This week’s news of the movement takes place against the backdrop of two reports also released this week that detail how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” We knew that already. Now we can update our signs…
The leading story is Occupy Oakland’s successful general strike and temporary port shutdown this past Wednesday. Estimates are all over the map about how many people participated over the course of the day to protest the violent eviction of Occupiers and wounding of an Iraq War vet by police during the previous week. Check out this raw chopper video of the march to the port and do a head count yourself!
Black bloc tactics resulted in broken windows and acts of vandalism throughout the day and night and garnered a lion’s share of the media attention, showing once again that if it bleeds it leads. 70 people were arrested.
Move Your Money actions in conjunction with the Occupy movement occurred nation-wide this week, culminating with mass actions this Saturday. This was an idea proposed a number of years of go which finally found the platform it needed in the OWS zeitgeist. Large actions took place in Boston, SF, Los Angeles, NYC and Washington DC, with a number of arrests.
Large Move Your Money actions are hardly the whole story or the only story. A small action in Anchorage AK took place, with 2 arrests. A special shout out is in order to Presly Deen Hollingsworth, who just canceled his BOA credit card, and will move his bank accounts to a local credit union. Presly is too far from any town to be in a protest so he occupies a swamp.
There have been other notable actions. While Occupy Philly protesters gathered outside of a Mitt Romney fund-raiser there this week, and Occupy DC protested a Koch event via a guerilla drive-in, protesters were inside when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker gave a speech at Chicago’s Union League Club. This is one of mic check’s finest most awesome moments. A particularly perceptive comment was made elsewhere by Sam Seder that this was not simply a “disruptive” action, but rather a shift and transfer of the authority in the room, from the people behind the dais to the attendees representing the 99%. It’s worth reading that sentence a couple of times to let it sink in. “Transfer of authority…”
It also turns out that the Occupy movement is the mother of invention. A phone app has been recently created to utilize if you are arrested. When the police confiscated the generators at Zuccotti Park last weekend, right before a winter storm brought freezing temperatures and snow, Occupiers responded with the people’s pedal power —stationary bikes that generate enough electricity to power the whole encampment while maintaining a more sustainable carbon footprint. (They got the funding to do this! It’s happening now!)
The arrests continue. It is worth reminding ourselves and our respective municipal leaders that there are cities which are actually working with the Occupiers, providing portable toilets, dumpsters and permits, and going on record to express their support for the movement. That is what democracy looks like.
The Occupy movement needs your support. Get involved and Donate if you can to Occupy San Diego. (This is the ONLY official site for donations.)
A question to ponder this week—is the Occupy movement the third party?
This week’s tally:
@ 90 occupy sites in US
- 3,187 Occupiers arrested so far
- 0 arrests of financiers who tanked our economy
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Who is a good contact person if i can donate something ?
Yes we are in the midst of going over to our CreditUnion.
if you want to follow the keystone pipeline protest, it’s happening now.
livestream.com / tarsandsaction
big crowd in washingtonDC
naomi klein just spoke.
this protest will wind up surrounding the whitehouse.
Thanks for adding the very important comment about the keystone pipeline protest, Invisible.
12,000 people showed up today to protest the pipeline in DC. Obama will make a decision before the end of the year. We know what we need to do…
Anna,
Thanks for compiling good info. I would add to the zero banksters arrested that additional zero arrests of Bush and Obama and company for war crimes and crimes against humanity in their “wars of choice”.
I would also point out that although it is highly appropriate for elected officials (local and otherwise) to support and assist citizens in our exercise of fundamental rights of peaceful assembly and “petition” for redress of grievances, it is nevertheless contrary to the point of an “occupation” to have a “permit”. No law, including those regarding “permits”, is valid if it is a restriction on the right to assemble. An “occupation” is civil disobedience if it defies any “laws” that violate our right of assembly. The term “occupy” in protest history is significant in its connotation of defiance of unjust laws and civil disobedience.
Your point is well taken Monty about permits, that an “occupation” is civil disobedience if it defies any “laws” that violate our right of assembly.
Anna, wonderful, informative, inspiring article . . . the Chicago action was amazing and exemplary [by the way how did our folks get into this event?] and Presley Deen Hollingsworth is a new hero of mine. Ellen and I are in New York City this week. Today we will join a march of trade unionists, educators and some public officials from the top of Manhattan to OWS. Hopefuly when we go home we can take some of that energy back to our conservative part of northern California. The power and creativity of this movement is amazing. Thanks for helping us keep up with even the thin edges of it. Go Presley!!!
Dickie- I hope you report back to us about the march from Manhattan. I read that it is 11 miles!
Yes the march was 11 miles, though we only did 6 or 7 of them , totally spontaneously, we only intended to cheer them on when they passed the street we were staying on but kind of got caught up in it. Must have been a thousand or more on the march, many trade union people, a large contingent from the Manhattan Dominican community (the march started at 181st ST. and Broadway, the heart of the Dominican community), many students, incredible ethnic diversity, and a great spirit expressed through vigorous chants: “we are the 99%”,” the banks get bailed out we get sold out, “the banks say get back, we say fight back, “and more. Responses on our way downtown were generally either very supportive or sort of blank-faced . . . I saw 2 uplifted middle fingers, and one guy muttering about how if we don’t like it we should leave (I thought he had it backward, but I guess if you think standing near the 1% might make you rich, it will distort your attitudes). Even in the touristic area around Times Square there was a lot of support, picture taking and interested bemusement. After we got down to the Occupation, we walked around for a while and then left with sore feet (we had not expected to walk more than a couple of blocks), and went back to Aunt Nina’s apartment at 98th Street. Later on the news we heard that 20 people got busted when the cops decided to clear the sidewalks around the encampment . . . that’s all I know . . . on the march they were fairly well behaved.
best of all I got to tell a lot of people about Presley Hollingsworth . . . he could become a new people’s hero.
Today we are going baci to OWS to check it out on a quieter day . . . this is actually our planned visit, yesterday’s was a gift of serendipity.
And obrag, thanks for all you do!!
Dickie- wonderful report from the End to End march yesterday! Please post your thoughts about visiting the Park too! ;)
Thanks for the “reporting” Dickie – I thought it would be tough to do the entire 11 mile march. Share more thoughts at will, dude. Best to Ellen.
Our good friends Dickie Magidoff and Ellen Sugg just called from NYC at 10:50 a.m. PST and they were at the moment in a march down Wall Street with hundreds of others.
sorry for the crazy phone call, Frank, I just had to share!!
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