REMINDER — Mimi Abramovitz Talks at Bloombergville Today at 6PM

Activist and scholar Mimi Abramovitz will speak at our sidewalk university on Saturday at 6pm.

The Bertha Capen Reynolds Professor of Social Policy at Hunter College School of Social Work, Professor Abramovitz interests include low income women’s activism, the history of the US welfare state, and the impact of neoliberalism on women and communities of color.

She is the author of many books and articles about women, poverty and the welfare state, including Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy From Colonial Times to the Present, Taxes are a Women’s Issue: Reframing the Debate, and Under Attack, Fighting Back: Women and Welfare in the United States. She is currently writing a book: Gendered Obligations: The History of Activism Among Black and White Poor and Working Class Women in the US Since 1900.

Please come out and give her a warm Bloombergville welcome.

6:00PM Speaker at Bloombergville

Mimi Abramovitz: Gender and the Attack on Public Sector Program, Workers and Union Members

MAJOR CITY COUNCIL RALLY — NEW DATE — NOW JUNE 28

New Date… New Date… New Date… New Date

We found out last night that City Council will now be voting on the budget on Tuesday June 28.  Meet at Bloombergville and go together to 49-51 Chambers Street to protest.  

DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE BUDGET CUTS

June 28, 12:00PM

Bring the message directly to City Council

Join us at 12pm on Tuesday at Bloombergville (Broadway and Park Place) then come with us to 49-51 Chambers Street (the Emigrant Bank Building) where City Council will be holding its vote.  We have to let them know New Yorkers reject this budget — and they should too!

With a $3 billion surplus and hundreds of millions in uncollected revenue, the city has more than enough money avoid all cuts.

Since June 14, a coalition of students, city workers, activists, and concerned citizens has operated Bloombergville, a protest encampment occupied 24 hours a day across from City Hall in Lower Manhattan.  Through leafletting, calls for protests, and creative street actions, the residents of Bloombergville and its supporters have worked to spread the word and rallied New Yorkers against the devastating impact of the proposed budget cuts.  It’s not too late to have our voices heard.

COME TO BLOOMBERGVILLE ON TUESDAY  — THEN COME WITH US TO PROTEST CITY COUNCIL AND THE BUDGET VOTE

The Bloombergville Declaration Endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Frances Fox Piven, Arun Gupta and Others

In the day since the Bloombergville Declaration was released, response to it has been very positive. More than a dozen leading writers, scholars and activists as well as community organizations have endorsed Bloombergville and what we stand for.

The first to endorse was Noam Chomsky.  Other endorsers include Z Media’s Michael Albert, New York Councilman Charles Barron, Arun Gupta of the Indypendent, social geographer David Harvey, historian and political scientist Frances Fox Piven and new names continue to be added.

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THE BLOOMBERGVILLE DECLARATION

We stand with all those struggling against austerity around the world.

We are in active solidarity with those refusing any and all cuts when solutions to deficits are clearly available.  The solution demands a reorientation of the fundamental priorities of our countries.  We reject our money going to war, tax breaks for the rich, and subsides to banks.

No library should close.  No teacher or worker laid off.  No tuition raised.  No fire station closed.  No unaffordable housing.  And no social services ended.

By increasing taxes on the wealthy and ending the wars and occupations the US engages in, we could help those most affected by the budget cuts: working people, people of color, women, students, the homeless, among others.  The solution is clear, and will only come from collective struggle.

Bloombergville is an encampment to intensify and strengthen the struggle against austerity in New York City.  It is a site of struggle and a community of resistance.  We have drawn our inspiration from similar actions around the world, and we hope to inspire others.

So long as austerity is on the agenda, we will be on the streets!

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To see the complete list of Endorsers, go to www.bloombergvillenow.org/declaration