[act-ma] 8/25: G20 Organizing Committee Meeting

Sun Aug 23 06:08:04 PDT 2009

*in this email:

1) 8/25 Bail Out the People/G20 Organizing Committee Meeting
2) A Call to Join the National March for Jobs
3) What Those Guns Signify*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
**1) 8/25 - 6:30 pm - Action Center, 284 Amory St. (The Brewery), 
Jamaica Plain - Next Bail Out the People Meeting/G20 Organizing 
Committee Meeting.*

Everyone is invited to attend this meeting and help plan for a strong 
delegation from Boston to go to Pittsburgh and participate in the many 
actions being organized to coincide with the meeting of the G20. There 
is less than a month before the National March for Jobs will take place 
in Pittsburgh on September 20th and we have a lot to do to prepare.

    * Sunday, September 20 - Rally & March for a Real Jobs Program
    * Building a Tent City in Pittsburgh for the Unemployed & Supporters
      the weekend before the G-20 Summit
    * Organizing Caravans of Unemployed People and Supporters to
      Converge on Pittsburgh during the week of September 19-26
    * Marches, Protests and Events Before and During the G20 Summit
      addressing demands such as: Bring the Troops Home from Iraq &
      Afghanistan Now! & Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, World-Renown Political
      Prisoner, Journalist, Activist and 'Voice of the Voiceless!"

In addition we will be discussing our own fightback here in the Boston 
area against racism, war, unemployment, racist attacks on immigrants, 
foreclosures, the resegregation of the Boston schools, rate hikes, 
police brutality, racial profiling, attacks on healthcare reform,  and 
more. Find out how you can become involved!

*FUNDS ARE NEEDED!* It will take a significant amount of fundraising so 
that everyone who wants to go to Pittsburgh for the G20 are able to.  
Please consider making a donation to help with this effort.
Donations can be made online - http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml 
(Please put in the comment field that your donation is for the Boston 
G20 organizing)

*San Francisco Labor Council - http://bailoutpeople.org/sflc.shtml, ILWU 
(International Longshore Workers Union) and the Letter Carriers Union 
Local 214 pass resolutions supporting the September 20 March for Jobs.*

*Download flyer - http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com/*
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*2) A CALL TO JOIN THE NATIONAL MARCH FOR JOBS - 
http://bailoutpeople.org/pdfs/G20call.pdf*

BEFORE THE G-20 COUNTRIES meet in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 & 25 to discuss 
the world economic crisis, they must be reminded of the suffering,
desperation and anger of the millions whose lives are being devastated 
by this crisis. March in Pittsburgh on Sun., Sept. 20 so that this 
suffering will no longer be invisible and silent. (There will be protest 
all week but we chose Sunday so people could come from across the country).

Remind all governments, including our own, that their priority must be 
creating a real jobs program of permanent, full-time living wage jobs. 
If there's money to bail out banks and fund wars, then there must also 
be money to provide healthcare, stop foreclosures and bail out the 
unemployed.

Activists will erect a tent city dedicated to the unemployed, the 
underemployed, and the poor next to the Monumental Baptist Church 
(located in the historic African-American Hill section of Pittsburgh 
near the downtown area and the G-20 Summit) that will stand the entire 
week of the G-20 summit. "MARCH FOR JOBS" CARAVANS of unemployed people 
& supporters from across the country will converge on Pittsburgh to join 
the march and tent city.

The real jobless rate is 20% and higher in much of the country 
(including workers who can only find parttime, temp or low-wage jobs; 
those who've stopped looking for work; those who've never had a job; 
those who have seen their working hours cutback or have been furloughed).

Many are not eligible for unemployment benefits. Young African Americans 
have a better chance of being incarcerated than they have of finding a 
job. Laid-off auto workers are losing their homes to foreclosures and 
veterans are returning home only to end up homeless.

The stimulus bill passed last winter was not enough. No matter what 
happens in the broader economy many jobs are not coming back and 
widespread layoffs are going to continue. Yet, the government is under 
constant pressure from Wall St. to ignore the needs of the jobless. That 
pressure must no longer be one-sided.

