http://september252008.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/protest-wall-street/
Protest Today - Thursday 4PM - Everywhere
Forward widely….
Everyone,
This week the White House is going to try to push through the biggest robbery in world history with nary a stitch of debate to bail out the Wall Street bastards who created this economic apocalypse in the first place.
This is the financial equivalent of September 11. They think, just like with the Patriot Act, they can use the shock to force through the “therapy,” and we’ll just roll over!
Think about it: They said providing healthcare for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs. If this passes, forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy.
This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate. Let’s demonstrate this Thursday at 4pm in Wall Street (see below).
We know the congressional Democrats will peep meekly before caving in like they have on everything else, from FISA to the Iraq War.
With Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG, the money markets and now this omnibus bailout, well in excess of $1 trillion will be distributed from the poor, workers and middle class to the scum floating on top.
This whole mess gives lie to the free market. The Feds are propping up stock prices, directing buyouts, subsidizing crooks and swindlers who already made a killing off the mortgage bubble.
Worst of all, even before any details have been hashed out, The New York Times admits that “Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it,” and its chief financial correspondent writes that the Bush administration wants “Congress to give them a blank check to do whatever they want, whatever the cost, with no one able to watch them closely.”
It’s socialism for the rich and dog-eat-dog capitalism for the rest of us.
Let’s take it to the heart of the financial district! Gather at 4pm, this Thursday, Sept. 25 in the plaza at the southern end of Bowling Green Park, which is the small triangular park that has the Wall Street bull at the northern tip.
By having it later in the day we can show these thieves, as they leave work, we’re not their suckers. Plus, anyone who can’t get off work can still join us downtown as soon as they are able.
There is no agenda, no leaders, no organizing group, nothing to endorse other than we’re not going to pay!
Let the bondholders pay, let the banks pay, let those who brought the “toxic” mortgage-backed securities pay!
On this list are many key organizers and activists. We have a huge amount of connections – we all know many other organizations, activists and community groups. We know P.R. folk who can quickly write up and distribute press releases, those who can contact legal observers, media activists who can spread the word, the videographers who can film the event, etc.
Do whatever you can – make and distribute your own flyers, contact all your groups and friends.
This crime is without precedence and we can’t be silent! What’s the point of waiting for someone else to organize a protest two months from now, long after the crime has been perpetrated?
We have everything we need to create a large, peaceful, loud demonstration. Millions of others must feel the same way; they just don’t know what to do. Let’s take the lead and make this the start!
AGAIN:
When: 4pm – ? Thursday, September 25.
Where: Southern end of Bowling Green Park, in the plaza area
What to bring: Banners, noisemakers, signs, leaflets, etc.
Why: To say we won’t pay for the Wall Street bailout
Who: Everyone!
===
Online Bailout Outrage Jumps to Streets, and Into Lawmakers' Inboxes
An e-mail that began as a rallying cry from a lone journalist to an influential circle of friends to protest the U.S. government bailout of Wall Street has ignited a national day of street protests. Some demonstrators plan to dump their rubbish in front of the bronze bull sculpture near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan Thursday.
"People are going to bring their own personal junk that they think is worth as much as the junk financial instruments that the government is proposing to buy from the Wall Street banks," says Andrew Boyd, an activist and freelance online-video artist for nonprofit groups in Manhattan. "We're hoping that people show up with their 8-track cassette collections, their old Spice Girl CDs, their surf boards that got bit by sharks and old Enron stock certificates."
Boyd is just one of thousands of Americans from all over the political spectrum who the Bush Administration has angered with its vague proposal to hand $700 billion over to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to restore U.S. financial markets' health. That anger has manifested itself online through e-mail, web sites and other online chatter, with one site, BuyMyShitPile.com, going rapidly viral this week. The site, a parody of the dire financial situation, is what is inspiring the self-organizing group of activists to show up in downtown Manhattan Thursday evening with all their junk. They hope to make their simmering fury palpable to Wall Streeters getting off work.
