Occupy Wall Street reignited a movement for economic justice. Now WOW — Women Occupying Wall Street — aims to do the same for feminism. They’re bringing together a broad range of New York City feminists—and unapologetically using the word—to launch a new, inclusive activism for gender justice and against the War on Women.
The First Feminist General Assembly is Thursday, May 17 at 6:30 in Washington Square Park.
Yes, it’s a meeting—but not just any meeting. The invitation list ranges from SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Center to the Sex Workers Outreach Project, from the Granny Peace Brigade to Hollaback, a group of 20-somethings using cell phone cameras to broadcast the faces of street harassers. The conversation will be personal as well as political.
It’s as if the Suffragists were getting together with the Sixties reproductive rights activists. And feminist drummers. And men (OWS’s Men’s Circle) doing the childcare.
Gender justice is crucial to economic justice, say the organizers. No society is truly democratic without sexual and gender-identity freedom. The Recession and government cutbacks are hurting women and kids most. And all over the world economic and social progress depend on individuals’ control over their own reproductive lives and on freedom from gendered violence. Feminism opposes domination, by anyone of anyone.
We are experiencing the deepest crisis of capitalism since the great depression of the 30s – and the European governments continue to pour oil on the fires! From the very beginning, some governments have prevented a solidarity-based solution to the crisis in Europe and are significantly responsible for its exacerbation. This refers particularly to the German government, which, in August 2008, blocked a substantial economic stimulus package for Europe. Hardly had the recession reached its lowest point in Germany in 2009, when the German government preached the necessity for hard austerity policies. The “debt brake” was anchored in the constitution: politics disempowered itself, shaped by neo-liberal ideology. The austerity measures taken in various EU states affected above all wage-earners, pensioners, the unemployed and the self-employed, while the wealthy, the banks and the corporations were spared. In spring 2010 the German government blocked aid for Greece, causing a steep rise in the yields of Greek government bonds and thus an increase in national debt and making a solution of the crisis more difficult and expensive. The loan agreements with Greece and other countries in crisis and their ridiculous austerity demands only made the crisis worse. For example, the reduction in the Greek minimum wage does not contribute to an increase in “competitiveness”, as the country’s current account deficit is as much due to the mercantilistic policies of the core eurozone countries, as to the role of deregulated finance. Instead, the reduction of the minimum wage has destroyed the internal market further. This example makes clear that the current crisis politics redistributes wealth from wage-earners to those who possess the capital, regardless of the macro-economic and societal consequences. Greek salaries have already dropped by 20-30%, hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs, over 10,000 schools are closed, hospitals are running out of medication, children are starving. Similar developments are also looming in Portugal and in other European countries.
Neo-liberal politics, whose failure has become obvious in this crisis, is being radicalised once more. The aim of the “fiscal pact”, for example, which was agreed by the heads of state and heads of government of 24 EU states on 2nd March 2012, is to make neo-liberal austerity policies legally binding for all time. A “debt brake” in line with the German model should be anchored across the whole of Europe. National budget deficits should, in future, be capped at 0.5% of GDP. This plan overlooks the fact that already in the 1990s the “Stability and Growth Pact” agreed by the European Economic and Currency Union, which had allowed a budget deficit of 3% of GDP, could not withstand the reality of a capitalist society dogged by crises. The 3% deficit was frequently exceeded. The “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union”, as the Fiscal Pact is officially called, is more than the result of unrealistic plotting by neo-liberal economists and politicians. Further waves of privatisation, destruction of jobs, restriction of public services, social degradation, and wage reduction, are pre-programmed across the whole of Europe; and all to protect the profits of a small group of rich capitalists. The destructive policies which have been pushed ahead mainly by the German and French governments have been accepted and put into practice by nearly all EU governments, because in every state there is a dominant wealthy clique who profits from the increasing pressure on the wage-earning population.
The European crisis policies lead to an increased undermining and devaluing of democracy. Not least through international pressure were the governments in Greece and Italy removed from office and replaced by a government of “technocrats” in order to calm “the markets”. These governments make far-reaching decisions without having the legitimacy of being elected. A proposed referendum on the austerity measures in Greece was quickly quashed after pressure from the ruling powers. Elections become meaningless when the large parties represent more or less the same policies, as recently in Portugal and Spain. Responsibilities are moved from the national level to the EU-level without an adequate democratic control of the activities of the EU institutions such as the European Commissions, the European Central Bank, or the European Court of Justice. We note with great concern the increased nationalist, racist and fascist movements in various European countries.
And yet the prevailing policies are not without an alternative. A significant alternative, however, is only possible when the roots of the crisis are correctly identified. National debt crises form only one aspect of the current European crisis, in which the tensions of European integration (unequal development, common financial policies without common policies on wages, taxation and industry) collide with a structural over-accumulation of capital. There is too much capital, measured by the possibilities which remain to exploit work and the environment.
An alternative strategy for attacking the crisis needs to include the following elements:
No ratification of the Fiscal Pact
The Fiscal Pact means further loss of democracy, commits nations to neo-liberal policies, and increases the crisis.
Cancellation of national debts
A public debt audit must clarify how the debts were incurred and who is in possession of the government bonds. One person’s debts are another person’s wealth. The savings and pension entitlements of the broad mass of the population must be secured, while the interest and repayment entitlements of the wealthy, the banks, the hedge funds and the corporations must be cancelled.
Nationalisation of the banks
Banks which have been saved by public funds must be nationalised. Banks which are “too big to fail” must be divided up.
Radical redistribution of income and wealth
We need a tax on financial transactions, an increase in taxation on capital returns, a re-introduction of wealth tax and a much stronger progression in income tax, in order to achieve a lasting financing of state spending and increase in benefits, and to enable social and environmentally necessary investments, as well as to combat world poverty.
Overcoming of mass unemployment
Mass unemployment, low wages and wage reduction are important reasons for decreasing wage rates and the creation of surplus capital which inflates the financial sector. There must be an end to the manipulation of unemployment statistics. Mass unemployment can only be overcome by a radical reduction in working hours.
Democratising democracy
Democracy must be strengthened at all levels, especially at the European level, and must also include the economic sector. It cannot be possible that democracy comes to a stop at the gates of the factories and the banks, and that a small group has the means of production at its disposal, when human survival depends on it.
The “Arab Spring”, the movement of the “indignant ones” in Spain, the numerous strikes and demonstrations in Greece and the worldwide “Occupy” movement which started in the USA, are all a source of encouragement. It is high time to strengthen the protests and to take them to the place where the European crisis policies are apparently decided. This is why we are announcing the world-wide decentralised protest demonstrations on 12th May as well as the European protest demonstrations which will take place in Frankfurt am Main on 17th-19th May 2012.
On Tuesday May 15th, Governor Corbett is coming to Prince Theater in Philadelphia to address the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. During his time as Governor, Corbett has made massive cuts to education, medical assistance, and social services while he is spending $685 million on new prison construction. His recent budget alone proposes $264 million in cuts to higher education, $319 million in cuts to general assistance, and a funding change that cuts another $21.6 million from Philly's public schools. More recently the School Reform Commission, an entity created by Harrisburg when the state took control over Philadelphia's School District in 2001, has put forward a plan to close 64 public schools.
Governor Corbett has made his priorities very clear: Corporate tax breaks, mass incarceration and environmental devastation.
Join Decarcerate PA, the Teacher Action Group, the Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, ACT UP, Occupy Philadelphia, Fight for Philly, and many others as we demand a different set of priorities for Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania needs quality public schools, stable housing, jobs and job training programs, health care and food access, drug and alcohol treatment programs, community-based reentry services, and non-punitive programs that address the root causes of violence in our communities. Instead of building more prisons we need policy changes that reduce the prison population and reinvest resources in our schools and communities.
Join us to demand that PA build communities, not prisons!
Tuesday, May 15th, 4-7 pm
Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut Street
1pm: via @OccupyChicago: Attend tonight's #NATO Action Spokes Council Meeting to get updated on all ACTIONS planned this week! 630PM at 615 W Wellington Ave #OChi 12:30pm ET: On livestream now: Immigrants rights march. Occupy El Barrio is marching to the ICE building:
We denounce the unjust and inhumane decisions that immigration judges are making towards the lives of our immigrant communities.
They have failed to follow prosecutorial discretion and consequently are destroying thousands of families every single day.
Denunciamos las injustas e inhumanas que los jueces de inmigración hacen en contra de nuestras familias inmigrantes.
Today is the one year anniversary of the 15-M movement in Spain, which continues to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people and inspire the world. The following text is an excerpt from 15-M: What Is The Plan? orginally published on TakeTheSquare.net in March. It is republished in part to give our readers a better understanding of the 15-M movement, who we are, what our goals and tactics are, and what we are fighting for.
The Arab Spring was sparked by the first protests that occurred in Tunisia on 18 December 2010 following Mohamed Bouazizi‘s self-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. With the success of the protests in Tunisia, a wave of unrest sparked by the Tunisian “Burning Man” struck Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Yemen, then spread to other Arab countries. Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January following the Tunisian revolution protests. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February 2011 after 18 days of massive protests, ending his 30-year presidency.
A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world has been “ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam” (“the people want to bring down the regime”) and they did it in Tunisia and Egypt with a sustained campaign of “non-stop protest” involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, occupations…
Note:
The Icelandic rejection of the debt and the Greek mobilizations against austerity plans, as well as the surge of new technologies with the uprising of movements such as Anonymous, Zeitgeist, Wikileaks, Democracy Now, Yes Men, amongst others, have also been of great influence to this (r)evolution.
1.2 Real Democracy Now, birth of a new movement
All through the winter of 2010 the collective “Democracia Real Ya!” (DRY), in association with approximately 200 smaller organizations, had been preparing a huge demonstration for real democracy in Spain. The protest movement gained momentum on May 15 with a camping occupation in Madrid’s main square, the Puerta del Sol, spreading to squares in 57 other major and smaller cities in Spain, and then to Spanish embassies all around the world.
