imprisonment, Forced migration, Labor export, Racism, Foreclosures, & Bank Bail Outs!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Noon
Bank Of America HQ
Trade St & Tryon St
Charlotte, NC
March to Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center & Mecklenburg Co Jail - Central around 6:00pm
On May 1st, join us and help build a movement to fight for the rights of working people. Join billions around the world who also demonstrate on May Day to build a powerful global movement that fights against the dire economic and social crisis people face here and around the world.
To endorse, volunteer, or for more info email may1charlotte@gmail.com or see Immigrant & Workers Rights Project http://immigrantworkers.blogspot.com
DONATE - Support our work by sending donations to Action Center For Justice, 7100 Mapleridge Dr, Charlotte, NC 28210
Working people here and worldwide are facing a growing crisis.
Unemployment is reaching record levels; nearly 20 million people are unemployed or underemployed. Tens of thousands of people have been thrown out of their homes as the foreclosure and eviction crisis grows. State and local budgets are being slashed, with draconian cuts in education, housing, and h ealthcare, while tuition, and transit fares increase. Every day we hear news of a new round of layoffs.
What is often not reported is the growing movement among working people to demand a real bail out--not handouts to wealthy CEOs, but immediate relief for the people. On April 3 & 4, thousands converged on Wall Street, Los Angeles, Raleigh, N.C ., and Seattle, to demand “Bail out the people, not the banks and corporations.” (See http://bailoutpeople.org/april3report.shtml for a report and video on the Wall Street protest.)
What’s next? Come out on May 1! In 2006, immigrants and their supporters marched in record numbers. They held some of the biggest demonstrations seen in decades, demanding an end to the repressive Sensenbrenner bill which penalized immigrant workers.
Since 2006, workers have marched to commemorate May 1, International Workers Day, even as the crisis is growing among immigrant workers. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are on the rise. Families are being ripped apart as parents are hauled away to detention centers without legal rights or due process. Children are often left stranded at school when their parents are swept up in this terror campaign.
The horrific raids and deportations, the criminalizing of workers, the beatings and killings are meant to not just to terrorize immigrant workers but to divide us, when we should join together and build a united movement.
There is now a great opportunity for working and progressive people to help continue to revive the legacy of May Day in the spirit of unity and common interest. Now, more than ever, it is vital that we work to build on the growing success of previous May Day demonstrations.
As all workers face a growing crisis, now is the time to unite and organize in our own name and for our own interests.
We’ve already seen Washington and Wall Street’s economic plan: trillions of dollars in bailouts for banks and giant financial institutions, while working people get service cuts, unemployment, and homelessness.
If we’re going to reverse this trend, we need to come out in record numbers on May 1 and beyond. Protests will be held nationwide--in the East, West, North and South.
May 1 marks the first 100 days of the Obama administration. A united movement of people with documents and without, Black, Latin a/o, Asian, Arab, Native and white, employed and unemployed, youth and seniors, women, men, LGBT or straight, able-bodied and disabled, will send a clear message to Washington and to Wall Street.
After May Day, the Bail Out the People Movement will continue to help to build a united movement to fight for working people’s rights. On May 31, just before the June 1-3 UN General Assembly Global Financial Summit, we will hold a Peoples’ Summit to focus the discussion on the real crisis.
On June 14-17, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan, a member organization of the Bail Out the People Movement, will hold a Peoples' Summit during the National Business Summit. Activists are planning a tent city and other events to confront the big-business CEOs and politicians gathering for the Business Summit.
In September, the G20 will meet in New York City, to coincide with the UN General Assembly’s annual meeting. We will not let this meeting of heads of state, finance ministers, and corporate lobbyists go unchallenged. Bail Out the People Movement is already preparing for protests then to demand a bail out for people, not banks.
And since this is strictly a grassroots movement, we need to appeal to you—our friends and supporters—to donate to help build this vital movement.
We hope to see you on May Day.
In solidarity and with our thanks,
The Bail Out the People Movement staff
************************
Action Center For Justice
www.charlotteaction.blogspot.com
To be added send an email to actioncenter-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Join the protests at Bank Of America for Economic & Environmental Justice
Unite with labor, students, environmental, anti-war, anti-racist, community activists & others
Wed., April 29, 2009 at 9 AM
BOA Shareholders Meeting
Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
130 N. Tryon Charlotte, NC
*******************
May Day Rally for Jobs, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Workers, & Immigrants Rights at Bank Of America National Headquarters
YES to: Jobs, Housing, Pro-Worker Immigration Reform, Employee Free Choice Act & Money for the People!
NO to: Raids, Deportations, 287(g), Imprisonment, Forced migration, Labor export, Racism, Foreclosures, & Bank Bail Outs!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Noon
Bank Of America HQ
Trade St & Tryon St
Charlotte, NC
March to Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center & Mecklenburg Co Jail - Central around 6:00pm
On May 1st, join us and help build a movement to fight for the rights of working people. Join billions around the world who also demonstrate on May Day to build a powerful global movement that fights against the dire economic and social crisis people face here and around the world.
