Tag: occupy

Attorneys working on behalf of Occupy San Diego will be filing a temporary restraining order against the city of San Diego and the San Diego Police Department in response to the violation of protesters’ First Amendment rights. The attorneys will be holding press conference at 11 am this morning announcing their filing at the Civic Center Plaza.

Demonstrators in San Diego’s version of Occupy Wall Street have been attempting to exercise freedom of speech and assembly rights at the Civic Center Plaza, but have been chased out, have had their tents and belongings confiscated and dozens were arrested by police – 53 in just one sweep at 2 am on October 28th. Protesters believe that the Plaza is a centrally-located public space designed for use by the citizens to gather and express themselves.

by Tony Manolatos / San Diego Rostra / November 7, 2011

I published a blog post [editor: see below] Friday that questioned Mark Fabiani’s criticism of Mayor Jerry Sanders’ Convention Center expansion plan. Fabiani, who serves as special counsel to the San Diego Chargers and is the team’s point man on stadium talks, sent me a response on Saturday. Here it is:

We know the San Diego U-T is working hard to balance its coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests here in town. Today, the print edition had a very nice spread about seven of the activists from Occupy San Diego. Thanks to Matt Hall.

But did anyone else notice that today’s U-T covered protests against banks in Oakland and Los Angeles but didn’t speak hardly a word about similar actions right here in downtown San Diego?

Several hundred San Diegans marched and rallied in downtown San Diego yesterday (Nov 5, 2011) against Bank of America. It was Bank Transfer Day, and as hundreds of thousands of Americans withdraw their monies from the large banks, locals too were closing their accounts.

Sponsored by Occupy San Diego, MoveOn and Veterans for Peace, a crowd gathered at the Civic Center Plaza about 10:30 in the morning. The Plaza has been the site on the on-going Occupy San Diego movement as it enters the anniversary of its first month.

Editor: Today’s San Diego U-T ran a nice series of portraits by Matthew T. Hall of seven of the occupiers of Occupy San Diego, accompanied by excellent photos by U-T staff photographer K.C. Alfred. The piece is much more sympathetic to our own Occupy Wall Street protesters than the standard fare from the U-T. And Hall, at least, has spent some time out on the quad and at bank actions in an sincere effort to get to know just who is doing the daily occupying.

By Matthew T. Hall / San Diego U-T SignOnSanDiego / November 4 – 6, 2011

On Monday, the Occupy San Diego movement will mark a milestone many locals may not have seen coming: Its first month of occupation.

True to the word’s double meaning, camping out on downtown city property has become a job for dozens of demonstrators who protest corporate greed and economic inequality by day, and sleep (or not) outside the Civic Theatre at night.

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!

SAN DIEGO—Several groups, including MoveOn.org, Veterans for Peace, the Gray Panthers, and Occupy San Diego will be holding a “Death of the American Dream” mock funeral outside of Gaslamp Bank of America, 455 Island Ave. at noon.

The rally is part of the national bank transfer day (www.banktransferday.org), in which customers are urged to move their money out of banks and into community credit unions.

Protestors want Centre City Coffee and Brooklyn Dogs to reopen and set new business records Occupy San Diego will not…

Occupy San Diego to Promote Bank Transfer Day, November 5 – Group plans to march through downtown San Diego

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Saturday, November 5th at 10:30 AM, Occupy San Diego is holding a Big Banks Funeral March from the Civic Center to Petco Park to Bank of America, to stand in solidarity with National Bank Transfer Day and to encourage people to switch from large Banks to Credit Unions. TARP bailouts, illegal foreclosures and government bribery are out of control and the Occupation Movement is sending a message that American citizens will not take it any longer.

Editor: The following piece by Ernie McCray ran in today’s Op-Ed section of the San Diego U-T, as Ernie is a member of their Community Dialog partnership. Yet, we couldn’t find it online today.

More and more people are assessing the “Occupy Movement” with statements like: “We don’t think their way is working” or “There’s no single leader” or “It’s anti-capitalism.”

Now who can say at this stage of the movement what’s working or not working? Besides, there wasn’t a single leader in the Great Civil Rights Movement until Martin came along. And how does pretty much labeling something as Un-American promote positive social change?

But, we might consider that all the finite organizing that some think the movement should be doing, with clear goals and objectives and the like, under the guidance of some master leader who can, without bashing capitalism, articulate that we simply need a little more justice and decent paying jobs – well, maybe this is not for Occupy to do alone.

The City’s position is pretty damn clear- Occupy San Diego is a threat to business and business must be protected at all costs and above all other things such as protected freedom of speech and the right to assemble. While City Council President Tony Young has not responded to Occupy San Diego’s request for a resolution despite three weeks of an Occupy presence at council and myriad phone calls, the City has moved remarkably quickly to “help vendors displaced by Occupy San Diego.”

By Roger Showley / SignOnSanDiego / November 1, 2011

The takeover of parks, plazas and other public spaces by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is a good thing, said a panel of landscape architects on the future of cities Tuesday at the American Society of Landscape Architects convention meeting in San Diego.

“I am so thrilled that we have reclaimed these places as places of protest and how important they are,” said Maurice Cox, former mayor of Charlottesville, Va., who now teaches urban design at the University of Virginia.