Via its Spanish server tomalaplaza and its international version Takethesquare, the re-baptized 15M movement (also called “indignados” by the media) became a transnational movement. It exploded in Greece ten days later (on May 25) and while taking place, with lesser intensity, in France, Italy, Portugal and Ireland with a culmination point on June 19 when “the outraged” took the street in hundreds of cities around the world in support of this first global day (3.000.000 just in Spain).
In opposition to the Arab spring, 15M doesn’t fight towards ending a regime but has a holistic objective, it demands a Real Democracy, not just a revolution but an Evolution. The organization denounces the way big businesses and banks dominate the political and economical sphere and aims to propose a series of solutions to these problems through grassroots participatory democracy, which is based on people’s assemblies and consensus decision making. It maintains no affiliation with any political party or labor union and has not appointed any single leader and is unwilling to join any of the existing political bodies. It also promotes non-violent protesting.
1.3 15O Road to dignity, Occupy the world
On mid June 2011, Takethesquare network and the international DRY platform started to work together on a global day for October 15 with a first objective of exporting the movement (assemblies and possibly camps) to a maximum of cities around the world. The first international meeting took place in Lisbon on the 10 and 11 of July with participants from Iceland, Greece, Spain, Italy, etc. Israel social justice protest rose up on July 14 with hundreds of thousands of people mobilized in the different protest camps all around the country. Around this time 8 marches began walking, from different areas of Spain, towards Madrid, starting people’s assemblies in every village they crossed, while organizing the second international meeting (a week-long social forum) which would be held on July 23 in their destination.
After this, a new march left Madrid to walk to Brussels, and was quickly joined by six other European itinerant protests (coming from Barcelona, Saragossa, Toulouse, Sicily, Berlin and Amsterdam). They stopped in Paris on September 17 for the Global Anti-Bankster Day, (thought of as a means to test the international coordination before the 15O), when actions like the occupation of stock markets and central banks were taken against the financial dictatorship in a number of cities such as Barcelona, Athens, Tel Aviv, New York and Mexico; and the third international meeting (AgoraParis) was held. In September the first Hub meeting in Barcelona took place. Hubs meetings are working areas focused on a concrete project but open to a maximum of collectives, this one in particular being focused on the coordination of the 15O Global Day.
Note:
Under the strong cultural and mass-media influence of New York, movements in a lot of cities changed their name to “Occupy” and focused their action in denouncing the “1%” with anti-capitalist actions like the 5th. of November Bank Transfer Day, the RobinHood Tax March or the G20 counter summit and the occupation of other stock markets and banks in London, Zurich, Frankfurt…
2/ PRINCIPLES AND DEMANDS, AIMS OF THE MOVEMENT
2.1 Who are we at a local and global level?
Regarding our background we can conclude that we are:
a) Non-stop protests maintaining occupations, strikes, direct actions, information campaigns, day after day to apply real pressure on institutions (political, financial, military, environmental…) we want to reform or rebuild.
b) Communities including camps, squats, itinerant walkers, neighborhoods, eco-villages, co-operatives and alternative projects… self-managed by what we all recognize as the only real democratic process (horizontal, open to everybody, non-partisan, transparent, non-violent, inclusive…) through the General Assembly.
c) Working groups of people co-operating on specific projects (communication, direct action, outreach, international, economy…)
2.2 What do we want at a local and global level?
The first and maybe only thing we all want is for power to be given back to the people, by joint-decision making. Because since the beginning of this movement we have always practiced and improved on this process, we now know what real democracy looks like and will only recognize a way of organization through self-management.
As a movement, we want to expand this process to a maximum of places around the world (15O plan or geographic expansion), creating and connecting a maximum of communities that work with it. We all agree that our methodology of assembly/consensus is the way to organize our communities and all the institutions that rule our lives (political, economical, educational, environmental…). Although there is a group who want to reform these institutions and make them adopt our process and another group who wish to create their own institutions from scratch, all the members of our movement want and recognize the same process (15M plan or systematic expansion).
2.3 What are our next concrete objectives at a local and global level?
a) Generalization of the non-stop protests:
A first phase of local convergence of struggles or “outreach” missions, (will) give way to the coordination of fights towards a sustained and general action which can be global.
Therefore, our direct action groups must firstly generalize the actions and, in collaboration with outreach groups, give a maximum of different sectors of the population (farmers, students, immigrants, workers, retired…) the tools to coordinate direct actions.
b) Generalization of the communities:
A first phase of linking/supporting/creating local co-operatives (will) give way to the coordination of those alternative projects in holistic co-operatives which can, in turn, be global or regional.
Therefore, our different public services and alternative projects have to collaborate in holistic platforms to answer to the needs of our communities (education, health, food, transport, culture…)
Blockupy Frankfurt, a coalition of social movements including Occupy, trade unionists, and the ATTAC network organizing for the #GlobalSpring in solidarity with the 15-M movement, plans to occupy downtown Frankfurt and shut down the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB). Beginning tomorrow, people from across Germany and the rest of Europe will take the squares and parks across Frankfurt and create new spaces for discussion and organizing. On Friday, May 18th, they will nonviolently swarm entrances to banks and disrupt traffic. In the evening, events including music concerts, assemblies, vigils, rallies, workshops, readings, exhibitions, and a youth-organized ¨rave against the troika¨ are scheduled. The Days of Resistance conclude Saturday, May 19th with a mass demonstration.
Last week, the government banned Blockupy and all related events in Frankfurt (protesters pledged to demonstrate anyway). The incident caused an uproar among those who saw it as a blatant attack on social and political rights of people to gather and demonstrate peacefully. The Blockupy Alliance won a partial victory in court, which lifted the ban on the Blockupy demonstration on Saturday and some other (but not all) scheduled events. The court also upheld the city's decision to evict the Occupy camp during the Days of Resistance. In response, the Blockupy Alliance has called on all who are able to gather and defend their freedom of assembly.
Frankfurt is widely considered the financial capital of the European Union. It is the headquarters of the Troika -- the EU, the ECB, and the International Monetary Fund. Germany itself is a leading power behind the authoritarian ¨crisis management¨ of the EU and a key architect of the technocratic austerity regimes currently producing mass poverty and disfranchisement in countries such as Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Italy. Across Europe, people are rising up against the self-appointed technocrats to demand economic policies which place human needs before corporate profits. Even in countries like France and the Netherlands, which so far have escaped the worst effects of the banker-manufactured financial crisis, pro-austerity governments have fallen. And in Germany itself, the center-right party of Angela Merkel -- the German Chancellor notorious for pushing austerity and demanding unconditional subjection of the rest of Europe to the financial markets -- lost massively in local elections last Sunday. Austerity is dying -- time to drive a dagger through its heart! Blockupy Frankfurt!
Occupy The Farm has held an encampment on prime urban agricultural land that is slated for re-development by the owners the property, University of California-Berkeley. For over three weeks, community activists have weeded, planted, hauled, and tended to land. After repeated harassment by police, the UC regents filed a civil lawsuit last Wednesday accusing 13 activists of trespassing. Afterward, they built a fence around the land, known as the Gill Tract.
Occupy The Farm declined an invitation from the university to discuss what to do with the land. Instead, they built a ladder to scale the fence and promised to continue tending to the vegetables, fruit trees, and other plants on 2 acres of the land.
They noted that community members, local residents, activists, and university faculty and students had worked toward a compromise with the university for 15 years. Despite widespread support for their cause, the university has always betrayed them. Community members have tried for years -- including six previous months of deliberation -- to encourage the university to use the land for urban agriculture, and it was never even considered until people took direct action and started planting it themselves.
Now, they have been evicted by riot police and bulldozers and are calling for support. Via OccupyTheFarm.org:
Albany, CA - Well over 100 UCPD and Alameda County Sherriffs officers, armed with less-than-lethal impact-force projectiles, 36" batons, and pepper-ball guns, arrested nine people at the Gill Tract Farm near 7 AM on Monday morning. Of the nine that were arrested, two were watering plants on the agricultural land and seven were watching the police from San Pablo Avenue.
The Gill Tract Farmers Collective has called for a reconvergence at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., at 5 PM tomorrow.
Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people in Spain took the streets and camped in public squares in defiance of a curfew on protesters. The government swept in late at night as riot police evicted the peaceful protesters. Across the world, people in over 50 countries demonstrated in solidarity. (See here for more on what happened.) Now, the indignad@s in Spain are returning to the plazas for assemblies, discussions, and festivities. Follow live: #AlasPlazas13M, @takethesquare, @acampadabcn_int, or @democraciareal.
Outside Spain, indignad@s and Occupiers are also still holding encampments in London, Rome, Frankfurt, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and many other cities. Get ready to JOIN US on Tuesday May 15th for the next Global Day of Action. In New York, we will be gathering at Times Square at 6pm for a mass assembly. See here for more.
Join Occupy Wall St & a broad affiliation of local Economic & Social Justice Organizations as we answer the call sent out from the Indignados for a Global Spring. This will be a Mass Rally in Solidarity with the Global Movement Against Austerity & for Economic Justice World Wide.
This action will focus on the Banks and their role in the Global Economic Crisis.
This will be the culmination of a week of action encompassing many issues facing people in the world, from Health Care, Environment, Food Justice, Education, War, Police Brutality, Immigration Rights, Mass Incarceration, Debt, Jobs & Housing, it's time to stand up and show our solidarity with people across the Globe, the country and our own City.
Come to Bryant Park at 4pm where we will be leading Financial Crimes Walking Tours, where groups of people will be brought to some of the worst offenders doorsteps for teach-ins about their misdeeds & how they have contributed to the current global crisis.
We will then converge at 6pm at Times Square, the capital of capitalism and consumerism for a sit down strike & People's Assembly.
#OccupyDataran has occupied Merdeka Square in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia since the summer of 2011, before the occupation of Liberty Square in New York. Like many other movements across the world, their occupation of public space was inspired in part by the indignad@s in Spain who took over plazas to protest austerity, government corruption, and economic injustice one year ago today. In recent weeks, the occupiers in Kuala Lumpur have been harassed, raided, and arrested by police. Now, still united in our call for Real Democracy NOW!, #OccupyDataran joins #OccupyWallStreet and occupiers on five continents to take back the square.
