Alert To All Georgians & States Nationwide!
Georgia state legislators are getting ready this week to attempt to criminalize our constitutional right to protest via the passage of Senate Bill 469.
If approved by the Georgia House and signed by the Governor, SB 469 would criminalize peaceful acts of protest, including public picketing related to labor disputes outside of any privately owned buildings. Individuals or union members or any individual employees who participate in such protests could be fined up to $1,000 a day, and organizations, which support such actions, could face penalties of up to $10,000 a day. Moreover, the bill adds a category of “conspiracy to commit criminal trespass,” which would make it a high and aggravated misdemeanor to plan acts of peaceful civil protest. The bill also includes provisions that weaken the power of workers to organize unions and bargain collectively with their employers by restricting the ability of workers to negotiate contracts with employers that provide for union dues and agency fees, therefore effectively de-funding Georgia’s unions and further penalizing their right to political and economic protest.
Occupy Atlanta, Georgia unions, and a broad coalition of other concerned Georgians will amass this coming Saturday March 17th at 11am at the Georgia State Capitol to take a stand against this villainous attack to our constitutional rights. We will bring our voices, our signs, our beliefs, and our democratic bodies and will peacefully assemble to STOP SB 469. We urge workers, people of faith, social justice advocates, people of all political backgrounds, and you to join us in protest and solidarity and call for this bill to be immediately rejected. This law is a corporate attempt to legalize the political and economic strangulation of the 99% and we cannot afford to ignore this unconstitutional attack.
SB 469 shares characteristics of model legislation crafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.) an out-of-state, secretive, corporate-funded council of which member corporations actually help draft laws that are then presented to their lawmaker allies. The lead sponsor of the bill is Georgia state Senator Donald Balfour, a Waffle House vice-president who believes that working people who stand up for their rights are criminals who ought to be in prison. The timing of SB 469 also suspiciously coincides with the lay-off coalition protests that are on-going at AT&T Atlanta headquarters on West Peachtree Rd.
We all know that for years corporate money has been used to drown our votes and warp our democratic institutions. But now the powerful seek to suppress our presence in the streets. We are witnessing in real time how corporations seek to directly rule our society with the support of their fraternal lawmakers, a militarized police force, and the privatized prison industry complex that makes a profit with every new arrest. Allowing the political-corporate axis to get away with this will pave the way for additional repressive legislation to the point where corporations and their political stooges will “legally” squeeze away our rights to protest anything, anywhere, anytime. The criminalization of otherwise protected activities represents an assault on the nation’s ideals and our fundamental human and democratic rights. As Atlanta native, Martin Luther King, Jr. said on the night before he was killed, “The greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
What kind of country do you want to live in? Does this fit your definition of the United States? How will this law affect the future of your children? Does it matter what political party or views you espouse? Should your right to protest be criminalized?
Fight back against the scandalous actions of this legislative session, which have also included legislated attacks on women, minorities, immigrants, the environment, the poor, and all Georgia taxpayers.
Stand up for your rights, or prepare to lose them.
What you can do
• Join us on Saturday March 17 at the Georgia Capital at 11am, ALL DAY. Bring your voice, your homemade signs, your friends and family and some cash to pay for parking.
• Spread this post by email and on your social media.
• Call Georgia representatives and tell them what you think of this law.
• If you have media contacts, please notify them.
• If you belong to a coalition, organization, or community group mobilize them to show up to the protest.
Occupations across the US, Stand With Us In Solidarity!
• This bill is part of a national strategy. Similar legislation could be coming to your state soon.
• Spread the word on your site and social media.
• Notify your local and national media contacts.
• Bring the heat on this law at the national level.
When: Saturday, March 17,11 am – 1 pm.
Where: Georgia State Capitol, 206 Washington Street Southwest Atlanta, GA 30334
MARTA: Georgia State Station
Occupy Atlanta
www.occupyatlanta.org
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyAtlanta
http://twitter.com/#!/owsatlanta
Media Contact: media@occupyatlanta.org
Action Contact: action@occupyatlanta.org
Outreach Contact: outreach@occupyatlanta.org
What do yall think of this? DGV is working on editing something along these lines – want to get feedback
Declaration of Protest by the People of Georgia
We gather here today in protest of the series of destructive bills being rammed through the Georgia General Assembly, and in support of a more vibrant, desirable vision.