To endorse, volunteer, or for more info email may1charlotte@gmail.com or see Immigrant & Workers Rights Project http://immigrantworkers.blogspot.com
DONATE - Support our work by sending donations to Action Center For Justice, 7100 Mapleridge Dr, Charlotte, NC 28210
Working people here and worldwide are facing a growing crisis.
Unemployment is reaching record levels; nearly 20 million people are unemployed or underemployed. Tens of thousands of people have been thrown out of their homes as the foreclosure and eviction crisis grows. State and local budgets are being slashed, with draconian cuts in education, housing, and h ealthcare, while tuition, and transit fares increase. Every day we hear news of a new round of layoffs.
What is often not reported is the growing movement among working people to demand a real bail out--not handouts to wealthy CEOs, but immediate relief for the people. On April 3 & 4, thousands converged on Wall Street, Los Angeles, Raleigh, N.C ., and Seattle, to demand “Bail out the people, not the banks and corporations.” (See http://bailoutpeople.org/april3report.shtml for a report and video on the Wall Street protest.)
What’s next? Come out on May 1! In 2006, immigrants and their supporters marched in record numbers. They held some of the biggest demonstrations seen in decades, demanding an end to the repressive Sensenbrenner bill which penalized immigrant workers.
Since 2006, workers have marched to commemorate May 1, International Workers Day, even as the crisis is growing among immigrant workers. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are on the rise. Families are being ripped apart as parents are hauled away to detention centers without legal rights or due process. Children are often left stranded at school when their parents are swept up in this terror campaign.
The horrific raids and deportations, the criminalizing of workers, the beatings and killings are meant to not just to terrorize immigrant workers but to divide us, when we should join together and build a united movement.
There is now a great opportunity for working and progressive people to help continue to revive the legacy of May Day in the spirit of unity and common interest. Now, more than ever, it is vital that we work to build on the growing success of previous May Day demonstrations.
As all workers face a growing crisis, now is the time to unite and organize in our own name and for our own interests.
We’ve already seen Washington and Wall Street’s economic plan: trillions of dollars in bailouts for banks and giant financial institutions, while working people get service cuts, unemployment, and homelessness.
If we’re going to reverse this trend, we need to come out in record numbers on May 1 and beyond. Protests will be held nationwide--in the East, West, North and South.
May 1 marks the first 100 days of the Obama administration. A united movement of people with documents and without, Black, Latin a/o, Asian, Arab, Native and white, employed and unemployed, youth and seniors, women, men, LGBT or straight, able-bodied and disabled, will send a clear message to Washington and to Wall Street.
After May Day, the Bail Out the People Movement will continue to help to build a united movement to fight for working people’s rights. On May 31, just before the June 1-3 UN General Assembly Global Financial Summit, we will hold a Peoples’ Summit to focus the discussion on the real crisis.
On June 14-17, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan, a member organization of the Bail Out the People Movement, will hold a Peoples' Summit during the National Business Summit. Activists are planning a tent city and other events to confront the big-business CEOs and politicians gathering for the Business Summit.
In September, the G20 will meet in New York City, to coincide with the UN General Assembly’s annual meeting. We will not let this meeting of heads of state, finance ministers, and corporate lobbyists go unchallenged. Bail Out the People Movement is already preparing for protests then to demand a bail out for people, not banks.
And since this is strictly a grassroots movement, we need to appeal to you—our friends and supporters—to donate to help build this vital movement.
We hope to see you on May Day.
In solidarity and with our thanks,
The Bail Out the People Movement staff
************************
Action Center For Justice
www.charlotteaction.blogspot.com
To be added send an email to actioncenter-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Gov’t giveaway plan: Trillions for Wall St., poverty for workers
By Fred Goldstein, http://workers.org
The so-called Public-Private Investment Plan, crafted and presented by Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, intends to make a trillion dollars available to the biggest banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors, supposedly to get the banks to lend money to businesses and consumers again.
The essence of the plan has two sides to it. First, bribe hedge funds, private equity funds and others in the shadow banking system who have been sitting on the sidelines with trillions of dollars—by offering them government money and loan guarantees to purchase bad bank assets. Second, bribe the banks to sell investors these bad loans by offering to pay far more than they are worth.
So the rich get a deal from the Treasury both ways.
The banks are holding onto $2 trillion in bad loans resulting from their speculation on the great housing and real estate bubble. They don’t want to sell these bad loans at anywhere near their vastly reduced worth because they would have to declare them as big losses. Up to now they have been refusing to sell and have been holding out for more.
Meanwhile, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors are holding onto trillions of dollars, which they keep in government bonds and other secure investments. They don’t want to lend this money to help workers or businesses or anybody. These moneybags are sitting on the sidelines, looking for mergers or buyouts, while clipping the interest coupons.
Geithner, Lawrence Summers—Obama’s chief economic adviser—and company came up with a brilliant modification of the plan to buy so-called “toxic assets” crafted by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the Bush administration.