Martin Luther King Jr. once called "the second civil rights movement" 
the fight for the right to a job or a guaranteed income. King dedicated 
the last year of his life to planning a mass movement for jobs. King's 
dream for a jobs movement has to be revived. No doubt, King would have 
known that even a remarkable and historic president like Barack Obama 
cannot do alone, what it takes a movement to do.

Delaying a movement for jobs will only mean more desperation, coupled 
with a sense of hopelessness. When people in crisis are not fighting for 
their rights, they are more susceptible to blaming themselves or blaming 
others like immigrant workers instead of making demands on the powers 
that be. When people stand up for themselves, hopelessness is replaced 
by empowerment, solidarity and dignity.

During the depression of the 1930s, President Roosevelt once told a 
labor leader who was asking him to do more for working people---"I agree 
with you, now make me do it." That was good advice 75 years ago; we 
should heed it today. Marching in Pittsburgh before the G-20 is a beginning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*3**) What Those Guns Signify*

When a man dropped his gun at a town hall forum in Arizona, it was a 
sign that the town hall disruptions around the country were about much 
more than health care reform.

Just a few days after the Arizona incident, a man bearing a sidearm 
appeared outside President Barack Obama's Aug. 11 town hall meeting in 
Portsmouth, N.H. He was holding a sign stating, "It is time to water the 
tree of liberty." It was a reference to Thomas Jefferson's famous 
statement, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with 
the blood of patriots and tyrants." It represented a clear threat to the 
life of President Obama.

Most recently about a dozen armed right-wingers were seen carrying guns 
outside the Phoenix Convention Center, where Obama spoke to veterans on 
Aug. 17.

It is now safe to say what most observers already know in their 
heart---the town hall disruptions have little to do with health reform.

Yes, the topic of discussion at many of these forums is health care. And 
yes, there is a severe health care crisis in the United States that the 
Democratic health care plan does far too little to address.

That, however, is not why right-wingers are bringing their guns to town.

Health care is not the reason conservative radio host Mike Levin stated 
that Obama is "literally at war with the American people." Anger over 
health care does not explain Fox News host Glenn Beck's comment that 
Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people." It is insufficient to 
explain former Republican vice presidential candidate Sara Palin's lie 
that Obama was planning "death panels" for the elderly and the disabled.

No, what these words and actions expose is an orchestrated campaign by 
the extreme right to whip up the most backward whites into a racist 
frenzy by using President Obama as a fall guy for the worst economic 
crisis since the Great Depression.

It is an attempt to channel the legitimate anger over joblessness and 
lack of health care into a racist backlash that divides the 
multinational working class, separates white workers from their Black 
and Latino/a brothers and sisters, and prevents a unified class struggle 
capable of taking on the ruling class, from Washington to Wall Street.

In this respect health care is being used as a wedge issue much the same 
as abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration are used by the ruling 
class to divide workers.

Why aren't the leaders of organized labor mobilizing the rank and file 
against racism and for jobs as well as health care?

Where are the mass marches of workers demanding a jobs program at a 
living wage? Where are the caravans of uninsured and unemployed workers 
traveling the country in a dramatic call for jobs and health care for all?

With more than 16 million workers organized at the points of production 
and service delivery and hundreds of millions of dollars in union dues 
at their disposal, the only thing stopping the labor unions from 
mobilizing a mass movement around these issues is the will to do so.

In the absence of a sizeable left movement in this country, the most 
reactionary elements of the right wing have been emboldened.

A highly significant step in building a working-class response to the 
economic crisis is the September 20 National March for Jobs in 
Pittsburgh. The jobs march is scheduled just days before government 
leaders and finance ministers from some of the world's richest countries 
meet there as part of the G-20 Summit to figure out how to save 
themselves in the midst of the global economic crisis.

Some brave local union leaders, including the San Francisco Labor 
Council, the International Longshore and Warehouse Local 10 and the 
Letter Carriers Local 214, have endorsed the call for a jobs march. 
Where will you be on Sept. 20?

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Bail Out The People Movement
Boston*
617-522-6626
bopmboston at gmail.com <mailto:bopmboston at gmail.com>
http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com

*National Office*
212-633-6646
bailoutpeople at safewebmail.com <mailto:bailoutpeople at safewebmail.com>
http://www.BailOutPeople.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://act-ma.org/pipermail/act-ma_act-ma.org/attachments/20090823/ac1e1a89/attachment.html>