Politics as Unusual: OWS Activist Prepares to Bum Rush The Vote!

Getting money out of politics has emerged as one of the core objectives of the occupy movement, but for former Brooklyn Democratic District Leader, U.S. Hip Hop Ambassador and OWS Activist, George Martinez, “controlling politics without money is power, People Power.”

With the intention of inspiring and fostering a new generation of political leaders and community-based politics that will challenge the very core of the political system with the Occupy Movement, George and his crew of dedicated community activists created Bum Rush The Vote! This new organization intends bring a paradigm shift through socially/culturally relevant political literacy and electoral direct action.

Occasionally the political structure presents a window of opportunity for a transformative politics. Right NOW is the political opportunity for a real progressive from the Occupy Movement to pull a Congressional seat away from the corrupt power elite of the Democratic Party in Brooklyn. The seat, NY-12, is currently under the possession of 20 year incumbent Nydia Velazquez. Rep. Velazquez voted for every bankster bail out, voted to repeal Glass-Stegall and has pocketed over $5,000 from Goldman Sachs this year alone.

This is a rare once in a decade chance to not only beat a 20 year dead beat in the Democratic Party, but also to break down the door of one of the nation's most corrupt party bosses (Vito Lopez, D-NYS Assembly) and his political proxy (Eric Dilan, D-NY City Council). Bum Rush The Vote! is targeting exactly the same people that corporate corruption is buying out. These party cogs in the machine share blame for destroying the trust and integrity of our electoral system. Willy Rashbaum, New York's most respected investigative journalist, helped lift the rock under which Lopez has been hiding.

Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, a long-serving Brooklyn Democratic leader who is widely viewed as the borough’s patronage king, is at the center of two separate federal investigations, according to several people briefed on the matter. A third inquiry, by the city’s Department of Investigation, those people said, is focused on a network of nonprofit groups Mr. Lopez controls.

All three investigations focus to some extent on the nexus of politics, nonprofit groups and real estate developers in Brooklyn, the people familiar with the inquiries said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

“The name of the game” is real estate development, one of the people said, adding that the inquiries have produced masses of records, and in several of the cases the authorities have “mounds of paper to go through.” The person would not name the developers under scrutiny, saying only, “There is a lot of developers in the game here.”

One of the federal investigations began about two years ago, growing out of a corruption case brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that led to guilty pleas by Assemblymen Brian M. McLaughlin in 2007 and Anthony S. Seminerio in 2009, two of the people said. Mr. McLaughlin cooperated with the authorities and provided information that led to the case against Mr. Seminerio.

To varying degrees, several of the people said, the three inquiries are examining the sprawling social services organization controlled by Mr. Lopez, who in the 1970s and ’80s built the prototype of the modern big-city political machine.

As for Lopez's candidate to take on Velazqquez, Erik Dilan has been exposed as a two-bit crook time and time again. Here's 52nd AD District Leader JoAnne Simon explaining why he'll be "in for a rude awakening when the campaign spotlight focuses on his public record."

“Voters of Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan will call on him to explain why he is the target of an on-going investigation into the use of public discretionary funds benefiting a family member.”

“He must also explain why he illegally accepted affordable housing from a developer who has since been indicted.”

“Voters are rightfully concerned about those these kinds of improprieties, especially when they are at the public’s expense

With the public starting to focus on the criminal shenanigans of Republican hoodlum, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm on the other end of Brooklyn, maybe it's time for a clean sweep of corruption in both parties and in both ends of the borough. Are there enough Democrats who want to see the system fundamentally transformed? Can WE reclaim the platform and challenge the corporate control of the political parties and the government itself with People Power? The Occupy Movement has already shown that it can, now Bum Rush The Vote! intends to prove that it can be done to take control over the institutional mechanisms that affect our communities.

George, the songwriter/MC of the viral OWS Hip Hop Anthem, "Occupation Freedom" (video up top), has been centrally involved in several areas of the Occupy Movement and was identified in Crains NY as one of the ad-hoc leaders pushing the movement forward.

Twenty-year-old East Harlem native George Machado [another OWS activist] initially assumed Occupy Wall Street was “just some well-meaning liberal arts college kids with money-- same old, same old.”

...Despite the public perception that the movement is leaderless, leaders have in fact emerged-- and they're beginning to tackle tough questions about the next steps for the movement. While the public is riveted by events in Zuccotti Park, which the protesters call Liberty Square, these ad hoc leaders are debating whether to leave it.