Dear Editor:
This is Part 2 of an Open Letter to Steven Fulop from Occupy Jersey City:
Investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, bundled mortgages with other loans and debts into “collateralized debt obligations” (CDOs), which they sold to investors. Rating agencies gave many CDOs “AAA” ratings. Subprime loans led to predatory lending. Many home owners were given loans they could never repay and now we are suffering globally from these crimes, housing foreclosures being just one symptom.
Goldman Sachs alone allegedly sold more than $3 billion worth of CDOs in the first half of 2006. Goldman Sachs also bet against the low-value CDOs, telling investors they were high-quality.
We understand that this financial collapse, felt globally, occurred after you left Goldman Sachs, but the foundation was being built during years prior.
Also, according to your website: “After 9/11, he opted to leave his job at a prestigious firm to enlist in the Marine Corps where he was amongst the first troops deployed to Iraq.”
While we respect the service and protection the women and men of the armed services provide to our nation, we need to clarify a point: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Even President George W. Bush himself admitted this – (BBC News – Americas: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3118262.stm ). In fact, the United States government actually was the aggressor in an illegal act of war, and we continue an occupation on a nation that not only never threatened us, but never attacked us.
Just as in our own ‘Revolutionary War’ when we were fighting back against the British invasion, and before that, as the Native American Nations were fighting back against colonial invaders, Iraq has been doing the same.
Over one million dead Iraqi people. Countless dead and wounded American and coalition soldiers.
President Obama, who has kept these brutal wars and occupations funded with our American tax-dollars and soldiers, reportedly received over $1M in donations from Goldman Sachs (through organizations and members and families).
As the 1 percent get taxpayer-funded bailouts and benefit from war, the 99 percent pay for these wars and suffer as causalities. Iraqi and Afghan people continue to die as American soldiers are forced to do two, three, four or more tours of duty.
As whistle blowers step forward, as the corruption of Goldman Sachs is exposed, and as these horrific wars continue, it would be powerful if you yourself step up and speak out publicly against the occupations, the wars and the corruption – not only of Goldman Sachs, but of most of Wall Street.
Remember, a mayor is not only representing the 1 percent but they are representing the 99 percent – the middle-class, the poor, the homeless, the almost homeless, the sick, the veterans, the unemployed, the working-class, in all of the Wards. Not just the wealthy elite.
Respectfully,
Occupy Jersey City
General Assembly