These bills before the Georgia General Assembly violate our basic rights and sensibilities:
• They call for drug tests as a condition for receiving marginal financial support to keep one’s family fed, clothed, and sheltered in times of hardship. The “drug war” that has been fought with military might, police forces, and now intrusive drugs tests has failed to affect addiction’s devastating influence; it has succeeded only in criminalizing poverty and in creating a “new Jim Crow” through the disproportionate arrest and incarceration of people of color. These bills will not save money or stop drug use. They will simply hurt children and perpetuate division in our society.
• They disenfranchise the residents of South Fulton County in discussions about MARTA and transportation – transportation that low-income people of color rely on much more so than their northern neighbors. The incorporation of new cities in the north that prompted this bill can further perpetuate segregation based upon race and income in the Atlanta metropolitan area. We should be moving away from the injustice of our past towards equity – not moving backwards.
• They call for the exclusion of undocumented immigrants from Georgia’s colleges, even those individuals who came to the U.S. as minors who have worked hard to earn good grades and pay hefty out-of-state tuition rates to pursue the American dream. This bill will not make our classrooms less crowded or push people away from Georgia who have lived here their entire lives; it will only further discriminate against low-income immigrants of color, people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.
• They call for the criminalization of public picketing for economic justice, the de-funding of many of Georgia’s unions, and gross penalization of political non-violent civil disobedience. In the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr., elected officials are doing the bidding of corporate interests by launching a full-scale assault on our fundamental and democratic rights. This bill will help keep corporations safe and profitable, but it will not make any person in Georgia safer or more prosperous. It will simply chip away from rights that have long been the foundation of our democracy.
We believe our government has become destructive of our fundamental rights and liberties. We contend that the direction of this legislation is unacceptable, and we demand that our government take steps to reverse this legislation.
We insist that, instead, our government work to serve the 99%, not corporations, by embracing a new vision – a vision we believe many people share. To this end, we offer the following Declaration of Rights for the People of Georgia as a framework for our elected representatives to better serve the people of Georgia.
Declaration of Rights of the People of Georgia
We, the People of Georgia, declare that we as human beings have certain fundamental rights. In addition to the Bill of Rights of the United States of America, we declare the following rights:
1. All people have the unconditional right to ample, nutritious food.
2. All people have the unconditional right to adequate, assured housing.
3. All people have the unconditional right to comprehensive, affordable healthcare, including but not limited to reproductive health services and counseling for addiction and mental illness.
4. All people have the unconditional right to high-quality, affordable higher education and should have decision-making power proportional to how much they will be affected by the decision in the schools where they attend, teach, or work.
5. All people have the unconditional right to extensive, affordable transportation and should have decision-making power proportional to how much they will be affected by the decision in the public transportation systems they use.
6. All people have the unconditional right to freedom from systematic discrimination based upon race, class, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, or immigration status in every facet of public and private life.
7. All people have the unconditional right to desirable, adequate work that allows them to meet the needs of themselves and their families, with the unrestricted ability to collectively bargain and have decision-making power proportional to how much they will be affected by the decision in their workplaces.
8. All people have the unconditional right to adequate, consistent, 24-hour, outdoor and indoor public space for the exercise of their right to protest, freedom of assembly, and redress of grievances, and have decision-making power proportional to how much they will be affected by the decision in their public space.
We hold these rights to be self-evident and we invite the Georgia Legislature to better serve the People of Georgia by embracing and legislating for these rights. We reserve the right to alter or abolish our government if it continues to be destructive of these rights.
Can we not suggest abolishing the government in so many words? I think saying that it’s on a course destructive of our fundamental rights implies that pretty much.
Misty, pls delete your comment in this post and re-post under forum or your committee. This post is the headline announcement of the event, telling people when where who how; its not so much a discussion post. Thanks. Media