For more on the #12M Global Day of Action, see here. To watch actions across the world live, see here.
2am (5/13): After a quick march by Liberty Square, around 50 Occupiers in NYC have established a #sleepfulprotest in front of City Hall in solidarity with the indignadxs. Reports that police raided the Occupy San Francisco occupation at 101 Market, 2 arrests, blankets and sleeping bags taken. Also, check out this video of the Yes Men disrupting the TPP gala in Dallas earlier!
12midnight: Police are harassing Occupiers at the Northwest clinic occupation in Chicago; took tables, food, and water. Police in Kuala Lumpur have also raided #OccupyDataran. Protesters promise to stay despite tents being taken.
11pm: Between 3-5am, as most of Europe slept, police throughout Spain raided squares and evicted the indignadxs. Around 8 arrests reported at Puerta del Sol, but protesters remained peaceful and have vowed to return to plazas across the country at 5pm (local time) tomorrow. In Madrid, after police brutally evicted the square and began writing down IDs, the protesters peacefully took to the streets, singing, dancing, and chanting: ¨!No Nos Representan!¨ (They don´t represent us!) You cannot evict an idea. #volvemosalas5 #wecomebackat5
6pm: Minute of silence as tens of thousands mark midnight at Puerta del Sol in Madrid. The silence is broken with chants of "Sí se puede." and ¨"el pueblo unido jamas sera vincido.¨ #12Mnonosvamos
5:40pm: Final plenary is starting at the Chicago Peoples Summit. Watch here.
Solidarity protesters in Portland now gathering at Colonel Sumners Park, SE 20th / Belmon. Police moved in on the Occupy LA Assembly, tried to take a banner, but then left. Police have also left Occupy London to jubilant cheers, stopping before arresting all Occupiers. via @OccupyLondon: The police have left the scene. Section 14 has been lifted. There is still a presence at the Royal Exchange. #12mlondon #OCCUPY #OWS
5:00pm: It is now one hour past the governments deadline and hundreds of thousands are still assembled in squares across Spain. Assemblies in Barcelona, Valencia, and elsewhere have announced plans to hold the square through the night, in violation of the ban on camping in effect. Police are nearby but have so far not attacked. See Madrid from a helicopter. Occupiers in London are also staying put.
4:25pm: 20 people still occupying steps in London, encircled by riot cops. Most of the 40 arrestees taken to Bishops Gate police station. For background, see here. In Addison, Texas, large crowds are gathering to protest around the hotel where delegates for the Trans-Pacific Partnership meeting are staying. The march just surged over the barricades onto hotel property. Now being held back by cop line. (via @OccupyAustin).
4:15pm: Anti-capitalist Assembly and Really, Really Free Market begin in Los Angeles at Pershing Square. Watch on livestream here. NYPD harassing peaceful demo including doctors, children, etc at Wyckoff Hospital. More workshops have started at the Chicago Peoples Summit. Reports of at least 10 arrests in Tel Aviv as police attack march; protesters are now blocking intersections.
4:00pm: - Crowds continue to swell as night falls across Europe. 10pm protest curfew passes, indignad@s stand their ground. via @acampadasol: ¨Son más de las 22h, ya estamos desobedeciendo oficialmente.¨ (It is after 10pm, we are officially disobedient.)
3:45pm: - Barcelona police confirm crowd of 245,000. Assembly reading Manifestos. 25-50,000 in Valencia. Madrid still too large to count.
3pm: In NYC, march to save Wyckoff Hospital from austerity leaving now. Watch on livestream here. Assembly beginning in Barcelona. Police still trying to clear Occupy London.
2:30pm: 12-3 arrests at Occupy London; 19 people sitting at the Royal Exchange refusing to move. via @OccupyLondon: Report from the scene: "We've formed a chain. Police are punching people." We have observers there, could do with more.
2:15pm: Organizers estimate Barcelona crowds at 250,000+ and growing. 75,000 reporterd in Zaragoza. Outside Spain, thousands also gathered in Moscow, London, Brussels, Rome, Athens, and in hundreds of other cities.
2:10pm: Protests underway in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and at least six other cities in Israel. Estimates put numbers around 30,000. Follow @J14enh for English or @J14ar for Arabic. Meanwhile, Bahraini demonstrators are being attacked and tear-gased by riot police.
2pm: Arrests happening in London!
1:30pm: London occupation of Bank of England declared illegal; currently holding an assembly to decide next steps.
1:20pm: Crowds at Puerta del Sol in Madrid (and in 80 cities and towns across Spain alone) are huge and growing by the minute. In Madrid, four marches from north, south, east, and west are marching through neighborhoods on their way to Sol. Police are being aggressive toward Occupiers at Bank of England in London, where protesters are dancing in the street. Protests are also starting in the next few hours throughout the Americas. The indignad@s in Bogotá, Columbia will gather at Parque Nacional at 5pm NY time. Follow @indignateco.
1:15pm: A mobile command unit has been spotted near the the Occupied Farm in Albany, California which has been threatened over the past several days by police and the university who own the land and want to sell it to developers. All those in the Bay Area, CA are encouraged to support the occupation! Follow @OccupyFarm. Later today, Occupy Oakland will also be peacefully protesting Oakland Police Department´s brutality after the murder of another community member.
12:20pm: Madrid police asking people in square for identification.
12:05pm: Placa de Catalunya in Barcelona beginning to fill up. Other marches starting in Edinburgh, Copenhagen, and more. Bank of England still occupied, riot police nearby.
11:50am: Opening plenary at Chicago Peoples Summit beginning. Tents are continuing to pop up in Valencia (@15MayoValencia), Sevilla (@DRY_Sevilla), and across Spain. For events across Spain, follow @democraciareal. Total number of countries with events raised to over 50.
11:30am: Tents are down on the steps of the Royal Exchange by the Bank of England! Join them if you are in London. #12MLondon
11am: Riot police spotted nearby Occupy London march. Large police presence also surrounding plazas across Spain, including Sol in Madrid where groups of protesters are gathering with music and other festivities. Most major marches will not arrive at Sol for several more hours.
10:50am: Kuala Lumpur Peoples Assembly underway at #OccupyDataran. In Chicago, the Peoples Assembly with dozens of workshops and events is also getting started. If you are in Chicago, join them there or join the Mental Health Movement occupying Northwest Clinic at 2354 N. Milwaukee!
10:40am: After protesting at accounting firms tha help corporations & wealthy individuals avoid tax and indulge in creative accounting, Occupy London march is surrounded by aggressive police in kettling positions, but say they will not kettle. Police vans now tailing the march. Follow live on Storify.
8:45am: Speakers address large crowd at St Paul's Cathedral in London: ¨JP Morgan lost 2 billion dollars due to one mans mistake. Why have we built a system where this is possible?¨ #15MLondon
8:10am: Protesters continue to gather at Sol in Madrid and Catalunya Square in Barcelona, as well as in Zaragoza, Lisbon, London, Amsterdam, The Hague, Brussels (#12mbxl), Marseille, and elsewhere across Europe. For updates in Paris, follow @AcampadaParis and @OccupyParis, and #15Mfr for France.
6am: Occupy London will be meeting at St Paul's Cathedral at 1pm local time (8am in New York). Follow @OccupyMay and @OccupyLondon for updates. Now on livestream: Indignad@s in Zaragoza, Spain peacefully occupying intersections.
5:20am: Actions in Hamburg, Germany and Madrid, Spain on livestream now. In Madrid, protesters chant ¨Queremos vivir no sobrevivir, queremos luchar no mendiga¨ (We want to live, not survive - We want to fight, not beg) and ¨Podeis robarnos todo el dinero pero la dignidad no se compra¨ (They can steal our money, but our dignity is not for sale). For live information on events in Madrid, follow @DRYmadrid and @acampadasol. For Germany, follow @OccupyGermany.
Barcelona
North March, Madrid
Coruña
Brussels
Amsterdam
Frankfurt
London
The Bank of England in London
Tel Aviv
Lisbon
Barcelona
Sevilla
Chicago Peoples Summit
Nightfall on Barcelona
Occupy the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Addison, Texas
Protesters in Moscow are occupying Chistye Prudy square under a statue of Kazakh poet Abai. #OccupyAbai is demanding free and fair elections after the third fraudulent election of President Vladimir Putin. On Sunday, the eve of Putin’s inauguration, tens of thousands of people occupied streets in Chinatown and elsewhere in Moscow. In scenes reminiscent of Bahrain or Oakland, police brutally attacked the peaceful demonstrations with batons. Hundreds were arrested, but thousands persisted - taking the streets during the day, and occupying squares at night. Although police have banned tents, the occupiers have adopted mobile tactics using sleeping bags and generators to disperse and re-occupy when evicted by police. Social media covering the protests has been targeted and heavily repressed; last weekend, two of the largest global livestreaming websites (Ustream and Bambuser) went offline due to DDoS attacks on opposition livestreamers in Moscow.
Today, Occupy Abai is marching in solidarity with the indignad@s, Occupy, and allied social movements in the #12M Global Day of Action.
They bombard us with numbers, and sometimes they almost make us forget that across from the numbers, thousands of lives are hidden. OUR LIVES. Lets show them we are much more than that! 12th of May: Occupy the streets in every city of the world.
May 12 is a Global Day of Action called by the indignad@s, Occupy, and allied social movements around the world. In 2011 we showed another world was possible. Our struggle continues in 2012; together we will rally against corruption, human rights violations, censorship, police brutality and corporate greed. May 12th, 2012 — everywhere. Join us.
Mass demonstrations are planned in Barcelona, Valencia, and over 60 other cities across Spain. In Madrid, the movement will return to Puerta del Sol. From the 12th to 15th of May, protesters will take the square for assemblies, performances, workshops, and discussions on the the alternatives they’ve worked on for the past year. Assemblies and actions are planned to address education, migration, the housing crisis, the economy, the environment, unemployment, civil disobedience, feminism, youth, pensioners, and more. Protesters are also planning to protest at banks responsible for the Spanish and global financial crises. The Spanish government, which recently began a severe crackdown on protest movements, has said they will not allow the protesters to camp in Sol or other squares throughout the country. The government says it will end the protest at 10pm. The major marches are not scheduled to arrive at Sol until around 9pm.