Here is an illustration of one part of Geithner’s plan. “It works like this, according to the Treasury Department fact sheet: Imagine that a bank wants to sell mortgage loans with a $100 million face value. The FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] would auction the loans to private bidders. Suppose the winning bidder offered $84 million. The private investor would put up $6 million, Treasury would put up $6 million, and the FDIC would guarantee $72 million worth of loans.” (Washington Post, March 23)
No matter if things go well or bad—in other words, whether the assets can be sold at close to $84 million or if they completely fail and not a penny can be collected—the bank still gets its $84 million. If things go well, the investors make a killing on a $6 million investment. If things go bad, the government gets stuck with the loan to pay off, while the investors walk away with a minimum loss (which they will write off their taxes). In addition, the private fund managers get to retain control over the investment.
There is another type of deal in the plan in which the government matches the private investors dollar-for-dollar and also provides loans to go with it. This is for the bad mortgage-backed securities.
Make a trillion dollars subject to these giveaway terms and it is guaranteed to send the stock market through the roof—at least for a moment.
Giveaway vs. ‘nationalize’
There are so many problematical issues involved with this plan that its prospect for success, even on the terms projected by Geithner and his allies, seems highly doubtful to more cautious sections of the ruling class.
The giveaway plan represents a victory of the Geithner/Larry Summers faction over the “nationalization” current in the ruling class establishment. In this sense it represents a victory of the faction closest to the big banks on Wall Street that are in the deepest trouble.
The nationalization current, more properly described as those for receivership, is not so closely tied to the direct interests of these banks and has a broader view of the needs of their class and the financial system in this present crisis. Their views are sharply opposed to the Geithner/Summers adventure.
This current wants to stop pouring money indiscriminately into banks that are already insolvent, change the management, force them to declare losses, restructure them, take a stake in the banks and then hand them back to private owners and collect dividends. This view was recently propounded by Thomas M. Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in a paper entitled “Too Big Has Failed.” It is easy to see how unpalatable such a view would be to Citigroup and other large banks.
It is the normal function of the capitalist state and the bourgeois political parties to protect the interests of the capitalist class as a whole and their system. This is the way the state has conducted itself, by and large, during previous lesser crises: the Latin American debt crisis, which endangered the U.S. banking system during the Reagan administration; the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s; and the 1995 Mexican bailout crisis, when U.S. investors were threatened by the collapse of the Mexican peso.
A ruling class consensus was arrived at on each occasion and the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve System took the necessary measures to deal with the situation and avert a collapse.
Crisis has deep roots
But the magnitude of this global crisis is so vast, and the power of the banks involved, the extraordinary deterioration of their financial conditions, and their desperation to save themselves at all costs is so great, that the Obama administration has been dragged into a most questionable scheme.
The administration has become entrapped by the narrow interests of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AIG, Merrill Lynch and their ilk to the point of throwing trillions of dollars at them to keep these specific banks afloat, at the expense of using these funds to bolster the system as a whole.
This could have dire political consequences in the long run for President Barack Obama himself.
Not that any amount of funding could significantly turn this capitalist crisis around in the long run. It is fundamentally caused by a global crisis of capitalist overproduction, which has been aggravated and intensified by the financial crisis.
The present crisis is profound. It represents the end of a 70-year era of upward development of the productive forces by U.S. and world capitalism that was propelled by military spending, imperialist globalization, destruction of the standard of living of the workers of the world, technological attacks on jobs, devastation of the environment, plus massive credit and indebtedness. These forces have run their course and no bailout or stimulus package can change these fundamentals.
But a trillion dollars is a lot of money. It could fund measures to ameliorate the crisis to some extent if strategically placed—particularly if it were given directly to the masses, either as wages for a jobs program or as direct assistance or to cancel the mortgages of the millions facing foreclosure and to restore the foreclosed families to their homes.
What workers won in the 1930s
One need go back to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to get a sense of the kind of temporary relief for the workers that could be administered—even though Roosevelt was never able to solve the crisis of capitalist overproduction, except through war.
Economist James Galbraith in a Washington Monthly article of March 9, “No Return to Normal,” cites one study showing that the Roosevelt government “hired about 60 percent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York’s Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country’s entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.”
No faction of any significance in the ruling class is debating this question for now because the class struggle is dormant and the masses have not yet risen up against their conditions as they did during the Great Depression. But that is because the crisis is only in its early stages. Roosevelt is known for his concessions to the workers because the workers won those concessions by mass struggle. Obama has no such situation right now and is hewing to a generally conservative line of approach. This could change.
In addition, the issue of the AIG bonuses has sharpened the political situation. Fearing the masses and because their own connections to the big banks are coming out, the Democratic Party politicians in the House of Representatives became hysterical in their denunciations of the bonuses to AIG executives, as did a significant number of Republicans. They all engaged in a public attack on corporate bosses and, by implication, on their own paymasters.
