PUBLIC POLICY IS WRITTEN BY CORPORATIONS IN MARYLAND WITH JOHNS HOPKINS IN CONTROL OF ALL OF BALTIMORE AND WITH O'MALLEY AS GOVERNOR, MUCH OF MARYLAND. HOPKINS IS A NEO-CONSERVATIVE INSTITUTION TO THE RIGHT OF BUSH/CHENEY.
Now, Baltimore has a Mayor and City Council that is completely democratic and mostly black working as hard as they can to install Hopkins' neo-conservative policies. We have democrats Ben Cardin and Mikulski who have taken their decades in office to send over a trillion dollars to Johns Hopkins to build a global neo-conservative corporation while constituents in their districts live in third world poverty and are ruled as a COMPANY TOWN.
POLITICIANS RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS BUILDING A NEO-CONSERVATIVE CORPORATION AND PASSING LAW WRITTEN BY THAT NEO-CONSERVATIVE INSTITUTION.
DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY? IF VOTERS DO NOT BECOME THE POLITICIANS WE HAVE NO DEMOCRATIC PARTY. SHAKE THESE CORPORATE POLS OUT OF THE PEOPLE'S PARTY!
I walked with a tour of downtown Baltimore with a Baltimore Development Corporation private non-profit that proved enjoyable and informative. Baltimore has great history, beautiful architecture, rich academic and economic resources. The citizens passionate about rebuilding the city are doing a service for everyone that loves the city. The problem is the revitalization is led by people who have no connection with reality. Their visions are skewed by personal perceptions that do not translate to what creates a viable future for the city and its citizens or what the residents of the city have as their vision. Since Baltimore Development Corporation is run by Johns Hopkins and old money in the city, the plans pushed forward all involve creating what the neo-liberals/neo-cons call THE 21ST CENTURY ECONOMY. If you hear this phrase you are talking to a neo-liberal/neo-con group. These are the people enriched by the massive corporate frauds of last decade and they say-----now that we have all the money we will decide what America will look like. That is what this tour guide said.....the merchants bring wealth to the city so they decide what that city will look like. This is why cities all across the country are being filled with national chain businesses and global corporations. The future has every consumer's purchase being made from a corporation owned collectively by the few enriched by massive fraud. That is what you see in downtown Baltimore development. Meanwhile, I know of no one that does not hate this policy and indeed, the 21st Century Economy for progressive labor and justice is built on small and regional businesses regulated and held accountable by citizens of a state.
This vision that merchants bring the money to a city has fallen flat on its face as 2008 economic crash left most of those corporations bankrupt and the cities and country with them. The rich are no longer rich-----they lost their wealth to fraud and corruption and owe the citizens more than they will be able to pay in one generation. THE RICH ARE BROKE JUST AS WITH THE GREAT DEPRESSION. The difference between the great collapse in the 1930s and in 2008 and coming again in 2014.... mechanisms exist to protect corporate losses and politicians are in place willing to take all that money lost from the US economy by corporate fraud from the public's wealth......which is what your neo-liberal is doing right now. So, all that development downtown Baltimore is that massive fraud being redirected into real estate development that will enrich further the few and garner control of all downtown property and function. This tour guide spoke of the 'TAX ZONE' and showed the former Bank of America building on Baltimore Street as an example of $300,000 state tax credit to subsidize renovation into apartments. Keep in mind that Bank of America was the greatest of looters and still owes the State of Maryland billions of dollars in fraud and neo-liberals and neo-cons are using the public's tax money to subsidize the rehab of this building.
BANK OF AMERICA NEEDS TO PAY FOR THE REHAB OF THIS BUILDING AND THE FUTURE OWNER OF THIS PRIME REAL ESTATE NEEDS TO PAY TAXES.
We stood in the courtyard of Charles Center circled by Mechanic Theater, the Federal Building and offices and apartments. This huge courtyard was empty and silent on a beautiful spring Saturday. WHAT CAUSES THIS? No residential space bringing people to fill the streets says the tour guide. Making a neighborhood of downtown is a fine idea but what is missing are events that bring people to the city and give the impression of a government that seeks a quality of life for its residents. Baltimore has been starved of government revenue by these corporate tax deals and all existing tax revenue being funneled right back into these tax-free zones so there is no money for quality of life. There have been tons of residential development around Charles Center and these people are not coming out to enjoy the city because it is so repressive. PEOPLE WILL NOT STAY IF FRAUD AND CORRUPTION IS NOT STOPPED AND DEMOCRACY DOES NOT COME TO THE CITY OF BALTIMORE
IT IS THE WORST DEVELOPMENT POLICY ANY CITY CAN HAVE. WALL TO WALL NATIONAL CHAIN BUSINESSES WITH TOURISM AS THE ECONOMIC DRIVER AND A GOVERNMENT STARVED OF REVENUE TO GIVE CITIZENS A STRONG QUALITY OF LIFE.
Does a potential tourist really sit at home and say-----let's go to Baltimore and eat at their Chipotle or shop at their TJ MAX? Do we race to the bottom in building arenas for conventions as the only way to fill our downtown with people able to consume?
REALLY????
I respect these people passionate about their city but they are not given the power to usurp all vision for the future. They failed miserably these last decades of neo-liberalism and need to step aside, fork over the money and let the rest determine what 'sustainable living' means!