Occupiers in London will return to St. Pauls Cathedral across from the London Stock Exchange and then march through London to ¨Meet the 1%¨ on a tour of different banks and institutions whose greed is responsible for the global financial crisis. Demonstrations are also planned in Ireland, Chile, Portugal, Brazil, Germany, Cuba, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, France, Malaysia, Russia, and at least 384 cities in over 50 countries across the world.
In the U.S., solidarity actions are planned in Portland, St. Louis, and many other cities. Occupy Los Angeles will be hosting a 12M anti-capitalist General Assembly. In Boston, the People of Color Group of Occupy Boston will host a ceremony to preserve the last standing grove of Silver Maple trees that are slated to be cut down for “redevelopment” as luxury apartments for the 1%. Occupy Denver will be protesting and occupying the Downtown Denver Partnership, a business organization behind a law that attacks Occupy and would criminalize the survival act of sleeping by homeless people. Occupy Chicago, labor unions, community groups, anti-war and international solidarity groups and faith based activists will host a Peoples Assembly on Alternatives to War and Poverty to begin a week of actions that will culminate in protests against NATO.
In Brooklyn, as part of a citywide week of action against budget cuts and austerity, Occupy Bushwick, Healthcare for the 99%, and others will fight to save
Wycoff Hospital. Occupiers, unions, immigrant rights groups, students, anti-war activists, environmentalists, and others from across Texas and the country will also gather near Dallas to protest the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a massive, new international trade and investment pact currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the United States and countries throughout the Pacific Rim and pushed by Wall Street banks and other corporate interests.
Governor Cuomo appointed Wall Street banker Stephen Berger to fix healthcare in Brooklyn. Berger recommended merging and downsizing Wyckoff and other Brooklyn hospitals that provide necessary healthcare in low-income and medically underserved communities.
Join us to speak out against hospital closings, service reductions, and budget cuts!
Reclaim Healthcare for the 99%!
@2:30pm Maria Hernandez Park, northside, at Starr St and Irving Ave. Subway from Manhattan/Brooklyn take L Train to Jefferson Stop. From Brooklyn Food Conference atBrooklyn Tech High School take B38 to DeKalb Ave/Knickerbocker Ave.
@3pm March to Wyckoff Hospital Speak out on healthcare cuts and hospital closings in Brooklyn, and picket at Wyckoff Hospital, Stockholm St and Wyckoff Ave. Take L Train to DeKalb Stop.
This action is part of the “Another City is Possible” Campaign which is organizing a week of action protesting budget cuts in New York City.
As hundreds of thousands of people around the world prepare to take to the streets this weekend as part of a global call for change, the International ‘Global Spring’ Assembly – an international and inter-movement assembly formed of supporters of Occupy, Take the Square and Latin American, African, Asian and Middle Eastern social movements – has released its first statement describing concrete suggestions for a ‘global change’.
The statement – the Global May Manifesto – calls for systemic change in the global economy: the radical democratisation of international institutions like the IMF, BIS and UN; the replacement of the G8/20 with a democratic UN assembly; a system of global taxation on financial transactions; and for the abolition of tax havens. It does not represent the position of any local or city assembly; rather it is offered for their consideration.
Endorsed by consensus on 4 May 2012 by the International Assembly, this statement has been in development since January 2012. It was a process that has seen thousands of people from six continents and hundreds of cities participating in the discussion and planning for the international days of protests this month – particularly focusing on the 1, 12, 15 and 18 May. These International Assembly meetings have been convened in bi-weekly assemblies, over an online VoIP platform (called Mumble, which enables mass conference calls and give the assembly its formal name – the International General Assembly on Mumble).
The process for developing this global manifesto – which is a work in progress – started by collecting statements from the different local and city assemblies, then merging these into a common statement. Individuals were then invited to make new proposals through a public website and a number of mailing lists that are used for international inter-movement communication.
Alvaro Rodriguez, 31, of the Indignados movement in Spain, who participated in the process of writing the statement, said: “This is the beginning of a new global process of bringing the opinions of many people around the world together. It represents the beginnings of a form of global democracy in its infancy which is direct and participatory – of the people, by the people and for the people. While the statement does not represent the position of local and city assemblies, the next step is to present it to assemblies around the world for consideration, discussion and revisions, as part of a dialogue of the ‘Global Spring’ movements taking place across six continents.”
Next steps for international coordination
Individuals around the world are invited to participate in this process of further developing this global manifesto through their local and city assemblies, through the facebook group and through the website.
Global May Manifesto
The statement below does not speak, or claim to speak, on behalf of everyone in the global spring/Occupy/Take the Square movements. This is an attempt by some inside the movements to reconcile statements written and endorsed in the different assemblies around the world. The process of writing the statement was consensus based, open to all, and regularly announced on our international communications platforms, that are also open to all (e.g. the ‘squares’ mailing list, the weekly global roundtables and the ‘international’ facebook group). It was a long and difficult process, full of compromises. This statement is offered to peoples’ assemblies around the world for discussions, revisions and endorsements.
There will be a process of a global dialogue, and this statement is part of it, a work-in-progress. We do not make demands from governments, corporations or parliament members, which some of us see as illegitimate, unaccountable or corrupt. We speak to the people of the world, both inside and outside our movements. We want another world, and such a world is possible:
[1.] The economy must be put to the service of people’s welfare, and to support and serve the environment, not private profit. We want a system where labour is appreciated by its social utility, not its financial or commercial profit. Therefore, we demand:
Free and universal access to health, education from primary school through higher education and housing for all human beings, through appropriate policies to get this. We reject outright the privatization of public services management, and the use of these essential services for private profit.
Full respect for children’s rights, including free child care for everyone.
Retirement pensions so we may have dignity at all ages. Mandatory universal sick leave and holiday pay.
Every human being should have access to an adequate income for their livelihood, so we ask for work or, alternatively, universal basic income guarantee.
Corporations should be held accountable for their actions. For example, corporate subsidies and tax cuts should be done away with if a company outsources jobs to decrease salaries, harms the environment or the rights of workers.
Apart from bread, we want roses. Everyone has the right to enjoy culture, participate in a creative and enriching leisure in service of the progress of humankind. Therefore, we demand the progressive reduction of working hours, without reducing income.
Food sovereignty through sustainable farming should be promoted as an instrument of food security for the benefit of all. This should include an indefinite moratorium on the production and marketing of GMOs and immediate reduction of agrochemical use.
We demand policies that function under the understanding that our changing patterns of life should either be organic/ecological or else not occur. These policies should be based on a simple rule: one should not spoil the balance of ecosystems for profit. Violations of this policy should be prosecuted around the world as an environmental crime, with severe sanctions for convicted.
Policies to promote the change from fossil fuels to renewable energy, through massive investment which should help to change the production model.
We demand the creation of international environmental standards, mandatory for countries, companies, corporations, and individuals. Ecocide (willful damage to the environment, ecosystems, biodiversity) should be internationally recognised as a crime of the greatest magnitude.
[2.] To achieve these objectives, we believe that the economy should be run democratically at all levels, from local to global. People must get democratic control over financial institutions, transnational corporations and their lobbies. To this end, we demand:
Control and regulation of financial speculation by abolishing tax havens, and establishing a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT). As long as they exist, the IMF, World Bank and the Basel Committee on Banking Regulation must be radically democratised. Their duty from now on should be fostering economic development based on democratic decision making. Rich governments cannot have more votes because they are rich. International institutions must be controlled on the principle that each human is equal to all other humans – African, Argentinean or American; Greek or German.
As long as they exist, radical reform and democratisation of the global trading system and the World Trade Organization must take place. Commercialization of life and resources, as well as wage and trade dumping between countries must stop.
We want democratic control of the global commons, defined as the natural resources and economic institutions essential for proper economic management. These commons are: water, energy, air, telecommunications and a fair and stable economic system. In all these cases, decisions must be accountable to citizens and ensure their interests, not the interests of a small minority or financial elite.
As long as social inequalities exist, taxation at all levels should maintain the principle of solidarity. Those who have more should contribute to maintain services for collective welfare. Maximum income should be limited, and minimum income set to reduce the outrageous social divisions in our societies and their social political and economic effects.
No more money to rescue banks. As long as debt exists, following the examples of Ecuador and Iceland, we demand a social audit of the debts owed by countries. Illegitimate debt owed to financial institutions should not be paid.
An absolute end to fiscal austerity policies that benefit only a minority, and cause great suffering to the majority.
As long as banks exist, separation of commercial and financial banks, avoiding banks “too big to fail”.
End of the legal personhood of corporations. Companies cannot be elevated to the same level of rights as people. The public’s right to protect workers, citizens and the environment should prevail over protection of private property or investment.
[3.] We believe that political systems must be fully democratic. We therefore demand full democratization of international institutions, and the elimination of the veto power of a few governments. We want a political system which really represents the variety and diversity of our societies:
All decisions affecting all mankind should be taken in democratic forums like a participatory and direct UN Parliamentary Assembly or a UN people’s assembly, not rich clubs such as G20 or G8.
At all levels we ask for the development of a democracy that is as participatory as possible, including non representative direct democracy.
As long as they are practiced, electoral systems should be as fair and representative as possible, avoiding biases that distort the principle of proportionality.
We call for the democratization of access to and management of media (MSM). These should serve to educate the public, as opposed to the creation of an artificial consensus about unjust policies.
We ask for democracy in companies and corporations. Workers, regardless of wage level or gender, should have real decision-making power in the companies and corporations they work in. We want to promote cooperative companies and corporations, as real democratic economic institutions.
Zero tolerance of corruption in economic policy. We must stop the excessive influence of big business in politics, which is today a major threat to true democracy.
We demand complete freedom of expression, assembly and demonstration, as well as the cessation of attempts to censor the Internet.