The situation may be quieted somewhat now that some of the executives are returning the bonuses. But this political outburst showed that the right-wing forces are straining at the bit to become champions of the “little people” and supposed adversaries of the “greedy bankers” as a way of getting at the Obama administration. They hope crisis will create an opening for a right-wing, racist revival. The working class must be on the alert for this and not be sucked in by any of this demagogy.
‘A dangerous year’
The entire government plan is predicated on a revival of the capitalist economy and the housing market. This is what will presumably make the bad assets go up in value, when people start buying houses again and bidding up the prices. In fact, an announcement that first-time housing sales went up helped fuel a buying frenzy on Wall Street.
But the Wall Street Journal of March 23 wrote about the rise in home sales that “nearly half of the sales occurred in the foreclosure/vulture market. So, home sales are up, but it’s heavily dominated by bottom fishing.”
More important was a statement by the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, that 2009 would be a “dangerous year.” He said on March 21 that the global economy would shrink by 1 to 2 percent during the year: “We haven’t seen a figure like that globally since the end of World War II, which really means the Great Depression.” In addition the World Bank was projecting that global trade was set to slide the most in 80 years, a decline in exports of 2.1 percent, not seen since 1982. The European economy will shrink by 3.2 percent (raised from an earlier forecast of 2 percent). Japan’s economy is projected to shrink by 5.8 percent and the U.S. economy by 2.6 percent.
Of course these projections are always subject to correction, but they have been consistently revised in a negative direction. They are confirmed by a report about global manufacturing. In Europe industrial production is down 12 percent from a year ago. In Brazil it is down 15 percent, in Taiwan a staggering 43 percent. Manufacturing fell in India for the first time in years. China’s manufacturing is down by 25 percent.
The three largest imperialist economic blocs—Europe, Japan and the U.S.—are all predicted to shrink their economies. And three of the most populous countries in the world, representing two-fifths of the world’s population, are showing a decline in industrial output.
It is clear that, despite the momentary euphoria of the profiteers on Wall Street, this crisis is not about to be solved. Even if the banks were to start lending again, the population is in ruins. No one is credit worthy because they are in debt, losing their jobs, paying medical bills, paying student loans, paying their credit card loans and/or are behind in their mortgages.
The idea that it is necessary to give these banks trillions in order to solve the crisis is either a grand illusion or outright fraud. The bailout is calculated first and foremost to save the banks while the masses sink deeper into the real crisis—the crisis of unemployment, homelessness and poverty.
The only solution is a mass mobilization to fight back against the capitalist system that is robbing people of their incomes, their homes and their very lives. The sanctity of capitalist profits is what is at the bottom of bailouts, layoffs and foreclosures. It is time to say no to capitalism.
Published Mar 29, 2009 9:00 PM
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
**********************
Bail Out the People Movement
http://www.bailoutpeople.org
But a trillion dollars is a lot of money. It could fund measures to ameliorate the crisis to some extent if strategically placed—particularly if it were given directly to the masses, either as wages for a jobs program or as direct assistance or to cancel the mortgages of the millions facing foreclosure and to restore the foreclosed families to their homes.There is nothing like the smell of a trillion-dollar bonanza to send the stock market through the roof. Wall Street has struck it rich with the Obama administration’s blatantly pro-banker, pro-investor program to revive the capitalist economy.
What workers won in the 1930s
One need go back to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to get a sense of the kind of temporary relief for the workers that could be administered—even though Roosevelt was never able to solve the crisis of capitalist overproduction, except through war.
Economist James Galbraith in a Washington Monthly article of March 9, “No Return to Normal,” cites one study showing that the Roosevelt government “hired about 60 percent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York’s Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country’s entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.”
No faction of any significance in the ruling class is debating this question for now because the class struggle is dormant and the masses have not yet risen up against their conditions as they did during the Great Depression. But that is because the crisis is only in its early stages. Roosevelt is known for his concessions to the workers because the workers won those concessions by mass struggle. Obama has no such situation right now and is hewing to a generally conservative line of approach. This could change.
The so-called Public-Private Investment Plan, crafted and presented by Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, intends to make a trillion dollars available to the biggest banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors, supposedly to get the banks to lend money to businesses and consumers again.
The essence of the plan has two sides to it. First, bribe hedge funds, private equity funds and others in the shadow banking system who have been sitting on the sidelines with trillions of dollars—by offering them government money and loan guarantees to purchase bad bank assets. Second, bribe the banks to sell investors these bad loans by offering to pay far more than they are worth.
So the rich get a deal from the Treasury both ways.
The banks are holding onto $2 trillion in bad loans resulting from their speculation on the great housing and real estate bubble. They don’t want to sell these bad loans at anywhere near their vastly reduced worth because they would have to declare them as big losses. Up to now they have been refusing to sell and have been holding out for more.
Meanwhile, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors are holding onto trillions of dollars, which they keep in government bonds and other secure investments. They don’t want to lend this money to help workers or businesses or anybody. These moneybags are sitting on the sidelines, looking for mergers or buyouts, while clipping the interest coupons.
Geithner, Lawrence Summers—Obama’s chief economic adviser—and company came up with a brilliant modification of the plan to buy so-called “toxic assets” crafted by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the Bush administration.
