The latest issue of the Boston Occupier is coming out this Wednesday (March 14). We want to get the word out — all over Boston and beyond — that our movement is growing, changing, and as urgent as ever. We need help distributing all 15,000 copies of Issue #6!!! Here’s the game-plan:
Please feel free to respond to me (juliettejulianna@gmail.com) with any questions, ideas, or suggestions. Thanks!
Scholarship competition for best essays about the Occupy Movement open to students nationwide
More than $25,000 in scholarships will be awarded to high school juniors and seniors who place in the regional and national competitions. All students must submit an essay about the “Occupy Movement” by March 31, 2012 to compete.
[This is a correction to an earlier Media Rundown article that incorrectly identified the competition as being only open to students in one state.]
http://tinyurl.com/73nhhlq
Housing Crisis Pushed Black Homeownership Rate Below 1990 Level
During the housing crisis, Black and Latino homeowners were twice as likely to be foreclosed on. Indeed, in California Black and Latino homeowners are said to make up 50% of foreclosures but only 30% of homeowners.
During the housing crisis, the Center for American Progress found, there were huge racial disparities in the makeup of high-priced lending with banks targeting people of color. One of the banks that received a government bailout, was even accused of having steered people of color toward subprime loans. Undoubtedly, these dubious and racist banking practices led to the homeownership numbers we see today.
http://tinyurl.com/7v23klu
Watchdogs, unions, Occupy groups vow to expose corporate money in campaigns
Liberal interest groups, watchdogs and unions on Monday threatened to boycott, protest and publicly embarrass corporations that spend money trying to sway the outcome of the November election.
Gathered Monday at the Washington headquarters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the groups issued a call to arms for the 2012 campaign, vowing to aggressively challenge companies that contribute to super-PACs and 501(c) nonprofit groups.
“If you secretly contribute and scheme to buy our elections, we’re going to come knocking on your door,” said Aaron Black of the Occupy Wall Street movement. “And it’s not just going to be a couple of us. It’s going to be thousands of us. Everywhere you turn your head.”
Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 3/13/12” »
Meet March 14th at 12:30 PM at the Transportation Building, 10 Park Plaza, Boston
As the Massachusetts Department of Transportation meets to discuss the fate of the MBTA, we’ll be rallying outside and inside the meeting to demand:
A comprehensive state-wide plan for affordable and sustainable transportation that works for the 99%.
For years, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has failed to fund public transportation adequately, and forced the MBTA to borrow exorbitant sums. Now the MBTA is trying to balance its books on the backs of those who can afford it the least. Drastic fare hikes, service cuts, and layoffs will devastate students, seniors, low-income communities, people of color, workers and everyone who must rely on the T. The MBTA’s proposals will also force between 55,000 and 92,000 more cars on the road each day, creating traffic nightmares, and 50,000 tons of additional carbon dioxide emissions per year.
For weeks, outraged T riders have packed public hearings to say no to MBTA’s ill-conceived and damaging proposals. It is critical that we keep the pressure on as the Board meets for the first time after the hearings.
Join Occupy the MBTA, along with other advocates for seniors, low income communities, workers, and the environment, on March 14th! For more information visit http://occupymbta.org/
Save the Date: April 4th – People’s Hearing on Transportation in the State House
3 pm Hearing and 5pm Rally Come after Work! (Think Wisconsin)
Market Fundamentalism Threatens U.S. Liberty
Market fundamentalism not only trivializes democratic values and public concerns, but also enshrines a rabid individualism, an all-embracing quest for profits and a social Darwinism in which misfortune is seen as a weakness, and a Hobbesian “war of all against all” replaces any vestige of shared responsibilities or compassion for others. Free-market fundamentalists now wage a full-fledged attack on the social contract, the welfare state, any notion of the common good and those public spheres not yet defined by commercial interests. Within neoliberal ideology, the market becomes the template for organizing the rest of society. Everybody is now a customer or client, and every relationship is ultimately judged in bottom-line, cost-effective terms. Freedom is no longer about equality, social justice or the public welfare, but about the trade in goods, financial capital and commodities.
http://tinyurl.com/7pqwqjb
Stage set for widespread, devastating austerity cuts at county and city levels
Even as there are glimmers of a national economic recovery, cities and counties increasingly find themselves in the middle of a financial crisis. The problems are spreading as municipalities face a toxic mix of stresses that has been brewing for years, including soaring pension, Medicaid and retiree health care costs. And many have exhausted creative accounting maneuvers and one-time spending cuts or revenue-raisers to bail themselves out.
The problem has national echoes: Stockton, Calif., a city of almost 300,000, is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Jefferson County, Ala., made the biggest Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing in history in November and stopped paying its bondholders. In Rhode Island, the city of Central Falls declared bankruptcy last year, and the mayor of Providence, the state capital, has said his city is at risk as its money runs out.
http://tinyurl.com/7psaztt
Women Bearing the Brunt of Austerity in Britain
Manchester, where Ms. Bradshaw, her partner, Lee Mellor, and their rambunctious blond boys live in a neighborhood of worn brown row houses, announced last month it was shutting its day care centers, which serve 800 children.
Like many cities and institutions around Britain, Manchester is searching for savings to close the gap created by the national government’s withdrawal of £3.5 billion, or about $5.6 billion, in support to localities this year, a drop of nearly 12 percent under Prime Minister David Cameron’s tough austerity program. Billions of pounds more are to vanish by 2015.
Mr. Cameron, a Conservative, has also lifted a requirement that the municipal authorities fund and operate Sure Start children’s centers, which offer services including prenatal checkups, breast-feeding support and day care. Their creation was a flagship achievement of the Labour government of the former prime minister Tony Blair; many strapped local councils are now closing the centers or scaling them back.
http://tinyurl.com/7wcrorh
Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 3/12/12” »
Occupy Boston Media <Media@occupyboston.org> • <Info@occupyboston.org> • @Occupy_Boston