Occupy Wall St. and Everywhere to Stop U.S. Wars for Empire!
...this movement faces a true crossroads. Will it be dispersed, driven into the margins, or co-opted? Or will it come back stronger? This question now poses itself, extremely sharply.
We in The World Can't Wait express our enthusiastic solidarity with the morally and physically courageous youth of Occupy Wall Street and all others now forming occupations in their cities. They have not resigned themselves to accepting the way the world is, but are boldly exposing the towering crimes and audacious lies of this nation’s financial and political elites. They are righteously demanding that it all end and in doing so, enduring brutal attacks by police and the corporate media’s malign neglect.
These actions are an extremely welcome development and a gust of fresh air in the suffocating and poisonous atmosphere that the major parties, the Tea Partiers, and their billionaire sponsors have been propagating and imposing, in this, the "land of the free."
On Monday, Sept. 26, California prisoners resumed a hunger strike, protesting inhumane conditions, including torture and decades long solitary confinement. We call on all people to stand with these path-blazing youth and those oppressed by our government, here and around the world. Put your energies, your funds, your thoughts, and your bodies on the line to give voice to the most exploited, ignored, and oppressed who have suffered under the U.S. government's economic, military, and social crimes here and around the globe.
Join the occupations in opposition to the financial criminals of Wall Street, step up the resistance to demand that torture stop at California prisons, and support and join the Stop the Machine Occupation of Washington, DC.
The future is unwritten, which one we get us up to us.
On Tuesday February 28, an array of notable voices of conscience spoke publicly in support of Occupy. In New York's Union Square, 450 gathered at the "F28 Stand with Occupy - Don't Suppress the Occupy Movement" rally and then marched to Liberty Plaza (Zuccotti Park) from which Occupy Wall Street was evicted almost four months ago. Professor Noam Chomsky sent a video message to the rally.
Actor Susan Sarandon said that Occupy "opened up a very public debate... and it exposed brutal practices of suppression. The rally was kicked off by Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary, the well-known folk group from the '60s) exuberantly taking the stage and singing, accompanied by his daughter Bethany Yarrow.
March 14, Wednesday, 7pm Revolution Books NYC
146 W. 26th Street (between 6th & 7th Ave.)
Author reading with World Can't Wait Steering Committee member Dennis Loo on his new book: Globalization and the Demolition of Society
Professor Loo explores how free market fundamentalism creates a global situation where governments must increasingly rely on secrecy, deception, surveillance, fear and force to maintain control.
Yesterday afternoon, Occupy Chicago sprang back to life at LaSalle and Jackson. It was wonderful to turn the corner onto Jackson and hear the drums and the chants!
Mass actions February 28, demonstrating that Occupy has right on its side in a nonviolent way in NYC, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Hollywood: details here.
No Rubber Bullets - No Beatings - No Tear Gas - No Mass Arrests - Drop All the Charges Against Occupiers!
When World Can't Wait was started in 2005, we issued the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime, which said in part: "That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn - or be forced - to accept."
This is a lesson which has been learned by people throughout history and around the world, including throughout the Middle East now, and must be understood by people in this country as well.
World Can't Wait is supporting the Call for Mass Action Against the Suppression of the Occupy Movement. It's not only the barricades and batons, constant surveillance, mass arrests, and escalating charges against occupiers. It's the fact that these occupations have been pushed and beaten from public squares, and squeezed into the margins.
Don't wait for "something" to happen in the spring. Join the F28 actions now:
Make Tuesday F28 a Day of Mass Action Everywhere; Stand with Occupy. STOP the Suppression of the Occupy Movement!
On Saturday, January 28, more than 1,000 Occupy Oakland demonstrators staged a march to occupy a city-owned building in downtown Oakland, California that has been vacant for the last six years—and transform it into a community center.
This powerful show of the continuing strength and defiance of the Occupy movement was met and brutally assaulted by hundreds of Oakland police, who repeatedly attacked the protesters, penning them into small spaces and shooting tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds into crowds. Throughout the day, people showed great courage and defiance in the face of these brutal attacks.
By the end of the day more than 400 had been arrested.
Some people might argue that the problem of preventing the newest U.S. war is not squarely within the area of concern of Occupy. I would argue that, in fact, there is no one better-positioned to take up this resistance than the biggest group of people in the U.S. who have gotten first-hand experience of U.S. government threats and repression.
It is not a coincidence that legislation that aimed at both Iran and at the Occupy movement was signed into law on New Year's Eve.
Oakland police in riot gear fired smoke, tear gas, flash bang grenades and rubber bullets at Occupy Oakland protesters trying to take a vacant building this afternoon. Near the Oakland Museum of California, demonstrators had planned to take a building nearby and make it a headquarters. But, police were prepared to stop then from occupying the vacant building.
Live streamer Spencer Mills (aka @OakFoSho), known for regularly broadcasting Occupy Oakland action, was on the scene and recorded video (link below).
At about the 12:50 mark, a police officer can be heard making the following announcement:
[I] declare this to be an unlawful assembly. In the name of the people of the state of California, I demand all those assembled on Oak Street to immediately leave the area. If you do not do so, you may be arrested or subject to removal by force if necessary. Chemical agents may be used, which may result in injury. Section 409 of the California Penal Code prohibits being present at an unlawful assembly.
