Speak Out Against Joe Crowley's Deadly Free Trade Votes!

Confront Death Squad Joe during his appearance at a town hall meeting in Jacson Heights, Queens!

When: Tuesday, April 10th, 2012, 5:30-8PM

Where: Jackson Heights Jewish Center, 3706 77th Street between 37th Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights, Queens, NY

Directions: 7 train to 74th-Broadway or E, F, M, or R to Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue

Contact: (917) 543-2208 or (718) 218-4523
Email: info@tradejustice.net

More info: http://tradejustice.net

Sponsored by TradeJustice New York Metro & Occupy Wall Street Trade Justice Working Group

Email info@tradejustice.net to add your organization to the list of endorsers.

Why Protest Crowley?

Queens Congressional Rep and Queens Democratic Machine Boss Joseph Crowley, first won his Congressional seat in an unopposed primary and is reelected term after term with virtually no electoral opposition. Crowley has abused this safe seat to continually sell out the interests of the 99% while taking in big money from the corporate elites.

Crowley heads the New Democrats Coalition, an alliance of centrist, pro-corporate Democratic legislators tied to the infamous Democratic Leadership Council. A ProPublica expose revealed the New Democrats's close ties to “large banks, pharmaceutical firms, insurance companies, and big-ticket trade groups” (http://www.propublica.org/article/new-democrat-coalition).

The Office of Congressional Ethics recommended a full-blown probe of whether improperly solicited donations from corporate executives just before voting on legislation overhauling Wall Street. The scrutiny centers on a series of fund-raisers -- including one Crowley attended last Dec. 10, at which he collected thousands of dollars from financial power brokers before returning to the Capitol to vote against a series of amendments that would have imposed tougher restrictions on Wall Street. Crowley was reported to have received at least $23,500 before the vote.

As New Democrats coalition leader, Crowley, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congressional committee that oversees trade legislation, pushed Obama to pass free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama, pressured other Congressmembers to vote for them, and voted for all three agreements in October – despite knowing that these agreements will:

- give foreign corporation the right to sue the US for unlimited sums in international tribunals if they believe our environmental, health, food safety, and labor laws interfere with their future potential profits.

- protect the 1% and multinational corporations' use of Panamanian banks to hide their wealth to avoid paying taxes in the US while vital social services are cut. This will also help Colombia cocaine cartels linked to paramilitary terrorist groups launder drug profits.

- outsource an estimated 214,000 US jobs – many to exploitative sweatshops.

- exacerbate the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, Panama's Darien Rainforest and other endangered ecosystems and wildlife by oil, mining, logging, natural gas, and plantation agriculture interests.

- ban regulations on Wall Street – prohibiting rules against toxic derivatives, “too big to fail”, and commonsense capital controls.

- exacerbate human rights atrocities and assassinations of labor organizers, indigenous leaders, Afro-Colombians, environmental and gay rights activists, judges, journalists, children, and community organizers by government-linked, right-wing paramilitary death squads working to advance the interests of Coca-Cola and other US corporations operating in Colombia. Since the October vote for the Colombia FTA the assassinations have continued with victims including an election observer, an indigenous leader, an advocate for the rights of displaced persons, and a union organizer.

- continue the displacement of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Colombia and Panama.

- expand exports of inhumane, polluting, dangerous factory farms that produce toxic foods and incubate diseases like swine flu and bird flu and drive family farmers out of business.

- limit access to AIDS drugs and other life saving medications by expanding corporate patent rights on drugs.

- encourage the privatization of education and other public services, making them less affordable for the 99%.

- force South Korea to eliminate its ban on genetically modified foods and to import US cars that fail to meet Korean auto emissions standards, exacerbating climate change.

With Obama negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a new, 9 country free trade agreement that looks to be even worse than the Panama, Colombia, and South Korea Free Trade Agreements, it's vital that we let Congressman Crowley and other Wall Street Democrats know that they will be held accountable when they sell us out to the 1%!