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| Terry R. Bankert |
Occupy Flint is an ongoing peaceful ,assembly using the tools of free speech and protest of National and local economic policies that help the few(1%) and harm the many (99%). We offer a voice for change in our nation, state and city.
Events bring into focus voters discontent.
One such event is the appointment of Emergency Manager Mike Brown by Michgians Governor. This is a state take over because our leaders could not keep our economiuc house in order.
We ask that during this period of suspension of the powers of our elected officals the community be given the ability to review its City Charter. How? By the election of a Flint Charter Commission. This way we the voters can decide what powers should be returned to elected officials when the manager leaves.
Mr, Brown you have the power to start this process. Direct the City Clerk to place on the next regular ballot a questions asking voters if the want a General Revison of the Flint Charter. Please! The election will cost the city nothing.
Nationally it has been Congressional policy that through bailout and stimulus benefited Wall Street, Big Business and Big Banks. This same policy process offered no meaningful help to our middle class and poor families loss of jobs, home, dignity, ability to live in peace in their own homes and sustain their families.
Locally we have seen in Flint a Municipal government organized by a dysfunctional outdated City Charter that has given preference to the 1% that back and profit from Downtown economic policies to the detriment of Flint having a meaningful neighborhood agenda. Downtown economic policies that cater to Uptown reinvestment and monopolistic policies ot the Genesee Regional Chamber of Commerce including a Downtown Foundation with its capitalist son have denied resource to the neighborhoods.
Long term we plan to change the actors and their agenda in Washington. Locally we plan to change the foundation of local decision by changing the Flint City Charter and thereby changing how economic decisions are made in Flint. What can a Charter do?. It can make Flint City Council positions unpaid and not a career. It can eliminate the Flint Mayors positions that has through several administration walked us into economic irresponsibility and two take overs of Flint by the State of Michigan. The Charter can change the number of city council member from the bloated top heavy 9 to an efficient streamlined 5. The Citizens protector the Flint Ombudsman can be given enhanced powers to seek legal remedy when the mayor or council violate the Flint City Charter. There are hundreds of other changes that you can make to your charter. Help us build a better life for you in Flint. Join us.
I am proud of the “ Occupy Flint “ movement in Flint. Join us.
The founding principals of the occupy movement can be found in the following statement.
This statement was issued from Zuccotti Park by the general assembly at Occupy Wall Street. on or about 10/07/2011
“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members. That our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors. That a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people, and the Earth, and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.
We come to you at a time when corporations — which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality — run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here as is our right to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in workplaces based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is, itself, a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut worker’s health care and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams, but look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products, endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives, or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully kept people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners, even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City general assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.”
Join us and make your voices heard. I offer to continue to this discussion with you or any group you belong to.
by Terry Bankert of Occupy Flint
810-235-1970
terry@attorneybankert.com
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