Here is an illustration of one part of Geithner’s plan. “It works like this, according to the Treasury Department fact sheet: Imagine that a bank wants to sell mortgage loans with a $100 million face value. The FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] would auction the loans to private bidders. Suppose the winning bidder offered $84 million. The private investor would put up $6 million, Treasury would put up $6 million, and the FDIC would guarantee $72 million worth of loans.” (Washington Post, March 23)
No matter if things go well or bad—in other words, whether the assets can be sold at close to $84 million or if they completely fail and not a penny can be collected—the bank still gets its $84 million. If things go well, the investors make a killing on a $6 million investment. If things go bad, the government gets stuck with the loan to pay off, while the investors walk away with a minimum loss (which they will write off their taxes). In addition, the private fund managers get to retain control over the investment.
There is another type of deal in the plan in which the government matches the private investors dollar-for-dollar and also provides loans to go with it. This is for the bad mortgage-backed securities.
Make a trillion dollars subject to these giveaway terms and it is guaranteed to send the stock market through the roof—at least for a moment.
Giveaway vs. ‘nationalize’
There are so many problematical issues involved with this plan that its prospect for success, even on the terms projected by Geithner and his allies, seems highly doubtful to more cautious sections of the ruling class.
The giveaway plan represents a victory of the Geithner/Larry Summers faction over the “nationalization” current in the ruling class establishment. In this sense it represents a victory of the faction closest to the big banks on Wall Street that are in the deepest trouble.
The nationalization current, more properly described as those for receivership, is not so closely tied to the direct interests of these banks and has a broader view of the needs of their class and the financial system in this present crisis. Their views are sharply opposed to the Geithner/Summers adventure.
This current wants to stop pouring money indiscriminately into banks that are already insolvent, change the management, force them to declare losses, restructure them, take a stake in the banks and then hand them back to private owners and collect dividends. This view was recently propounded by Thomas M. Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in a paper entitled “Too Big Has Failed.” It is easy to see how unpalatable such a view would be to Citigroup and other large banks.
It is the normal function of the capitalist state and the bourgeois political parties to protect the interests of the capitalist class as a whole and their system. This is the way the state has conducted itself, by and large, during previous lesser crises: the Latin American debt crisis, which endangered the U.S. banking system during the Reagan administration; the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s; and the 1995 Mexican bailout crisis, when U.S. investors were threatened by the collapse of the Mexican peso.
A ruling class consensus was arrived at on each occasion and the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve System took the necessary measures to deal with the situation and avert a collapse.
Crisis has deep roots
But the magnitude of this global crisis is so vast, and the power of the banks involved, the extraordinary deterioration of their financial conditions, and their desperation to save themselves at all costs is so great, that the Obama administration has been dragged into a most questionable scheme.
The administration has become entrapped by the narrow interests of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AIG, Merrill Lynch and their ilk to the point of throwing trillions of dollars at them to keep these specific banks afloat, at the expense of using these funds to bolster the system as a whole.
This could have dire political consequences in the long run for President Barack Obama himself.
Not that any amount of funding could significantly turn this capitalist crisis around in the long run. It is fundamentally caused by a global crisis of capitalist overproduction, which has been aggravated and intensified by the financial crisis.
The present crisis is profound. It represents the end of a 70-year era of upward development of the productive forces by U.S. and world capitalism that was propelled by military spending, imperialist globalization, destruction of the standard of living of the workers of the world, technological attacks on jobs, devastation of the environment, plus massive credit and indebtedness. These forces have run their course and no bailout or stimulus package can change these fundamentals.
But a trillion dollars is a lot of money. It could fund measures to ameliorate the crisis to some extent if strategically placed—particularly if it were given directly to the masses, either as wages for a jobs program or as direct assistance or to cancel the mortgages of the millions facing foreclosure and to restore the foreclosed families to their homes.
What workers won in the 1930s
One need go back to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to get a sense of the kind of temporary relief for the workers that could be administered—even though Roosevelt was never able to solve the crisis of capitalist overproduction, except through war.
Economist James Galbraith in a Washington Monthly article of March 9, “No Return to Normal,” cites one study showing that the Roosevelt government “hired about 60 percent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York’s Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country’s entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.”
No faction of any significance in the ruling class is debating this question for now because the class struggle is dormant and the masses have not yet risen up against their conditions as they did during the Great Depression. But that is because the crisis is only in its early stages. Roosevelt is known for his concessions to the workers because the workers won those concessions by mass struggle. Obama has no such situation right now and is hewing to a generally conservative line of approach. This could change.
In addition, the issue of the AIG bonuses has sharpened the political situation. Fearing the masses and because their own connections to the big banks are coming out, the Democratic Party politicians in the House of Representatives became hysterical in their denunciations of the bonuses to AIG executives, as did a significant number of Republicans. They all engaged in a public attack on corporate bosses and, by implication, on their own paymasters.