No more than two minutes after tear gas canisters are fired at a group of Occupy Oakland protesters that are holding their ground.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) responded with brute force in the first hours of the New Year to Occupy Wall Street’s attempt to re-take Zuccotti Park. The police went after live streamers, others with cameras and even bystanders and a National Lawyers Guild (NLG) observer.
At least 68 were arrested. Updates posted on the action by Occupy Wall Street that unfolded indicate NYPD threw around livestreamers and bystanders as they were removing people and making arrests. The police also blockaded the sidewalk stopping a march and told Occupy Wall Street demonstrators they were “blocking traffic.” They brought in horses. They searched for individuals with “official press passes,” ready to eject citizen journalists who wanted to remain and bear witness to the NYPD’s aggressive policing.
These past several months have witnessed something very different in the U.S. People from many different walks of life came together to occupy public space in nearly 1,000 cities in the U.S. They stood up to vicious police violence, they broke through the confines of “protest as usual,” and in the middle of all that, they built community. Even in the face of media attempts to ridicule, distort, and demonize these protests, their basic message began to get through. People throughout the U.S.—and even the world—took notice of and took heart from these brave and creative protesters.
The political terms of discourse began to shift; the iced-over thinking of people in the U.S. began to thaw. Standing up to the unjust brutality and arrests became a badge of honor. People began to listen to and read the stories of some of the victims of this economic crisis, and to share their own. And most of all, as the protests spread to city after city, the fact of people occupying public space forced open debate and raised big questions among millions as to what kind of society this is, and what it should be. Why does such poverty and need exist in the face of a relative handful of people amassing obscene amounts of wealth? Why do the political institutions of society seem only to serve that handful? Why do so many youth feel they face such a bleak future? Why does the insane destruction of the environment continue to accelerate? And what is needed to overcome all this?
Early Wednesday morning 1,400 police streamed out of their hiding places in City Hall and converging from the nearby streets, quickly encircled and forcibly removed the encampment and the protesters.
The Mayor and LAPD had backed off from their earlier threats to evict the encampment as of 12:01 AM on Monday morning, seeing the large number of protesters (close to 3,000). They instead waited until a much smaller number of people were present on early Wednesday morning, arresting some 300 demonstrators.
Protesters in Los Angeles defied the mayor's early Monday deadline to vacate their encampment near City Hall, with about 1,000 flooding into the area as hundreds of tents remained standing as they have for nearly two months.
A celebratory atmosphere filled the night with protesters milling about the park and streets by City Hall in seeming good spirits. A group on bicycles circled the block, one of them in a cow suit. Organizers led chants with a bull horn.
"The best way to keep a non-violent movement non-violent is to throw a party, and keep it festive and atmospheric," said Brian Masterson.
Police presence was slight right after the 12:01 a.m. PST Monday deadline, but it began increasing as the morning wore on. At the same time, the number of protesters dwindled.
In the late afternoon of October 6th, 2011, I flew into Washington DC and headed straight for Freedom Plaza at the corner of 14th and Pennsylvania. Months before that date, and as so many others already had, I “pledged” to be there to participate in an occupation of Washington entitled “October 2011: STOP THE MACHINE—CREATE A NEW WORLD.” On its website, and in solidarity with those who had already signed, I too pledged as follows:
This morning, beginning at 1:00 am, NYC police massed to remove everyone and everything from Occupy Wall Street's home at Zuccotti Park. From Sarah Seltzer:
According to reports on Twitter, an OWS press release, and emails over internal OWS listservs, downtown subways and the Brooklyn Bridge were shut down, airspace was blocked off, and a barricade was erected to prevent supporters who were alerted by text from entering.
Police began withdrawing from Broadway at around 6:30 a.m. , after blocking off Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza and arresting people remaining in the plaza. Police are in the process of dismantling what remains of the Occupy Oakland camp that has occupied Frank Ogawa Plaza for most of the last month.
Police blocked off the plaza shortly before 6 a.m. today with lines of riot police. Most protesters had already moved into the street at 14th Street and Broadway before police arrived. One protester [identified by the San Francisco Chronicle as Zachary Running Wolf of Berkeley] climbed a tree in the plaza and has remained there for several hours. It was not immediately clear if police arrested him when they blocked off the plaza.
I thought Michael Moore had a good idea when he proposed naming Occupy SF after Bradley Manning. Bradley is accused by the U.S. government of leaking to Wikileaks government reports and cables on years of military operations and communications about and with other governments.
He may go before a court martial soon, although there is apparently deep disagreement between different sections of the government over what evidence to let the defense see, and what they will allow to be made public.
Michael’s point is that the “Arab Spring” beginning with the uprising in Tunisia last December, spreading across the Mid East, and continuing now in struggle against highly repressive regimes in Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen, was fueled by revelations posted by Wikileaks.
Eight days ago, the City and the Oakland police tried to violently disperse and shut down Occupy Oakland, seriously wounding Iraq war vet and Occupy supporter Scott Olsen during the assault. The attempt was turned back within days, and today the Occupy Oakland movement took another big leap.
At least 10,000-15,000 people, perhaps more, turned out for a day-long "General Strike & Mass Day of Action—Everyone to the Streets! No Work! No School! Converge on Downtown Oakland to Help Shut Down the City."
by Debra Sweet