We demand respect for privacy rights on and off the internet. Companies and the government should not engage in data mining.
We believe that military spending is politically counterproductive to a society’s advance, so we demand its reduction to a minimum.
Ethnic, cultural and sexual minorities should have their civil, cultural, political and economic rights fully recognized.
Some of us believe a new Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fit for the 21st century, written in a participatory, direct and democratic way, needs to be written. As long as the current Declaration of Human Rights defines our rights, it must be enforced in relation to all – in both rich and poor countries. Implementing institutions that force compliance and penalize violators need to be established, such as a Global Court to prosecute social, economic and environmental crimes perpetrated by governments, corporations and individuals. At all levels – local, national, regional and global – new constitutions for political institutions need to be considered, like in Iceland or in some Latin American countries. Justice and law must work for all, otherwise justice is not justice, and law is not law.
This is a worldwide Global Spring. We will be there in May 2012; we will fight until we win. We will not stop being people. We are not numbers. We are free women and men.
For a Global Spring!
For global democracy and social justice!
Take to the streets on May 2012!
On May 19, Mayor 1% Emanuel will bring to Chicago military and civilian representatives of the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heads of state and finance ministers of the G-8 world economic powers.
They meet on behalf of the 1% of the world, the rich and the powerful, the bankers and generals. Their agenda is to continue to impose austerity, or poverty, by cutting social spending for workers and the poor to maintain profitability for the rich and to launch more wars to stop the rise of the poor nations of the Third World.
The people of this fine city do not want these summits. The mayor has his own agenda. In anticipation of widespread opposition to the war & poverty agenda of the NATOG8, Mayor Emanuel passed a set of first-amendment crushing ordinances, known as "Sit Down Shut Up", to stifle the exercise of free speech and assembly during the summits. The mayor single-handedly gave himself the abililty to issue no-bid security contracts and deputize out-of-town law enforcement while imposing harsh restrictions on parades, marches and demonstrations.
But we will not be silenced. We will stand up to this corrupt system and say enough! Join Occupy Chicago, Coalition Against NATO/G8 (CANG8), the Midwest Antiwar Mobilization and many more as we gather in Chicago in May!
The Coalition Against NATO/G8 is a broad formation that includes labor unions, community groups, anti-war and international solidarity groups and faith based activists. From the CANG8 website:
Protest the NATO/G8 Summit on Saturday, May 19th, 2012!
Noon rally at Daley Plaza, then march to McCormick Place!
Join in a legal, permitted, family-friendly march and rally that will end within sight and sound of the summit at McCormick Place!
At the invitation of the White House, military and civilian representatives of the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heads of state and finance ministers of the G-8 world economic powers are meeting in Chicago, May 19-21, 2012. To that we say…
No to War and Austerity!
Money out of politics! Represent for the people, not the money!
No to NATO/G-8 Warmakers!
Jobs, Healthcare, Education, Pensions, Housing & the Environment, Not War!
May 12-13: Peoples Summit May 14: Money for Education not War May 15: Immigration: No Human is Illegal May 16: Foreclosure: Housing is a Right: No Evictions, No Foreclosures! May 17: Environment: Planet over Profits! May 18: Austerity/NNU March for the Robin Hood Tax May 19: Health Care May 21: Democracy - Shut Down Boeing!
Occupy Chicago is working with other occupations and various activist groups to develop a coalition-built People’s Summit for the weekend of May 12th and 13th, as a direct response to the NATO summit the subsequent weekend, May 19th-21st. JOIN US!
Rally and Art Celebration When and Where: 3pm at Dyett High School (555 East 51st Street) Chicago, IL
Defend Dyett High School! For over a year students have been deprived of an arts program. Now CPS wants to close the school. Stop CPS from starving our schools: All student deserve Art, world language and support staff. According to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cawley: "If we think there’s a chance that a building is going to be a school, we’re not going to invest in that building.”
Vigil for Immigrant Rights and Family Unity When and Where: 11am at Immigration Court Building 525 W. Van Buren
We denounce the unjust and inhumane decisions that immigration judges are making towards the lives of our immigrant communities. They have failed to follow prosecutorial discretion and consequently are destroying thousands of families every single day.
Denunciamos las injustas e inhumanas que los jueces de inmigración hacen en contra de nuestras familias inmigrantes.
Join us for a morning vigil in front of the immigration court building. Acompáñenos a una vigilia enfrente de las cortes de inmigración.
Foreclosure: Housing is a Right: No Evictions, No Foreclosures!
Action to Demand a One-year Moratorium on Foreclosures and Evictions! When and Where: 10am: Rally at Jackson and LaSalle
Communities United Against Foreclosure and Eviction and Occupy Chicago demand that Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart STOP all profit-oriented evictions and foreclosures from May 16, 2012 to May 16, 2013.
We are moved to this action because of the intolerable losses suffered by our communities, friends, and families that we have witnessed: losses to businesses, to community life, and to family life; disruptions to the educational and social life of our children; and heightened neighborhood crime and insecurity.
Because the “housing crisis” was generated by banks flagrantly violating all standards of responsible banking, this national disaster is more accurately called a “banking crisis,” and through this moratorium, we are requesting that you stand with us to protect our ravaged communities from the many predations we have suffered.
This moratorium will place the human right to housing above the "right" of banks to make a profit off of empty homes. If Sheriff Dart does not grant the moratorium, the People will enforce one themselves!
Occupy Chicago's Day of Environmental Action: Planet over Profits and War! When and Where: The Bike Mass will be gathering at Jackson and LaSalle at 2pm. The action will take place at 3pm at the Canadian Consulate (180 N. Stetson Ave)
On May 17th, join Occupy Chicago’s Day of Environment action! Stand with us to fight for the Planet over Profit and War! We will GET DIRTY and DIE at the Canadian Consulate to symbolize how the dirty oil extraction of the Alberta Tar Sands is sending life on this planet to an early grave, fueling G8/NATO’s war machines and the global climate crises.
The extraction of heavy and thick crude oil from the tar sands deposits in northern Alberta, Canada - the site of the largest industrial project on the planet - requires the complete destruction of boreal forest the size of England. This ecosystem is an essential storehouse of carbon, and its preservation is critical in protecting our planet from climate change, especially since annual tar sands emissions are expected to quadruple from 27 to 126 million tonnes by 2015. Visible from space, the toxic ponds along the Athabasca River seep contaminants into groundwater and the surrounding soil. This has already begun to threaten the lives of local indigenous communities. "The river used to be blue. Now it's brown. Nobody can fish or drink from it. The air is bad. This has all happened so fast," said Elsie Fabian, an elder in a First Nation community along the Athabasca River.
Canada is also a member nation of both the G8 and NATO. The anti-planet, for-profit, oil-driven policy of the Tar Sands reflects the larger imperial goals of these bankrupt, undemocratic and imperialistic groups that won’t stop their capitalist exploitation of the environment until our planet - and our future - is in ruins like the Althabasca river. On May 17th, let’s MAKE them stop. Planet over Profit and War! GET DIRTY!
YOU'LL NEVER GUESS
When and Where: BIG NEWS COMING SOON
Occupy Chicago Day of Action
May 21
Democracy
Boeing: SHUT IT DOWN When and Where: TBA
Boeing has received over $12,231,152,299 from the US Department of Defense to produce war machines, which are used to terrorize civilians and communities the world over. These tools of destruction are produced using prison labor, allowing Boeing to make weaponized products for pennies on the dollar. When using non-prison labor Boeing goes out of it's way to bust unions, even moving factories across the country to stifle worker's rights. Boeing production facilities are continually found to be massive polluters, leading to the company being listed as one of the top 50 corporate criminals responsible for environmental destruction.
In 2001, Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago in a plan that stole over $60 million and 20 years worth of free rent from Illinois taxpayers. In 2010 Boeing made over $4.5 billion, yet in the past three years they have managed to avoid paying taxes. In 2010 they received a federal tax subsidy of $1.56 billion. This cost the State of Illinois $65 million in revenue. This money could have been used to serve an additional 16,000 Medicaid clients, provide Medicare Part B coverage to 13,000 seniors, provide 36 million meals to the hungry, or create 1,625 living wage jobs for the unemployed. Instead this money was given to Boeing in the form of corporate welfare by our elected officials.
Boeing is a war criminal and plays a huge role in NATO's war machine. Occupy Chicago will SHUT IT DOWN on May 21, 2012. We've had enough of their war planes, pollution, prison labor, union busting, border wall building, extraordinary rendition plane chartering, drone building, non-tax-paying exploitation of the people of Chicago and the people of the world. This May Chicagoans along with concerned citizens from all over the world will tell Boeing we've had enough.
Join us in the streets in Chicago on the last day of the NATO summit to SHUT DOWN this war machine!
A call from Mental Health Movement to Occupy Wall Street and all others coming to Chicago to protest NATO and the war and austerity agenda of the 1%
To all our family from the global 99%, To all those who believe that healthcare is a human right, To all those coming to protest NATO and its wars for profit around the globe, To all those who have struggled with mental illness personally or with loved ones, To all those who have been denied healthcare, To all those who have waited all day in emergency rooms, To all those public servants facing layoffs or cuts to salary and pension, To all those who are sick and tired of being sick and tired, To all those who believe that another world is possible beyond this madness.
The Mental Health Movement calls on all protesters coming to Chicago to join us in the fight for healthcare not warfare. As NATO war-makers come to this city to plan wars that leave people traumatized and cost trillions of dollars, clinics that help people heal from trauma and deal with mental illness are being shuttered for lack of $2.3 million dollars. As our battle to save our clinics has intensified, Occupy Chicago and other Occupy groups around the city have become powerful allies. Now we ask members of Occupy Wall Street, other Occupy groups and all other sectors of the social movements coming to Chicago to protest NATO to join us in occupying clinics by setting up a 24/7 presence outside of recently closed mental health clinics. We will dramatize the contradictions of a system that finds billions to wage NATO’s endless wars for profit but leaves its most vulnerable without basic healthcare.
