Dear Supporter,
Last week over 600 activists occupied our state Capitol in Albany demanding a New York that works for #AllOfUs.
59 were arrested committing civil disobedience by blocking access to Governor 1% Andrew Cuomo’s office. The action on the whole was highly successful, as you can see by reading the recap at OccupyWallStreet.net.
Cuomo most definitely earned that public smack down, but the broader fight is far from finished!
This Monday is a follow up mobilization and once again free buses are available to get to Albany. Join us for this last day of action taking on Governor 1%’s amoral budget.
-- from your Occupy Network team
Wave of Action
Friday, April 4th
Worldwide
“A wave of action is coming on April 4th, the date they killed MLK, the date Cindy Sheehan lost her son, the date cherry blossoms and resisters to fascism begin to show after an endless winter of many, many years” writes David Swanson at Popular Resistance.
The Worldwide #WaveOfAction will launch on April 4th with celebrations at hundreds of former Occupy locations globally and then runs through July 4th. During this three-month cycle, people throughout the world will be protesting corruption, rallying around solutions and taking part in alternative systems. Listen to the first InterOccupy call with organizers and Russell Brand for good measure.
For more information on goings on in New York go to to the #OWS April 4th Launch celebration Facebook event page.
Other NYC based event pages include the Wave of Action Veterans Vigil, Say no to Cuomo’s 1% agenda, Occupy Reefer Madness’s state of marijuana legalization, The People's Grassroots Conference on Radical Monetary Reform.
NYCGA.net has details on jail support.
Suggested hashtags are #WaveOfAction #GlobalSpring #ReOccupy #BeTheChange.
Cecily McMillan trial
- The Cecily McMillan trial is on-going and supporters are asking you to pack the courts!
- The Villager exhibits the implications for hte movement at large: “It was total over-policing, the use of brute force,” said Cecily’s attorney Martin Stolar. “And that is really a hallmark of how police reacted with most Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, gatherings and protests.”
- Vice's coverage of the trial reports that “she was the most steadfast advocate for non-violence in OWS” and that the charges against her, for assaulting an NYPD officer, are impossible to give credence, especially in light of her claims that the officer had assaulted her and that she was instinctively defending herself.
- Gothamist reports that the judge on the case has sealed the personnel file for the NYPD officer Cecily has been accused of assaulting, which keeps out of the courtroom the fact that the officer has himself been accused of using undue force on several previous occasions.
For more information, occupywallstreet.net offers a summary of March 19th’s court date.
Occupy in the News
Strike Debt
- Vocativ covers the good works of Strike Debt with a piece on the group’s origins and their future in a new iteration called The Debt Collective. The Debt Collective plans on connecting borrowers with others who have borrowed from the same source. In this way, borrowers can aggregate their power, giving them a mass platform from which to formulate demands.
- The Guardian reports on the chilling state of our “creditocracy”--a kind of society where everyone is in debt and “debts are not supposed to be paid down entirely.”
Occupy innovating to fight homelessness
Occupy Madison is building homes with and for people without homes - doing what the government won't do. Watch an inspiring video of their plans at act.tv. and read about the rise of tiny home villages such as the one that Occupy Madison is working on at Yes! magazine and at the AP’s site bigstory.
More Occupy in the News
- Occupy The SEC “has submitted a letter to the FDIC regarding that agency’s proposed regulations implementing Title II of the Dodd Frank Act (“DFA”). Title II of the DFA contains vital provisions that, if properly implemented, would help address the troublesome risks presented by “Too Big to Fail” (“TBTF”) financial institutions.”
- Hero Vincent tells his story in an interview OccupyWallStreet.net cross-posted from At the Heart of an Occupation: "When Occupy first started, I was twenty-one. I’m twenty-four now. I’m still a young man. I did my six months of battle, and I learned so much from that. I want to take what I learned from that first experience and all of the blessing I got from the time I was out there and try and apply it to something better, create something bigger. I want to make sure I'm getting to the people and working on the root of the problem."
- Occupy Sandy offers up suggestions as to how the city might better allocate funds in order “to redress the long-standing issues and inequities in New York City.” Among other things, Occupy Sandy advocates for a quicker dispersal of money in the aftermath of events such as Hurricane Sandy, and for a “bolster[ing of] healthcare facilities in affected areas.”
- An author at The Guardian compares his own opinions about capitalism to those of his former classmate Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve’s chair, and talks about his own disillusionment with the present system. Finding himself squarely in the corner of Marxian economics, he ends by throwing in with alternate ideas, such as cooperatives, and with OWS: "For us, Occupy Wall Street represents a powerful surge against capitalism."
