Wells Fargo shut their doors early Tuesday afternoon when twenty to thirty protesters from the Oakland Education Association (OEA) and ACCE protested outside Wells Fargo’s Fruitvale branch chanting “Bail Out Schools, Not Banks”
The Oakland Education Association is outraged that across the country, public education and other programs are suffering devastating cuts while billionaire bankers receive trillion dollar bailouts from the federal government.
Bob Mandell, Executive Board Member of the OEA says that Oakland Education Association decided to get involved as a change agent five years ago when the State took over Oakland schools. “One of the first things administrators announced was that everyone would have to take pay cuts, which motivated us to investigate why. We discovered that Oakland was not a poor city! Oakland has the 18th largest gross domestic product in the U.S. and the motor that drives this city is the Port of Oakland. Running a respectable second is downtown commercial development. Forbes rated Oakland the 8th most desirable city for commercial development and redevelopment.
The next thing we discovered was that Shorenstein Properties owns major property in downtown Oakland as well as other major cities yet what corporate Oakland pays the city is a joke! The Port [of Oakland] does $30 billion dollars a year and charges zero rent to international shippers. We (the OEA) approached Golden West and other corporate entities in Oakland and told them as major employers that they have a responsibility to prepare Oakland youth so they are job ready. We called the $62 billion dollar content.postnewsgroup.com
Whether the 9/10 of $1 that enriches the Oil corporations by $160 billion yearly, or aye, rewards the Banking executives with $140 billion of a year's income:
III. The counsel she gives [is] to do good. 1. He must do good with his wealth. Great men must not think that they have their abundance only that out of it they may made provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts of it, and may the more freely indulge their own genius; no, but that with it they may relieve such as are in distress, v. 6, 7. "Thou hast wine or strong drink at command; instead of doing thyself hurt with it, do others good with it; let those have it that need it." Those that have wherewithal must not only give bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty, but they must give strong drink to him that is ready to perish through sickness or pain and wine to those that are melancholy and of heavy heart; for it was appointed to cheer and revive the spirits, and make glad the heart (as it does where there is need of it), not to burden and oppress the spirits, as it does where there is no need of it.
