By Freeda Cathcart
NYC – The Founder of Indivisible Virginia traveled to Manhattan to launch CAT (Corporate Action Team) to out corrupt corporations. The opposition to corruption is strong and well organized in NYC.
Rise and Resist is a “NONVIOLENT direct action group committed to opposing, disrupting, and defeating any government act that threatens democracy, equality, and our civil liberties.” The leadership of Rise and Resist are experienced retired New Yorkers who are using their expertise to protect their communities and country. They’ve been organizing peaceful direct actions since 2017.
Every Tuesday, no matter if there is rain or bitter cold or searing heat, Rise and Resist meets in front of the Fox News headquarters at noon to confront them with their lies and propaganda. A PBS report on the Dominion voting systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News wrote, “Revelations have bolstered critics who say Fox News Channel should be considered a propaganda network rather than a news outlet.”
Every Thursday at noon no matter the weather, Rise and Resist meets at the employee entrance at 26 Federal Plaza where ICE employees work for a silent vigil. The signs they hold are powerful confrontations of the people who have died in ICE concentration camps or who were killed by ICE agents. It was at this vigil that Indivisible Virginia launched CAT with new signs that said: Concentration Camps Are a For-Profit Scam” “Vanguard & BlackRock Own the Largest Shares in Concentration Camps”
People’s heads turned at the new signs. Many people don’t know the connection between the ICE kidnappings and the proliferation of for-profit concentration camps to Vanguard and BlackRock. CoreCivic and other for-profit corporations that own the concentration camps need to house enough prisoners in order to make a profit. This creates a monetary incentive to house as many human beings as possible. But they don’t refer to them as human beings. They refer to them as bodies!
This explains the instructions to ICE agents to increase the people they arrest. That appears to result in ICE picking up people of color without judicial warrants or wrong doing, whether they are US citizens or not to send to the for-profit concentration camps. This has resulted in multiple court rulings ordering ICE to release people being held without judicial warrants.
Recently TV ads encourage people to get out of ICE’s way and to let them do their job to protect our country from “illegal” people. There have also been recent ads portraying Vanguard as a caring corporation. These appear to be attempts to distract people from news reports of the horrible conditions in the concentration camps as the numbers of people in them become sick and die.
Most people that have 401Ks, IRAs and pensions are probably invested in Vanguard and BlackRock. BlackRock and Vanguard are the world’s two largest trillion-dollar asset managers. People can demand they divest from for-profit prisons. Call Vanguard at 877-662-7447. The contact information for BlackRock is 800-882-0052 and email [email protected].
Twenty-two states have either banned for-profit prisons or don’t have contracts with them. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order to phase out the Department of Justice’s use of privately operated criminal detention facilities.
The current regime seems more interested in using propaganda against immigrants in order to use taxpayer money to pay for a secret police force to fill for-profit concentration camps. Their goal appears to make rich people richer, while innocent people are suffering and dying in horrendous conditions instead of protecting public safety.
Public opinion against ICE and concentrations camps is growing, as protests across the country happen regularly to shut them down. Currently there’s a partial government shutdown because the Democratic Senate members are refusing to fund DHS until ICE starts operating according to the US Constitution and aligns with law enforcement requirements.
People can also ask their local and state governments to shut down for-profit prisons. People deserve dignity when they’re detained before being deported or while they serve time for their crimes.
