Defend Occupy Baltimore

Open letter to Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore City and Gregory Bayor, Director, Department of Recreation and Parks

 

Please cancel proposed action to shut down Occupy Baltimore at McKeldin Square by limiting to only two the number of people allowed to sleep in tents or by imposing other restrictions that undermine the purpose as stated by the General Assembly of the Occupy Baltimore movement:

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE, 10/22/2011:
Through the transformation of this public space Occupy Baltimore is expressing solidarity with other Occupy Movements throughout the nation and the world who are forcing attention to the issues of political and economic injustice.

Our purpose is to open for all people a lasting, transparent, and honest Democracy organized in a consensus model. Our goals will be defined by that consensus of our General Assembly. We offer to the people what corporate privilege and political complacency in our nation has taken from them.

By shutting down the McKeldin Square occupation you stand:

·         with Wells Fargo and against the homebuyers whom they cheated

·         with the AIG executives who millions in commissions for betting on credit default and against the taxpaying citizens who bailed out AIG and paid the exorbitant compensation

·         with the lobbyist who earned millions for winning federal pre-emption of State gambling laws so that banks could trade derivatives and against the taxpaying depositor whose fees provide FDIC protection

·         with the loan servicer who gets a tax-funded fee for pretending to modify an unfair mortgage and another fee for simultaneously prosecuting foreclosure and against the borrower who is buried in red tape and lies

·         with the grain speculator who drives up prices just to make a profit and against the African baby who starves

·         with the broker on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who gets a fee from grain speculators and against the Egyptian mother who tries to feed her family

·         with the Arab dictator and against the people who resolutely face tanks

·         with the union-busting boss and against the labor organizer

·         with the mogul who moves jobs offshore and against your neighbor who can’t find work

·         with the Colombian paramilitaries who murdered 51 labor leaders last year and against the factory worker who organizes for human dignity

·         with the banker who got an unfair subsidy from W’s student loan program and against the unemployed graduate  who owes tens of thousands

·         with the war profiteer Halliburton and against our veterans and the Iraqi refugees whose lives are ruined for greed

·         with General Electric, tax-dodger extraordinaire, who stashes profits in phony foreign corporations and  against the taxpaying worker

·         with the bundler who organizes a secret Super PAC to spew self-serving lies and against the voters who honestly tries to decide whom to elect

·         with the learned Justice Alito who thinks Goodyear is a person with Constitutional guarantees and against Lily Ledbetter whose rights are negotiable

·         with the budget hawks who reduce funding for public schools and against our children who sit in crowded, dank classrooms trying to learn chemistry with no chem. lab

·         with the 1% and against the 99%!

 

The rationales hinted at by City statements about public order, law, and unsightliness are trivial compared to the profound political and economic injustices perpetrated by the elite in the era of free-market marauding and imperial impunity.

 

If you try to shut down Occupy Baltimore, you strive to stifle hope in democracy and to blot out the sunlight, to defend corporate privilege and maintain political complacency.  You stand against history and the people.

 

Charlie Cooper
410-578-8291
410-624-6095 cell

 

“We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.” - Louis Brandeis