Will Merrifield

Working to build productive, sustainable and publicly controlled systems of housing, healthcare and education.

[Ollie Vargas @Ollie_Vargas_]

Bolivia's workers unions held a congress yesterday and confirmed that they will not take part in any dialogue or negotiations.

The general strike against neoliberalism continues, the number of barricades erected along highways is now 90, a record breaking number.

[Paco Arnau @ciudadfutura]

En Bolivia hay una genuina movilización popular de mineros, obreros y campesinos. Si fuera una “primavera” orquestada por EEUU o la UE abriría todos los telediarios. Es la prueba del algodón.

[The Center for Social Housing & Public Investment @1socialhousing]

"Washington DC needs a new system of economic development that attacks the problem of inequality through focused investment in people and their communities."
https://t.co/mxS3qXviXU

[Matt Kennard @kennardmatt]

This is why Washington and its local compradors want Evo dead

He led the most successful sustained experiment in democratic socialism in history

He was deposed in a CIA coup in 2019, but it was reversed the following year - another first

None of this is tolerated by the empire

[Ollie Vargas @Ollie_Vargas_]

The general strike + barricades blocking highways has paralyzed the government. If sustained, the neoliberal govt will collapse and it'll show the rest of the region how to overthrow their own US puppet regimes that impoverish them. US wants to crush this idea.

[Evo Morales Ayma @evoespueblo]

Invasores, asaltantes de recursos naturales, mercaderes de la muerte y genocidas como EEUU e Israel, más ocho presidentes derechistas -sometidos al imperialismo norteamericano y que están en plena caída por corrupción y por destruir la economía de sus países- apoyan al gobierno boliviano de Rodrigo Paz, con el libreto de siempre: acusar de conspiración, terrorismo y narcotráfico al pueblo sublevado contra los opresores.
Los eternos golpistas, masacradores, vendepatrias y ejecutores del Plan Cóndor tienen el cinismo de gritar que está en riesgo la democracia; los que viven del narcotráfico en sus sistemas financieros acusan de ese mal a las organizaciones del pueblo; los que aplican cerco mediático a los indignados, hablan de libertad de expresión.

[The Center for Social Housing & Public Investment @1socialhousing]

Washington DC is a real-estate boom town. The hyper-financialized development model being employed by the real estate industry and their Wall Street backers does not invest in existing communities. Instead, this model displaces people and extracts wealth.
https://t.co/XW5JLwaLzp

[The Center for Social Housing & Public Investment @1socialhousing]

A society cannot be considered prosperous when it cannot educate its children and allows them to live in rank poverty. A society cannot be considered prosperous when much of the affordable housing that is available is run by slumlords.
https://t.co/XW5JLwaLzp

[Ollie Vargas @Ollie_Vargas_]

Our sources within the Bolivian police have confirmed that they've received orders to use live ammunition against the indigenous long march that is arriving today in the capital.

Protesters are aware and heading down regardless, to defend the country and its natural resources.

[CODEPINK @codepink]

Very concerning.

These leaked plans continue a history of US meddling in Bolivia, particularly targeted against former President Evo Morales.

Why?

Because the US wants to exploit Bolivia's natural resources and crush the strongest Indigenous movement in Latin America.

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

More absurd war propaganda disseminated by an obedient media to justify another illegal war. The United States has become completely captured by an all encompassing oligarchy bent on exploitation and domination.

[Axios @axios]

EXCLUSIVE: Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones and recently began discussing plans to use them to attack U.S assets, according to classified intelligence shared with Axios.

The intelligence could become a pretext for U.S. military action.
https://t.co/Ybrcce7CSx

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

@ProfSteveKeen https://t.co/VzKfZmXDEC

[Wyatt Reed @wyattreed13]

A massive crowd assembled in La Paz’s working class twin city, El Alto, to demand Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz resign

Indigenous-led demonstrations come as the Bolivian regime was caught preparing to launch a US-backed operation to kidnap Evo Morales with 2,000+ troops & cops

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

But the market is not a god — it is a handful of large developers backed by global capital seeking maximum return. That pursuit doesn’t build homes for the people who need them — it inflates land values, drives up rents, and deepens the crisis.
https://t.co/3s9Y9TIKeb

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

"This is the neoliberal sermon preached since the 1980s: deregulate, subsidize capital, let the market rule. It produced record inequality and a global financial collapse, but the preachers keep preaching — now dressed up as “abundance” or “innovation.” Whatever the branding, the message is unchanged: profit first, people last."
https://t.co/2nrIlu2iwN

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

Somehow, there is never enough public money to house the poor — but endless subsidies for private developers. A technocratic triumvirate of “policy experts”, ambitious politicians, and profit-driven speculators promise solutions that always look the same: socialize the construction of luxury buildings, privatize their profits.
https://t.co/2nrIlu2iwN

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

Important thread to read in order to understand the failure of DC's Housing Policies.

[The Center for Social Housing & Public Investment @1socialhousing]

“ For decades local DC officials have designed their housing policies around a broader economic development policy rooted in the belief that the government’s primary responsibility is to help developers inject capital (money) into neighborhoods."
https://t.co/UUrkjeCTEk

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

Financialization is the key to understanding the affordable housing crisis.

[The Center for Social Housing & Public Investment @1socialhousing]

“The economic meltdown left in the wake of the subprime mortgage debacle exposed the dangers of marrying housing policy to the highly financialized and high-risk world of Wall Street gambling."
https://t.co/bdZdOkKfkJ

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

"The Washington Post Editorial Board’s recent piece on the District’s affordable housing crisis combined smugness with a boastful ignorance that epitomizes everything wrong with policy discussion in this town."

[The Center for Social Housing & Public Investment @1socialhousing]

Our Latest: https://t.co/8yUGny7Wof

[Will Merrifield @willm4dc]

"Yet by linking these consumer protections to a lack of building supply, the editorial advances the real estate industry’s long game – to generate and sustain the political will to remove any laws that impede its path to complete control of the District’s development policies and practices. As such, the Post is acting as an enabler for the industry- a familiar role for legacy media and real estate-funded think-tank “experts”. "
https://t.co/pdjuMXsMGD