For 26 days, we have maintained an around-the-clock presence at the Woodlawn Clinic at 6337 S. Woodlawn, one of six mental health clinics recently closed by Mayor 1% Emanuel. On April 12th 23 people – most of us patients from clinics facing closure - barricaded ourselves inside of the Woodlawn Clinic, only to be evicted and arrested by the SWAT team and Chicago Police and sent to jail, the future home for the mentally ill who cannot find treatment. Upon release, we returned to the clinic and have been camped out 24/7 ever since. Through this struggle we have seen 41 people arrested but have reached thousands of Chicago residents with our stories. We will not be held back. The Huffington Post has called the struggle to save Chicago’s mental health clinics “the Birmingham and Stonewall of the mental health movement.” We consider this fight ground zero in the struggle for a world that sees healthcare as a right and invests in healing and human rights, not warfare and corporate subsidies.
Today, we are expanding our campaign to the Northwest Mental Health Clinic in Logan Square at 2354 N. Milwaukee. This clinic has served the predominately Latino community of Logan Square for 30 years. This is the first site of our expanded resistance to clinic closure. We know that we can count on the people mobilizing for the NATO demonstrations to respond to our call with the tactic of non-violence and in a way that continues to lift up the voices of those of us whose lives hang in the balance of this struggle. We are clear that our enemy is the system that deprives us of healthcare and other basic human rights, the politicians that administer that system, and the 1% who profit from it, not the police sent in to do Mayor 1%’s dirty work. Just as Occupy Chicago has stood with us, taken arrests with us, and been a true example of dignity and solidarity, we know that you too will see that our causes are one and the same and that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by connecting local and global struggles.
Mayor 1% claims that closing clinics is a way to expand mental health services by throwing a few crumbs to private clinics. He has ignored our cries about the importance of the trust built through years with our therapists. He has ignored our cries about the importance of having safe spaces like these clinics in our communities. He has ignored our cries about his plan’s complete elimination of all black male therapists. He has ignored our cries about his plan’s 50% reduction in the number of Spanish-speaking therapists. He has ignored our cries about the 18 people who have already been hospitalized due to stress surrounding the clinic closures and loss of therapists. He has ignored our cries about the difficulty of finding care in the private sector given prohibitive co-pays, Medicaid cuts, and a steady decline in mental health funding for all providers. He has ignored our cries that a small fraction of the hundreds of millions in tax breaks he got for his campaign donors at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange could save our clinics. He has ignored our cries that Cook County Jail is the largest provider of mental health care in the state of Illinois. He has ignored our cries that closing clinics when the need for mental health services is growing, destabilizes communities and makes the wars on Chicago’s streets even worse. He only spoke personally about the clinic closures after representatives of the Nobel Summit visited our clinic occupation and denounced his plans. But he spoke of bus passes and his words were just another reminder that he has ignored our cries.
But we know that one man cannot hold back the power of a people’s movement. We know that with our struggle we create space to talk about the trauma and mental illness that is too often buried under mountains of silence and pain. We know when Occupy Wall Street and others stand with us it will help amplify our cry around the world: HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE!
In solidarity,
Mental Health Movement
LOGISTICS FOR JOINING US IN THE FIGHT FOR HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE: Show up at 2354 N. Milwaukee or 6337 S. Woodlawn when you get to town, whenever you come we will be there. Email us at MentalHealthMovement@gmail.com or call (773) 340-9598 if you need help with directions.
Thursday, May 10: Assembly & Speak-Out Friday, May 11: Homes, Jobs, & Services Saturday, May 12: Food, Environment, & Health + GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION Sunday, May 13 (Mothers Day): Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, War & Immigrant Justice + Citywide Movement Assembly at Judson Church 5pm Monday, May 14: Education & Student Debt Tuesday, May 15:GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION -- A day of action against the banks that caused the global crisis and a mass rally at Times Square at 6pm. - Facebook event (Full schedule of the week below)
Say no to the system that produces record profits for the 1% by impoverishing the 99% of us; say yes to a fair city and a better world!
Beginning on May 10th and culminating on May 15th in a mass convergence at Times Square, NYC organizations and individuals from all across the city will join together in action around the many issues we face: from cuts in social services, to an austerity agenda that redistributes your tax revenue into private hands, to the financial institutions (that we bailed out) that continue to make record profits at our expense.
As part of a global resistance, as part of the Occupy movement, as a broad movement for social, political, and economic justice, we say enough! We reject Bloomberg’s New York, and we demand another city. We reject the notion that there is no alternative, and we demand a better world. Join the week of actions, take to the streets, raise your voice, and come to Times Square on May 15th at 6 PM to stand together as a global movement and declare that another city, and another world, is possible!
99%NY • ALIGN • ALLIANCE FOR QUALITY EDUCATION • BROOKLYN FOOD COALITION • COALITION FOR EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE • CODE PINK • COMMUNITY VOICES HEARD • GOOD JOBS NEW YORK • GRANNY PEACE BRIGADE • HEALTHCARE FOR THE 99% • HUMAN SERVICES COUNCIL • MAKE THE ROAD NEW YORK • MOTHERS RESISTING RACIST POLICING • NEW YORK COMMUNITIES FOR CHANGE • NEW YORK STUDENTS RISING • PICTURE THE HOMELESS • OCCUPY WALL STREET • OWS BIKE COALITION • PARENTS FOR OCCUPY WALL STREET • PSC-CUNY • REV BILLY & THE CHURCH OF EARTHALUJAH • ROC-NY • RWDSU • STRONG ECONOMY FOR ALL • STUDENTS FOR A FREE CUNY • UNITED NY • TIME'S UP • UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS • VOCAL-NY
MAY 10
OPENING ASSEMBLY AND SPEAKOUT
We assemble at 6pm at Union Square to speak out and share about the issues that affect us all. Join us as we prepare for a week of action and visioning for a future fueled by popular power – the 99%.
MAY 11
FOR A CITY WHERE HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT, A COUNTRY WITH GOOD JOBS FOR ALL, A WORLD WHERE OUR BASIC NEEDS ARE MET
May 11 is about addressing the basic needs of all people. Jobs, homes and services are human rights, not privileges for those who can afford it. We all need good jobs to support ourselves and our families. We need safe and clean homes to live in. We need basic services like childcare, healthcare, food programs, and training opportunities.
We need to realize that many people start with less, and even more encounter life crises–loss of a job, illness, family members’ deportation, etc. These circumstances leave people at a disadvantage. This is a connected city, country, and world and we all need to help each other get by.
Basically, the 1% get what they want while too many of the 99% struggle to get what they need. We are showing up on May 11 to fight for a city where housing is a human right, a country with good jobs for all, a world where our basic needs are met.
TAKE ACTION TO TAKE BACK THE SAFETY NET
11:30 AM • South Street Seaport @lighthouse (corner of Water and Fulton)
Wake up NYC’s bureaucrats who are destroying the safety-net for millions of low-income and working-class New Yorker’s through budget cuts and right-wing welfare policy.
RALLY TO DEMAND GOOD JOBS NOT GIVEAWAYS!
1 PM • SE corner of Murray St. and West St.
Tell Big Banks: Create Jobs Now or Give Us Our Subsidy Money Back.
Many corporations have received subsidies and tax cuts on the promise that they would create more jobs…and many didn’t. Bank of America and Merrill Lynch have received over $100 million in job creation tax breaks from the New York government but didn’t deliver. Join us and tell them we want jobs or our money back!
CONVERGENCE! GOOD HOUSING, GOOD JOBS & GOOD SERVICES FOR ALL
3-7 PM Pop Up Occupation for the Needs of the People
After marching to decry the failure of government and corporations to meet the needs of the people, we'll cap off the day with a celebratory "pop-up" occupation to empower people to meet their own needs. Join us for free food, facepainting and balloons, whiffle ball, video testimonials from Walmart workers, and an open assembly on how the 99% can meet our own needs. (Meet up at ROCKEFELLER PARK, Battery Park City Waterfront. RSVP on Facebook
DEMAND DIGNITY AT DARDEN
7PM • Capital Grille, 155 East 42nd Street, btwn Lexington & 3rd
End Retaliation! Respect Workers’ Right to Organize!
Capital Grille has been fighting the workers’ right to unionize. We’re taking our energy from the speak-out to their 42nd Street restaurant location to make our voices heard.
MAY 12
FOR A CITY WITH HEALTHY FOOD FOR ALL, A COUNTRY WITH JUSTICE FOR ITS FOOD WORKERS, AN ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE WORLD
BROOKLYN FOOD CONFERENCE
9 AM – 6 PM • Brooklyn Tech High School, 29 Fort Greene Pl
Another City Conference Room
11am -12:15 Health & Environment
12:30 – 1:45 Homes Jobs & Services
2 – 3:15 Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, War & immigrant Justice
3:30 – 4:45 Debt & Global Economic Justice – David Graeber (on debt) & Evan Wagner (alt currencies & permabank)
FIGHTING FRACKING, RECLAIMING THE COMMONS!
2pm meet up at Union Square for Times Up & OWS Bike Coalition to bike to Pier 54
3pm • Pier 54 Between West and 13th Street
Join Time’s Up, Reverend Billy, the Church of Earthalujah, and OWS Environmental Solidarity. Global day of action in defense of Food, Environment, and Health.
Bike ride ends at COMMUNITY GARDEN CLEAN UP
La Plaza Cultural @ 9th st and Ave. C
JOIN HEALTHCARE FOR THE 99% FOR A DAY OF ACTION AGAINST BUDGET CUTS! Join us to speak out against hospital closings, service reductions, and budget cuts! Reclaim Healthcare for the 99%!
Governor Cuomo appointed Wall Street banker Stephen Berger to fix healthcare in Brooklyn. Berger recommended merging and downsizing Wyckoff and other Brooklyn hospitals that provide necessary healthcare in low-income and medically underserved communities.
@2:30pm Maria Hernandez Park, northside, at Starr St and Irving Ave. Subway from Manhattan/Brooklyn take L Train to Jefferson Stop (Map). From Brooklyn Food Conference atBrooklyn Tech High School take B38 to DeKalb Ave/Knickerbocker Ave. @3pm March to Wyckoff Hospital: Speak out on healthcare cuts and hospital closings in Brooklyn, and picket at Wyckoff Hospital, Stockholm St and Wyckoff Ave (Map). Take L Train to DeKalb Stop.
