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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Resist the Mayors |
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by The Madison Insurgent
Email: resist_the_mayors (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
23 May 2002
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Resist the Mayors! Help build a midwest response to this yucky corporate party in Madison WI June 13-18. |
 Resist the Mayors! Help build a midwest response to this yucky corporate party in Madison WI June 13-18. |
Come down to Madison WI mid-june to celebrate a weekend of resistance. At least come for the weekend. Several local groups are planning events, including major demonstrations, a critical mass, and a counter-conference held at our local labor temple. It should be lots of fun, and it would be great for activists from throughout the midwest to join together in solidarity. This is reprinted from a local lefty rag in Madison called the Madison Insurgent. Also check out http://madison.indymedia.org for up to the minute developments on the conference or http://madison.indymedia.org/mayors for all of the mayors conference feature articles.
Yar matey! Come hither to Ye Olde Towne of Madison to resist those land-grubbing sap-suckers, the U.S.Conference of Mayors on June 13-18.
This summer, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) will descend upon Madison. THe conference will allow business leaders and U.S. mayors to set the agenda of our nation's cities during an array of high-priced meals and social events closed to the public, but open to corporations. Having been araound for 70 years, the USCM has long played a crucial role in setting a corporate-biased agenda for over 3,000 U.S. cities and has a number of tools available for doing just that.
One such tool is the Mayor's Business Council, a branch of the USCM that allows major corporations to directly influence mayors on key economic issues through a series of meetings and interactions. With a membership fee of $10,000
keeping all but the wealthiest out, the Business Council is one of the least democratic component of the USCM.
Which corporate juggernauts have paid the $10,000 to manipulate local government to serve themselves at this year's conference? The list includes Madison Gas and Electric, Phillip Morris, Daimler Chrysler, Sodexho Marriott, Arthur Andersen, 3COM, Citigroups,DuPont, Ford, Waste Management Inc., Home Depot, Coca Cola, among others (for a full list see http://www.resist-the-mayors.org/buscouncil.html).
These companies are allowed to buy access to local government officials, while the people affected by the policies crafted at theconference are kept out. In fact, according to the council's own website, "Through the creation of the Myors Business Council, we have transformed our organization to bring corporate America even closer to the mayors of our nation."
With this type of warped agenda-setting institution in place, is it any wonder the myriad problems that exist in our cities? Does the National Association of Realtors care about the severe lack of affordable housing in our cities? Does Sodexho Marriott, the leading investor in the world's largest private prison company, care about the rampant prison industrial complex that is putting millions of poor
people of color in jail for minor, non-violent crimes? Is DuPont, the single largest corporate polluter in the United States, at all concerned with urban environmental problems? Is Philip Morris, owner of the notorious genetically modified organism (GMO) user Kraft Foods, concerned about the potentially unsafe use of GMOs in school food programs? We could do this for every member of the Business COuncil, but you get the point.
Along with the conference, a number of social events are planned for the mayors' weekend in Madison. These high-powered events serve as an opportunity for businesses and other private interests to directly interact with the mayors they want to lobby. Business leaders and mayors will go to parties together, go golfing together, hang out at the Union Terrace, and more, all weekend long, so they can develop a sound friendship and basis for future work together. Naturally, these events are closed to the public and only top corporate sponsors can attend, based on their monetary contributions.
While the USCM features a Business Council to bring corporations "even closer" to our mayors, is there a People's Council to do the same for us? Not surprisingly, there isn't. The mayors haven't even opened their corporate/government parties and socail events to the public and press to allow transparency (let alone the actual agenda setting meeting). These types of imbalances and secret gatherings, favoring the powerful monied elites, underscore the undemocratic nature of the USCM.
So, the question becomes, "What are we going to do about it?" Well, a radical response/resistance tot he USCM is already in the works. The Creative People's Resistance (CPR) is a group that has formed specifically to create a radical resistance to the USCM. CPR is making a regional and national call to action for people to converge on Madison from June 13 to 18. Tentative actions include a Critical Mass with bikes and family farm tractors, "pirate golfing," street theatre, a tent encampment, Reclaim the Streets, and a pirate flotilla. It will be a weekend of fun and exciting resistance to the continued efforts by corporationt to control our lives.
The goal of CPR's mobilization is twofold. First, it is part of a larger struggle against the oppressive internal forces of the United States that seek to brutalize and subjugate people, communities, and the environment. The second is to focus energies toward local issues and radicalize the Midwest to fight corporate control of our lives in our communites, as part of the broader global justice movement. The Midwest needs something to spark a growth in radical activism and CPR is working to provide that spark.
For more information of CPR and the USCM, go to: www.resist-the-mayors.org or www.madison2002.org
If you're interested in helping out, email resist_the_mayors (at) yahoo.com or info (at) resist-the-mayors.org
www.resist-the-mayors.org |
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http://www.resist-the-mayors.org
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