The situation may be quieted somewhat now that some of the executives are returning the bonuses. But this political outburst showed that the right-wing forces are straining at the bit to become champions of the “little people” and supposed adversaries of the “greedy bankers” as a way of getting at the Obama administration. They hope crisis will create an opening for a right-wing, racist revival. The working class must be on the alert for this and not be sucked in by any of this demagogy.
‘A dangerous year’
The entire government plan is predicated on a revival of the capitalist economy and the housing market. This is what will presumably make the bad assets go up in value, when people start buying houses again and bidding up the prices. In fact, an announcement that first-time housing sales went up helped fuel a buying frenzy on Wall Street.
But the Wall Street Journal of March 23 wrote about the rise in home sales that “nearly half of the sales occurred in the foreclosure/vulture market. So, home sales are up, but it’s heavily dominated by bottom fishing.”
More important was a statement by the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, that 2009 would be a “dangerous year.” He said on March 21 that the global economy would shrink by 1 to 2 percent during the year: “We haven’t seen a figure like that globally since the end of World War II, which really means the Great Depression.” In addition the World Bank was projecting that global trade was set to slide the most in 80 years, a decline in exports of 2.1 percent, not seen since 1982. The European economy will shrink by 3.2 percent (raised from an earlier forecast of 2 percent). Japan’s economy is projected to shrink by 5.8 percent and the U.S. economy by 2.6 percent.
Of course these projections are always subject to correction, but they have been consistently revised in a negative direction. They are confirmed by a report about global manufacturing. In Europe industrial production is down 12 percent from a year ago. In Brazil it is down 15 percent, in Taiwan a staggering 43 percent. Manufacturing fell in India for the first time in years. China’s manufacturing is down by 25 percent.
The three largest imperialist economic blocs—Europe, Japan and the U.S.—are all predicted to shrink their economies. And three of the most populous countries in the world, representing two-fifths of the world’s population, are showing a decline in industrial output.
It is clear that, despite the momentary euphoria of the profiteers on Wall Street, this crisis is not about to be solved. Even if the banks were to start lending again, the population is in ruins. No one is credit worthy because they are in debt, losing their jobs, paying medical bills, paying student loans, paying their credit card loans and/or are behind in their mortgages.
The idea that it is necessary to give these banks trillions in order to solve the crisis is either a grand illusion or outright fraud. The bailout is calculated first and foremost to save the banks while the masses sink deeper into the real crisis—the crisis of unemployment, homelessness and poverty.
The only solution is a mass mobilization to fight back against the capitalist system that is robbing people of their incomes, their homes and their very lives. The sanctity of capitalist profits is what is at the bottom of bailouts, layoffs and foreclosures. It is time to say no to capitalism.
Published Mar 29, 2009 9:00 PM
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
**********************
Bail Out the People Movement
http://www.bailoutpeople.org
Report from April 3 & 4 - On to May Day!
April 3 & 4: People Need Jobs!
Protesters March on Wall Street Demanding:
Bail Out People, Not Banks!
In an early sign of what promises to be a growing movement, 1,000 people defied a torrential downpour to rally on Wall Street on Friday, April 3 in response to a national call from the Bail Out the People Movement. The central demands of the demonstration were: 1) a real jobs program; and 2) an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
The protest began with a rally began at Wall Street and Broadway, the center of the financial district, at 1 p.m. on a busy Friday. Participants included unions, community groups, youth and students from Detroit, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo and dozens of organizing centers throughout the country.
Larry Holmes, a leader of the Bail out the People Movement and a co-chair of the rally, said, “This is the opening of a serious nationwide struggle for a jobs program.” The Bail Out the People Movement is calling for a jobs program similar to the Work Projects Administration of the 1930’s, which employed millions of people.
Speakers repeatedly denounced the $10 trillion that has been given to banks over the past year.
While the government has given banks trillions of dollars, 4.4 million people have lost their jobs since the economic downturn began in December 2007, more than half of them in the last five months. Thousands have lost their homes in foreclosures and evictions.
As the rain began to let up about halfway through the rally, several members of the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) began walking down Broadway. The police wanted to keep everyone off Wall Street, but members of FIST were determined to march through the financial nerve center. The police converged on them and pushed them onto the sidewalk. Four youth were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. One of them was pushed around by the cops and also charged with resisting arrest. He was held in jail for nine-and-a-half hours while the others were released after three hours.
Meanwhile, the police ignored the real criminals, who were in the boardrooms and executive offices overlooking the streets. One speaker at the rally, New York City Council Member Charles Barron, said that the crooks who have received $10 trillion that has been given to banks over the past year, “should be looking for bail money to get out of jail.”
LeiLani Dowell, a member of FIST and a rally co-chair, described how the economic crisis was hurting youth and explained that the hardships they face are inherent to the system itself. The other rally co-chairs were Brenda Stokely, a leader of the Million Worker March Movement, and Sara Flounders, co-coordinator of the International Action Center.
Other speakers included Chris Silvera, secretary –treasurer of Local 808 International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Charles Jenkins, Local 10 Transport Workers Union; a representative of the Stella D’oro strikers campaign; Sandra Hines, of Detroit’s Moratorium Now! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures & Evictions; and Monica Moorehead, of Workers World Party.