WALMART TRUCK TOUR ABOUT WORKERS RIGHTS
6 PM • Location TBA
MAY 13
FOR A CITY WHERE NO CHILD IS STOPPED AND FRISKED, A COUNTRY WHERE NO MOTHER IS DEPORTED, A WORLD WITHOUT WAR
We gather for a city where no child is stopped and frisked, a country where no mother is deported, where families around the world are safe from war. This Mother’s Day, mothers across NYC will be uniting for a day of action. Issues, ranging from war to police violence, have separated mothers from their children and torn families apart for far too long. Sunday, May 13, join us in saying enough is enough.
We will start the day by supporting a Mother’s Day Peace Stroll hosted by the Granny Peace Brigade at 11:30am. The Peace Brigade and supporters will meet at the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park, walking to songs from the Raging Grannies and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra.
At 1pm, we will be joining Mothers Resisting Racist Policing, an ad hoc collective of black and brown mothers organizing a Mother’s Day response to police violence. This starts at 1pm at E 158th Street and 3rd Avenue in the Bronx.
The second half of the day will be a Citywide Movement Assembly at 5pm at Judson Church, 55 Washington Square South.
In honor of Mother’s Day, and all of the mothers that have been severed from their children by war, immigration laws, prisons, and police violence, we will begin the City Movement Assembly at Judson Church with a speak-out on these issues. There will be a station for card-making, and the Assembly will end with a potluck and dance party!
GRANNY PEACE BRIGADE MOTHER’S DAY PEACE STROLL
12 PM • Central Park, Columbus Circle Entrance
MOTHERS RESISTING RACIST POLICING IN SOUTH BRONX
1PM • Starting at East 158th Street and 3rd Ave
CITYWIDE MOVEMENT ASSEMBLY
5 PM • Judson Church • 55 Washington Square South
MAY 14
FOR A CITY WITH QUALITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, A COUNTRY WITHOUT STUDENT DEBT, A WORLD WITH FREE EDUCATION FOR ALL
5-7 PM • 59th & Fifth • Grand Army Plaza Manhattan
STROLLER MARCH — FOR THE 99%
PARENTS * KIDS * COMMUNITY GROUPS * LABOR UNIONS
MAY 15
A DAY OF ACTION AGAINST THE BANKS THAT CAUSED THE GLOBAL CRISIS AND A MASS RALLY AT TIMES SQUARE AT 6PM.
MEET UP AT 4PM IN BRYANT PARK TO EMBARK ON A FINANCIAL CRIMES WALKING TOUR.
On this day, countries around the world are rising up in opposition to austerity. Banks have gambled away our futures irresponsibly, and we are paying the price. Move your money out of the big banks, demand accountability, and let us stand together to show that the power of the people is stronger than the power of wealth.
At Times Square, join us in making a statement to the world:
We are here today coming together for a city where housing is a human right, a country with good jobs for all, and a world where our basic needs are met
We are coming together for a city with healthy food for all, a country with justice for its food workers, an for an ecologically sustainable world
We are coming together for a city where no child is stopped and frisked, a country where no mother is deported, and for a world without war
We are coming together for a city with quality public schools and after school programs, a country without student debt, and a world with free education for all
We are here in solidarity with the people of the world who fight against the global financial system that pits people against each other and elevates profit above all else.
We are the 99%, we believe that the liberation of one requires the liberation of all and we will fight for justice until we end the tyranny of the 1%.
10:30am: Arrests have been made as victims of Bank of America foreclosures attempt to enter the meeting. 9:30am ET: After several marches converged earlier this morning, at least 1000 people are currently occupying the intersection of 5th and college in front of the Bank of America headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina in a peaceful sit-in protest. About a 100 shareholders who support the movement are inside as heavily armed police guard the BoA building.
Yesterday, Occupy Fights Foreclosure in Los Angeles “fraudulently foreclosed” on a Bank of America branch in solidarity with the 99% protests in Charlotte. Occupy Detroit protesters also occupied the Bank of America building in Detroit. A flashmob played a game of human ¨Monopoly¨ before taking to the street to demand mortage relief and make clear not a single dollar more of public money should be used to save the banks who ruined Detroit. At 4pm today, Occupy Detroit will protest BoA again. Solidarity protests are also planned against Bank of America in DC, Los Angeles, Austin, and other cities.
Why we are protesting the G8 Summit:
According to Wikipedia, G8 consists of representatives of the governments of the 8 countries with the largest Gross Domestic Product (GPD), totaling the majority of the world’s GDP. They are listed as: The USA, European Union, UK, France, Japan, Russia, Canada, and Italy. Members of G20 will also be there as observers (including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, etc.) G8 will meet at Camp David near Thurmont, Maryland on May 18 and 19.
A NATO summit will take place the next two days, May 20 and 21, in Chicago, where large demonstrations are planned. Some Marylanders will be carpooling from Frederick to Chicago, leaving Saturday night, May 19. The G8 summit was moved from Chicago to Camp David because of threatened protests in Chicago.
According to the G8 Information Center, G8’s agenda includes:
nuclear policy
Arabic fossil fuels
agribusiness
NATO’s role in Afghanistan.
We propose a Peoples’ 99% Agenda against the imperialist (corporate-dictated) agenda. We propose that protesters including the Occupy movement go to Thurmont, Maryland, and demonstrate our concerns regarding nuclear policy, energy policy, resource wars, agribusiness, the 1% corporate dictatorship, and other international issues.
Instead of the G8 agenda, we suggest a Peoples’ 99% Agenda:
People Organize to Protest G8, Present Alternative Economic View
The G8 Economic Summit fled Chicago to avoid protest, but organizers from multiple-Occupy’s and advocacy groups have organized several events to make sure the people’s voices are heard.
October2011/OccupyWashingtonDC.org has organized an Occupy G8 People’s Summit that will examine how to build a sustainable, democratized economy from the bottom up; the impact of the wealth divide on people’s well-being and on policy creation; and alternative economic structures that create a more democratic, sustainable economy. The event, which will be held in the Frederick Public Library from 10 to 2 on Friday, May 18th will feature the voices of the 99% along with experts on the Robin Hood Tax, food, water and energy issues, trade agreements, the wealth divide and a democratized economy. You can see the full schedule and details on the website of our partner organization, Its Our Economy.
Occupy Frederick is organizing events in Frederick, Maryland, fifteen minutes from Camp David. After the Summit people will march through downtown Frederick and will hold a “Counter-G8 Community Bloc Party” on Saturday, May 19th from 11 AM to 9 PM in Baker Park (band shell side) near 2nd and N. Bentz. The event is inclusive of all ages for radicals and residents alike and will include live music, workshops, speakers, face painting and a truly free market. You can see the details here.
Occupy Baltimore is organizing legal, non-violent protests on the public sidewalks in Thurmont, MD on Friday and Saturday (May 18th and 19th) from 8 AM until sundown on both days. People are urged to bring signs, banners, folding chairs, food and drink. Overnight camping is available nearby. Thurmont is located just a few minutes from Camp David off of Route 15. You can get details here.
Law enforcement has been very active in preparing for our actions. Authorities took the uncommon step of closing Cunningham Falls State Park at the request of the Secret Service. The Baltimore Sun described this as “highly unusual and may be without precedent.” In addition, designated First Amendment areas that had been open for previous summits at Camp David have also been closed.
Please join us at these events. The whole world will be watching. We need to show the G8 and the world that we want an economy for the people, built from the bottom up not from the top down and that is democratic, sustainable and fair.
In Solidarity
October2011.org/
OccupyWashington, DC
P.S. If you’d like to contribute to these efforts, donate here.
In Response to Campus Security’s Use of Excessive Force on Peaceful Students, Petition to Repeal Tuition Hikes and End Securitization of CUNY
On May 2nd, 2012, peaceful students and faculty experienced unnecessary brutality on the Brooklyn College campus. Brooklyn College President Karen Gould ordered for students to be violently removed by campus security from outside of her office in a main academic building; two students were wrongly arrested, spent a night in jail, and face unsubstantiated charges.
Over the next five years, students face a $1,500 tuition increase, and continuous cuts to student services and a continuation of increased securitization on CUNY Campuses– from the NYPD systematic spying on Muslim Student Associations, to Stop and Frisk racial profiling policies on and off our campuses, to attacks by security guards on peaceful students such as during the Board of Trustees Meeting on November 21st, 2011 at Baruch College.
We refuse to allow these to become the future of CUNY.
We demand:
1) President Gould of Brooklyn College drops ALL charges against Eric Carlsen and Julieta Salgado, two peaceful Brooklyn College students arrested for demonstrating outside President Gould's office on May 2nd against tuition increases and cuts to student services.
2) The end to the securitization of CUNY.
3) The repeal of NY SUNY 2020, which increase tuition by $1,500 over five year.
Petition:
To Chancellor Goldstein, President Karen Gould of Brooklyn College and other CUNY Administration,
Under your leadership, Chancellor Goldstein, students have seen our tuition dollars diverted from programs that support our needs as student to fund increased securitization of CUNY campuses.
We refuse to pay ever increasing tuition rates for decreasing student services. We refuse to watch our tuition money used to fund campus security measures that target students of color and those exercising their right to freedom of speech.
We demand the repeal of NYSUNY2020 Tuition Hikes and an end to the securitization of the City University of New York.
When: 6 to 10 p.m. (Reception from 6 to 7 p.m. Light Refreshments Will be Served.) Where: Casa de las Américas
182 E. 111th St.
(btwn. Lex. Ave. and 3rd Ave.)
Take the 6 train to E. 110th St.
Lenny will speak on Native American Spirituality, the Prison System, Environmental Issues Affecting Native Lands
and Native American Prisoner of War Leonard Peltier
Lenny Foster of the Diné Nation is the Director of the Navajo Nation Corrections Project and the Spiritual Advisor for 1,500 Indian inmates in many state and federal prisons in the Western U.S. He has co-authored legislation in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado that allows Native American spiritual and religious practice in prison and results in significant reductions in prison returns.
