Posted by CODEPINK Staff
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT
Angry crowd to pile their trash TODAY at Wall Street and demand "No Cash for Trash!" and "Bail out this, Mr. Paulson!"
WHAT: "This bailout is bull sh*t" and "buy out OUR junk" protest!
WHEN: 4 p.m. Thurs. Sept. 25
WHERE: Bowling Green Park (in the plaza area), at Broadway and Beaver Streets, New York City
(Watch Jodie Evans, CODEPINK co-founder, describe the event on GRITtv with reporter Laura Flanders yesterday here)
NEW YORK -- CODEPINK will join hundreds of Americans, furious at the the government's proposal to use $700 billion of taxpayers' money to bail out banks that helped create "the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression," in creating an enormous pile of junk down by Wall Street at 4 p.m. TODAY and demand, "No cash for trash!" and "Bail out this, Mr. Paulson!"
They'll bring their 8-track tape collection, high-school yearbook, Grampa's old recliner, and that snow globe from Great Adventure theme park, not to mention their mortgage statements and student loan invoices, to tell Secretary Paulson why they deserve a bailout, too!
Their demand for a bail-out on their junk will be much like the 1 trillion dollar blank check -- the biggest financial theft of taxpayers' dollars in American history -- the White House is now trying to push through without a snitch of debate. All to save George W. Bush's cronies on Wall Street, the same people who created America's financial crisis and helped fund war and violation of rights.
"This is a financial Sept. 11," said Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODEPINK Women for Peace. "Just like the White House used that moment of shock to institute abusive surveillance and policing powers under the Patriot Act, it's trying to use this economic meltdown to lavish taxpayer money on the same banks that made obscene profits off shady mortgage industry practices. And true to form, the Bush administration proposed giving itself vast new powers, this time over the economy, with absolutely no oversight."
If this bailout passes, America will have little money for environmental protection, for education, for national health care, and to counter global warming and to rebuild our decaying infrastructure. Much of this money was lost to an illegal war that has killed thousands of innocents.
"We have watched our rights be eroded, the invasion and destruction of an innocent country," Evans said. "Have we not learned? Are we going to watch rape in broad daylight of the people of the United States now?"
This action has been organized by nearly a dozen organizations, including CODEPINK Women for Peace, in an incredible three days of planning in response to news of the bailout. Similar actions will take place at 4 p.m. nationwide, in coalition with the Wall Street demonstration.
For more information, call Jean Stevens at 508-769-2138 or e-mail jean@codepinkalert.org.
