Code: Pink! Bailout Protest in New York
By Beau Friedlander

At four o' clock this afternoon in New York City's oldest park, Bowling Green, the activist group Code Pink Woman for Peace hopes hundreds of Americans will come on down to pile their trash at Wall Street: "No Cash for Trash" is their clarion call.

The group is protesting the proposed government bailout that would earmark $700 billion of taxpayer dough to bail out banks that caused "the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."

Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans came by the Air America offices yesterday to talk to Laura Flanders on Grit TV. She visited the newsroom on her way out. "We want people to bring their 8-track tape collection, high-school yearbooks, Grampa's old recliner, and that snow globe from Great Adventure theme park," she said.

Other items Evans suggested: mortgage statements and student loan invoices. "We want Paulson to bail us out, too!"

Code Pink contends that Paulson's plain will only "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. "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."

It's a good time to clean out your closet (if you happen to be in New York City). Organize a junk pile in your neighborhood. Tell Paulson we need a little more information before we hand over a blank check to the very same people who caused the crisis.