He is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council, a sun dancer and member of the Native American Church. He has been with the American Indian Movement since 1969 and has participated in actions including Alcatraz, Black Mesa, the Trail of Broken Treaties, Wounded Knee 1973, the Menominee Monastery Occupation, Shiprock Fairchild Occupation, the Longest Walk and the Big Mountain land struggle. He was a 1993 recipient of the City of Phoenix Dr. Martin Luther King Human Rights Award.
Lenny will speak on five Native American issues: the illegal imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, land and resources taken from Native peoples by the U.S. government, stripmining, uranium mining and the pollution of the land, air and water, Native American freedom of religion and the demand to honor Native treaty rights.
Sponsors: NYC LPDOC Chapter, NYC Jericho Movement, Native Resistance Network, ProLibertad (list in formation)
For more info: nyclpdoc@gmail.com • 917-544-1577
Native Resistance Network
NEXT MEETING & Potluck: Sunday May 13th, 4-7pm.
For location, e-mail Demelza: demelzaster@gmail.com
Please bring an entree or side dish to share!
We have decided to begin discussing decolonization within our group - no need to know everything, because we surely don't! But if you're interested in this topic, please come join us on Sunday! (We will also be talking about future possibilities and actions within our group)
The regime of wholesale robbery — what the 1% call “austerity” — is already falling across Europe, and soon will fall across the world. But the inevitable collapse of austerity is not enough. We, the 99%, demand a world beyond Wall Street. We demand a system where everyone can not only survive, but flourish.
We call on all occupies, unions, community organizations, immigrants rights groups, student bodies, religious organizations, environmental groups, anti-poverty activists, and everyone to join us June 20th, 2012 for a new holiday for the 99%: A Global Festival for the Universal Living Wage.
In only eight months, Occupy Wall Street has succeeded in putting income inequality back at the center of popular and political discourse. Next, we will end it. This June 20th — Midsummer in the northern hemisphere and Mid-winter in the southern hemisphere — we will begin a campaign to ensure the 99% never again lose our homes or worry about feeding our families and communities because of the greed of the 1%. We will not stop until we win.
Midsummer is traditionally a day to celebrate abundance. Let´s celebrate our abundance of love, joy, and solidarity by proclaiming a new holiday for the 99%. Let’s eat, drink, sing, and dance on the future grave of austerity. Let´s show that a world without austerity and scarcity is not only possible, but already in the works. What better way to celebrate the passing away of the old regime of death and disorder than by joining together in festival to demand the living wage?
On the longest day of our year, the 99% will shine our brightest. We Can´t Live On Change — We Demand A Living Wage!
NATO war makers are preparing to meet in Chicago on May 20-21 following the meeting of the G8 heads of state behind the fortified walls of Camp David.
By contrast, the People's Summit invites community groups, labor unions, anti-racist organizers, Occupy activists, environmentalists, faith leaders, immigrant rights activists and anyone else committed to social justice to a grassroots, bottom-up forum of, by and for the 99 percent.
There will be large plenary sessions as well as more than 40 workshops that will provide everyone the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about the many pressing issues facing our world today.
All those opposed to the NATO/G8 war and poverty agenda are invited to attend the People's Summit, and then join the mass march on Sunday, May 20, beginning at 12 noon at the Petrillo Band Shell in Grant Park. Don't miss your chance to be a part of history as people around the U.S. and the world engage in solidarity actions with our May 20 march.
A better world is possible, and we have a responsibility to become the change that we want to see in this world. See you at the People's Summit and the May 20 march!
For more information and registration, please check out our website! Childcare will be provided!
Though the People's Summit will be free to everyone it is still going to cost around $10,000+ to pull off.
With that said, we are requesting donations for those able to do so in order to finance the summit. Donate here.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Malalai Joya, former Afghan member of Parliament and internationally renowned opponent of NATO's occupation of Afghanistan; Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rainbow/PUSH coalition; Reiner Braun, International Coordinating Committee of the European No to NATO network; Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence; death row prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal via speakerphone; Malik Mujahid, Muslim Peace Coalition; Medea Benjamin, Code Pink; Col. Ann Wright (ret.), antiwar activist
Please join us Saturday for a night of music and live entertainment hosted by the Occupy Chicago Rebel Arts Collective and Rebel Diaz!
What is the People's Summit?
On May 20th and 21st, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be hijacking Chicago to house an undemocratic meeting for its “band of hostile brothers.” The military and political leaders of countries that account for 70 percent of world military spending will be meeting to discuss how to use their vast military might in pursuit of the interests of the global 1 percent. As they meet in their walled fortress, CANG8 and Occupy Chicago will be hosting an event of an utterly different sort. The People’s Summit is a radically democratic meeting to discuss the type of world we would like to see, a world that transcends our present condition of corporate plutocracy and military empire.
What is the purpose?
To educate our communities about war, austerity, global capitalism, and corporatization in the 21st century, and what it means for the ways we live in this world. Topics can range from the increasing cost of a loaf of bread in Chicago to the 1.4 billion people worldwide living in immiseration; from the ‘war on terror’ and global homeland security industries to increased militarization of domestic policing; from global wage depression and the creation of disposable labor reserves to devastating climate change, destruction of environments, and the privatization of common resources. Within each of these threads (and many more), the power of global economics determines the material state of contemporary world affairs. Major events around the globe in 2011, from Tahrir Square to Liberty Square, have instilled a great urgency in us all; we need to understand how the complex conditioning by global processes has given the 99% of the world more in common than we dared to imagine before.
To mobilize our communities for radical democracy, including dissent in the form of non-violent protest during the NATO/G8 summit and beyond, and the nurturing of long-term collaborative mobilizations between local, national and international communities. We accept Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent challenge to our civil liberties, and will work ceaselessly for all people to realize their right to participate in a truly democratic forum.
To present alternative visions of the world we all know to be possible through critical reflection, humor, art, direct democracy, collaboration, and informed dialogue. Our educational axiom is grounded in providing a radically democratic space, where the People in all our multiplicities contribute intellectually, artistically and collaboratively to this process. Our educational axiom is not based on the delivery of information and theories by experts to a consuming audience, a process by which thought becomes a pacifying and alienating product. That is neoliberal education. In the face of our repressive states and corporate militarized regimes, we have a responsibility to adopt new modes of thought; therefore, most powerfully, our axiom is the call for a concrete manifestation of an ethically guided, politically truthful demand: that a response to the current crisis of global capitalism must arise collectively through creative and imaginative thinking about a society based on equality and emancipation for all across the globe.
99% solidarity is excited to participate in nonviolent direct actions in Chicago from May 18 to 22, 2012. We have secured buses to bring people to these actions from several U.S cities.
We are currently working on the travel schedule, agenda and other important details of this trip. We will be contacting you with updated information shortly. For now here are a few updates:
The Bus trip is free
50 people from each city must sign up and board the bus for the trip take place. If a city has less then 50 sign ups, then we may have to cancel the bus for that city.
Meals will be provided on board the bus to and from Chicago
We are working on housing and meals while in Chicago
There are several direct actions and events that we will participate in while in Chicago including:
May 18 – The People’s Summit
May 19 – the 99% Solidarity People’s Convention
May 20 – CANG8 rally and march.
Please visit 99solidarity.net often to get the most up to date information and be sure to invite your friends and fellow occupiers to join you on this exciting, historic trip.
In addition, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter: @99solidarity
Currently, buses will be leaving from the following cities in time to arrive in Chicago on May 17.
New York City
Washington DC
Boston, MA
Providence, RI
Burlington, VT
Salem, NH
Philadelphia, PA
Atlanta, GA
Oakland CA
Los Angeles, CA
San Francisco, CA
Portland, OR
We are working hard to add more cities, so please check back often if your city is not listed.
From 5/17-5/22 occupiers throughout the country will be joining with the National Nurses United, and many other unions and groups, in Chicago for the People’s Summit, and to protest at the NATO summit on 5/20. The purpose of the People’s Summit is to join together in solidarity, address the grievances of the 99%, and advance the process of truly changing this country. The NATO summit provides an opportunity to directly confront some of those grievances; our nation’s exorbitant spending on the military, global militarization, and the culture of war. It is ludicrous that in a time of economic hardship our military spending is higher than the other ten top spending countries combined. Our tax dollars fund useless wars and support the military industrial complex while social programs are being cut and our infrastructure is crumbling.
Though the G8 punked out and will conduct their nefarious business in the secluded, well guarded confines of Camp David, the gathering in Chicago will still be an important event, showcasing the frustrations of the 99% and our willingness to act in the struggle for a just and fair society.
This is a key moment in the American Spring. Following the nationwide actions on May Day, the Chicago actions will keep the pressure on and show the determination of the Occupy Movement and its many supporters and allies to keep up the fight and get the message out to the people.
This is the time for action. The fact that Rahm Emanuel has trashed the constitution in his attempts to quash protest and stifle dissent makes it all that more important that we show up in Chicago to raise our voices. The repressive measures taken by Mayor Emanuel encapsulate the broader assaults on freedom by our city, state, and federal governments; all to serve their masters, the 1%. The gathering in Chicago has thus become an even more powerful symbol, a chance to show the true passion and determination of our movement.
We are at a crucial time in American and world history, a crossroads which will lead to subjugation by the 1% or a new age of justice and freedom. The choice is yours. Our country was founded through revolution. Though the results of this revolution were imperfect, it was still a great advance for the cause of individual liberty. The people who fought for and supported the American Revolution knew that it was time to stand up for their rights or be subjugated. We now face the same choice. If the 99% finds common cause and courage, if we rally together and demand change, demand a more just and fair society, our revolution need not be a violent one, but an enlightened one. Our numbers are unstoppable. Our unity is our strength, our resolve is our weapon. Our greatest enemy is apathy. Come to Chicago on 5/18 for the People’s Summit and help create a world you will be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren. Let the future remember you as one of the heroes.