Following the rally, the Bail Out the People Movement took their message directly to the banks, marching down Pine Street to AIG, which has received a total of $170 billion in bailout money, chanting “Jobs for All” and “Jail ‘Em, Don’t Bail ‘Em.” Protesters marched through the narrow streets of the financial district, confronting financial giants like Citigroup, Fidelity, AIG, American Express, the Federal Reserve and the New York Stock Exchange. They then proceeded on to Water Street, stopping at another AIG building, and then went under the Brooklyn Bridge to Foley Square for a closing rally.
Organized labor came out in full force marching behind their banners. There were contingents from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; District 37 Locals 375 and 768; Teamsters Local 808; United Federation of Teachers Local 2; UFT Local 37-901; striking Stella D’oro workers; BCT Local 50 from the Bronx; and New York City Labor Against the War. Others on the march included members of District 1199 New England; Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers/AFSCME; United Autoworkers Local 100 of Detroit; and Transit Workers Union of NYC.
The April 3 march was held on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., who called for a right to a job or income for all. The following day, the United for Peace and Justice Coalition held another march on Wall Street which went down Broadway and ended at Battery Park. The Bail Out the People Movement held a brief rally overlooking the New York Stock Exchange and joined the march as it went by.
UPCOMING ACTIONS - CHECK OFTEN FOR UPDATES
May Day in NYC, LA and cities across the U.S.
http://www.may1.info
Detroit People’s Summit at Grand Circus Park from June 14-17
http://www.moratorium-mi.org
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
http://www.BailOutPeople.org
Protesters March on Wall Street Demanding:
Bail Out People, Not Banks!
In an early sign of what promises to be a growing movement, 1,000 people defied a torrential downpour to rally on Wall Street on Friday, April 3 in response to a national call from the Bail Out the People Movement. The central demands of the demonstration were: 1) a real jobs program; and 2) an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
The protest began with a rally began at Wall Street and Broadway, the center of the financial district, at 1 p.m. on a busy Friday. Participants included unions, community groups, youth and students from Detroit, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo and dozens of organizing centers throughout the country.
Larry Holmes, a leader of the Bail out the People Movement and a co-chair of the rally, said, “This is the opening of a serious nationwide struggle for a jobs program.” The Bail Out the People Movement is calling for a jobs program similar to the Work Projects Administration of the 1930’s, which employed millions of people.
Speakers repeatedly denounced the $10 trillion that has been given to banks over the past year.
While the government has given banks trillions of dollars, 4.4 million people have lost their jobs since the economic downturn began in December 2007, more than half of them in the last five months. Thousands have lost their homes in foreclosures and evictions.
As the rain began to let up about halfway through the rally, several members of the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) began walking down Broadway. The police wanted to keep everyone off Wall Street, but members of FIST were determined to march through the financial nerve center. The police converged on them and pushed them onto the sidewalk. Four youth were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. One of them was pushed around by the cops and also charged with resisting arrest. He was held in jail for nine-and-a-half hours while the others were released after three hours.
Meanwhile, the police ignored the real criminals, who were in the boardrooms and executive offices overlooking the streets. One speaker at the rally, New York City Council Member Charles Barron, said that the crooks who have received $10 trillion that has been given to banks over the past year, “should be looking for bail money to get out of jail.”
LeiLani Dowell, a member of FIST and a rally co-chair, described how the economic crisis was hurting youth and explained that the hardships they face are inherent to the system itself. The other rally co-chairs were Brenda Stokely, a leader of the Million Worker March Movement, and Sara Flounders, co-coordinator of the International Action Center.
Other speakers included Chris Silvera, secretary –treasurer of Local 808 International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Charles Jenkins, Local 10 Transport Workers Union; a representative of the Stella D’oro strikers campaign; Sandra Hines, of Detroit’s Moratorium Now! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures & Evictions; and Monica Moorehead, of Workers World Party.
Following the rally, the Bail Out the People Movement took their message directly to the banks, marching down Pine Street to AIG, which has received a total of $170 billion in bailout money, chanting “Jobs for All” and “Jail ‘Em, Don’t Bail ‘Em.” Protesters marched through the narrow streets of the financial district, confronting financial giants like Citigroup, Fidelity, AIG, American Express, the Federal Reserve and the New York Stock Exchange. They then proceeded on to Water Street, stopping at another AIG building, and then went under the Brooklyn Bridge to Foley Square for a closing rally.
Organized labor came out in full force marching behind their banners. There were contingents from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; District 37 Locals 375 and 768; Teamsters Local 808; United Federation of Teachers Local 2; UFT Local 37-901; striking Stella D’oro workers; BCT Local 50 from the Bronx; and New York City Labor Against the War. Others on the march included members of District 1199 New England; Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers/AFSCME; United Autoworkers Local 100 of Detroit; and Transit Workers Union of NYC.