"Why should people who made financially imprudent decisions be rewarded?" asks Boyd, who is best known for founding the political protest theater group Billionaires For Bush. "It's our hard-earned tax dollars, and we're being asked to bail these guys out at the same time as this locks out all the things that we want for the future."
Boyd's is one of many voices of frustration. Other people's anger spilled out online, which in turn, is fueling the planned protests' momentum.
Arun Gupta, a 43-year-old freelance journalist in Manhattan, is someone else who was so upset by unfolding events that he was moved to action.
"I've been spending a lot of time reading about the intensifying crisis and the bailout plan," he says. "The more I read, the more outraged and flabbergasted I was: It became clear to me that this was the financial equivalent of the Sept. 11 attacks."
He was so upset that he banged out a passionately worded 629-word e-mail on his laptop Sunday afternoon urging his friends -- and anyone else who would listen -- to show up at the southern tip of Manhattan late Thursday afternoon to demonstrate. He says that he's never organized a protest before in his life.
"This week the White House is going to try to push through the biggest robbery in world history with nary a stitch of debate, to bail out the Wall Street bastards who created this economic apocalypse in the first place," he wrote. "This is the financial equivalent of September 11. They think, just like with the Patriot Act, they can use the shock to force through the “therapy,” and we’ll just roll over!"
He added:
Think about it: They said providing health care for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs. If this passes, forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy.
This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate. Let’s demonstrate this Thursday at 4 pm in Wall Street (see below).
The e-mail ricocheted through the electronic ecosystem faster than the implosion of Wall Street itself, tapping into and riding the frisson of resentment among Americans at this monumental financial foul-up.
"I wrote up an e-mail Sunday night, and I sat on it." he says. "I was a bit hesitant because I'm not an organizer, I'm a journalist, but I also think that things have to be done in the world."
He said that he sent it out to best-selling author Naomi Klein, who posted it to her website, and sent it out to her e-mail list. Then TrueMajority, a 700,000 member activist group headed by Ben and Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, sent out an action alert the next day.
TrueMajority is making a "protest kit" available on its web site with instructions for groups who are interested on how to organize a rally. One of the instructions is to bring cell phones to the protest, and to have protesters simultaneously call their members of Congress.
The site has also put up a web page that enables people to find an event near them by ZIP code.
"This was a convergence of everyone having the same thought at the same time," says Matt Holland, TrueMajority's online director.
He says everybody he knew had received Gupta's e-mail at least three times from different people. It's also been widely circulated on blogs.
Holland says that Gupta's language just taps into "the strength of the emotion" that many Americans are feeling right now. TrueMajority's members themselves have made 20,000 phone calls to Congress, he says. Members report the calls that they made through the group's website.
"Everybody is just incredibly pissed off about this, and if there is a place and time for them to express themselves, they're going to do it," he says.
Congressional lawmakers have expressed frustration and skepticism over Treasury's proposal, although they won a concession about CEO pay Wednesday afternoon. President Bush is scheduled to address the nation about the bailout plan 9 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, and John McCain has asked Barack Obama to agree to cancel Friday's presidential debate so that they could both work with the administration to hammer out an agreement.
In the meantime, a proposal to add several restrictions on the package from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has gained traction online. He's asked Americans to sign onto the petition, and he intends to present it to Paulson. The senator's office reported Wednesday that 8,000 people signed the petition within the first 24 hours. Another sign that the petition gained widespread notice: "Bernie Sanders," was one of the most-searched-for terms on Google Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, a long list of economists from the nation's top universities sent a letter to congressional leaders voicing their concerns about the too-speedy passage of any bailout package.
They said that they were most concerned about the plan's fundamental fairness and its ambiguity.
===
To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:
http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/mortgage_protest.htm
As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:
1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.
2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.
3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.
For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.
Signed (updated at 9/25/2008 8:30AM CT)
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