The April 3 march was held on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., who called for a right to a job or income for all. The following day, the United for Peace and Justice Coalition held another march on Wall Street which went down Broadway and ended at Battery Park. The Bail Out the People Movement held a brief rally overlooking the New York Stock Exchange and joined the march as it went by.
UPCOMING ACTIONS - CHECK OFTEN FOR UPDATES
May Day in NYC, LA and cities across the U.S.
http://www.may1.info
Detroit People’s Summit at Grand Circus Park from June 14-17
http://www.moratorium-mi.org
Bail Out the People Movement
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St. #5C
New York, NY 10011
212.633.6646
http://www.BailOutPeople.org
Urgent: Release Wall Street Arrestees!
Release Wall Street Protest Arrestees Now!
Drop All Charges!
Arrest Criminal Bankers, Not Workers!
Sign the online petition
Back to the streets!
Saturday April 4 - Rally at 12:00 pm at Williams & Nassau (near Wall St.) Then march
RALLY
Gather with chanting, drumming and music: 12 Noon to 1:00pm on Nassau between Wall Street and Pine – over looking NY Stock Exchange and in front of the Federal Reserve and Chase Bank (map) Enter area at Pine and Broadway go East one SHORT block to Nassau This is just a block from the Friday Rally site.
We will join United for Peace and Justice as they come by at Pine and Broadway, about 1:00pm. One block further at Wall and Broadway the whole march will turn Left down Wall Street, turn Right at Broad Street and the NY Stock Exchange, then turn Right on Exchange and go back to Broadway. From there the march will proceed South to Battery Park.
Bail Out People will have a table, displays and literature at Battery Park, along Eisenhower Way, going West toward Castle Clinton. Be sure to come by our table.
SATURDAY Bus Drop-off:
Broadway, between Wall and Pine on the West Side of street (map)
SATURDAY Bus Parking and Pick-up
Water Street between Broad Street and Old Slip
This is about 3 blocks EAST of the ending site at Battery Park
Endorse April 3 & 4 | Find an Apr 3-4 Organizing Center Near You
Donate | Download BOPM Working Paper
Drop All Charges!
Arrest Criminal Bankers, Not Workers!
Sign the online petition
As we write (3:00 pm Friday), thousands of activists, students, youth, trade unionists, and community organizers are marching through the streets of the Wall Street financial district demanding "Bail Out the People - Not the Banks!"
Police have arrested 4 protesters so far, and they are being held at the 1st Precinct. All of them are members of the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together).
Please take action now to support the Wall Street protesters - demand that they be released and all charges dropped. The real criminals are in the executive offices and boardrooms of the banks and investment firms, not on the streets.
Here's how you can help:
1. Call the First Precinct at (212) 334-0611
2. Sign the online petition:
3. Please consider making an emergency donation at http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
Then...
Police have arrested 4 protesters so far, and they are being held at the 1st Precinct. All of them are members of the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together).
Please take action now to support the Wall Street protesters - demand that they be released and all charges dropped. The real criminals are in the executive offices and boardrooms of the banks and investment firms, not on the streets.
Here's how you can help:
1. Call the First Precinct at (212) 334-0611
2. Sign the online petition:
To: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC City Council, NYPD
CC: NY Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the NY Legislature, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, members of the media
I am writing to demand the release of all individuals who were arrested at the Friday April 3 protest on Wall Street.
It is not a crime to demand that our money be spent on meeting people's needs, not for massive corporate bailouts. Marching for jobs and housing is not a crime!
The real criminals are in the boardrooms and executive offices on Wall Street, not the people marching for jobs, healthcare, and a moratorium on foreclosures.
Release ALL arrestees!
Drop the Charges!
Arrest Bankers Not Workers!
Sincerely,
Sign the petition online
3. Please consider making an emergency donation at http://bailoutpeople.org/
Then...
Saturday April 4 - Rally at 12:00 pm at Williams & Nassau (near Wall St.) Then march
RALLY
Gather with chanting, drumming and music: 12 Noon to 1:00pm on Nassau between Wall Street and Pine – over looking NY Stock Exchange and in front of the Federal Reserve and Chase Bank (map) Enter area at Pine and Broadway go East one SHORT block to Nassau This is just a block from the Friday Rally site.
We will join United for Peace and Justice as they come by at Pine and Broadway, about 1:00pm. One block further at Wall and Broadway the whole march will turn Left down Wall Street, turn Right at Broad Street and the NY Stock Exchange, then turn Right on Exchange and go back to Broadway. From there the march will proceed South to Battery Park.
Bail Out People will have a table, displays and literature at Battery Park, along Eisenhower Way, going West toward Castle Clinton. Be sure to come by our table.
SATURDAY Bus Drop-off:
Broadway, between Wall and Pine on the West Side of street (map)
SATURDAY Bus Parking and Pick-up
Water Street between Broad Street and Old Slip
This is about 3 blocks EAST of the ending site at Battery Park
Endorse April 3 & 4 | Find an Apr 3-4 Organizing Center Near You
Donate | Download BOPM Working Paper
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