- "Like an idea whose time has come" one city's fight against foreclosures went viral - find out how you can help at act.tv.
- At occupy.com an interview with the creative team behind Kimani’s Story, a documentary about the shooting death of 16-year-old Kimani Gray at the hands of the police. “Kimani Gray's death plays into the larger reality of mass incarceration that affects Latino and black people disproportionately and unjustly. It begins with over-policing communities of color and often ends with abuse, deaths or locking them up for years for minor, non-violent and usually drug related offenses.”
- rebelwheelssoapbox raises the incredibly important and too often overlooked issue of how to make protests and occupations accessible to all protesters, including those in wheelchairs.
- At occupy.com, FedUp, a coalition of activists from a variety of Occupy groups, is working hard to raise awareness about “the relationships between the Federal Reserve with the too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks, the unemployment, educational and housing crises of the great recession.” They believe that “the Fed [should] be nationalized in order to solve these crises.”
- At wagingnonviolence, a discussion of the participants in Occupy who were on the Right side of the continuum, and how a truly mass movement can sometimes benefit from an awareness of its own importance to all people. As the author puts it so succinctly, the presence of non-leftists, “was a reminder that a movement against Wall Street can be big enough to win, though it might not be small enough to be pure.”
- bloomberg.com covers the election of socialist and Occupy activist Kshama Sawant to a seat on the Seattle city council.
- One thousand young activists went to D.C. and 398 of them were arrested in an intense action against the Keystone Pipeline. As is clear, “the youth of this country are clearly not willing to continue along the same unsustainable path.” More coverage of the protest available here.
- Gawker , via the New York Observer, shares with us the pain afflicting the Upper East Side. Since de Blasio, apparently the 1% is feeling slighted. “Those who live on the Upper East Side are no more important—perhaps even less than our friends in the outer boroughs,” they say indignantly.
- According to politico, rich people in politics are extremely aggravated that so much talk has gone to subjects like the minimum wage and income inequality recently. One has even gone so far as to liken these discussions to the rhetoric of fascists before World War II, with no hint of irony, it seems. “Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. ‘Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.’”
- Hyper Allergic reports on how the OWS illuminator took to the Guggenheim in a fight for workers’ rights on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhab
- OccupyWallSt.org interviews author Kevin Roose about his new book and whether Wall Street’s youth are defecting.
Occupy These Actions & Events
Occupy Gracie Mansion
Saturday, March 29th, 8pm
Outside of the Mayor’s mansion at 88th st. and East End Ave
Check this video from Jenna Pope and Jeff Rae exhibiting the lawlessness the NYPD is already turning to in order to squash occupiers peacefully protesting at this location. This weekly Saturday night sleepful protest is ongoing.
#AllOfUs Follow Up Event
Monday, March 31st
The War Room (2nd fl) New York State Capitol, Albany
Our amazing show of unity on March 20th rocked the halls of the Capitol Building in Albany. We definitely got Governor Cuomo's attention, and now we're heading back for one more day of action on the budget. After decades of relentlessly fighting for Fair Elections for New York, we may know by Monday if it'll be included in the budget. If not, we will be there to shame Governor Cuomo if this turns out to be nothing more than another empty promise.
Justice for Kimani Gray Vigil and Rally
Wednesday, April 9th
5416 Church Avenue
On March 9, 2013 16 year old Kimani "Kiki" Gray was murdered by two plain clothes officers who failed to identified themselves. Sgt. Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova shot at Kimani Gray 11 times, hitting Kimani with 7 bullets, three entered in his back. These officers also have racked up five suits which cost taxpayers $215,000. These suits were for Civil Rights Violations, including Stop and Frisk and False Arrests.
OWS Screenprinters Cooperative anniversary celebration
Saturday, April 19, 7pm
The Base at 1302 Myrtle Avenue
The OWS Screenprinters Cooperative are celebrating their two year anniversary with a fundraising party, and the announcement that they have just gotten non-profit status. They’ve been dressing us all beautifully since the park and are making the transition to a program in the schools, among other wonderful “direct action screenprinting” efforts. Join the celebration and be among the first to preview our new designs for Spring 2014.
Inequality in the News
- Alexis Goldstein analyzes how President Obama is “standing in the way of continued progress on meaningful financial reform.”
- At his blog, Peter Marcuse analyzes how the language we use to talk about poverty sets the agenda for how we handle the problem. Income inequality is an important term to use, Marcuse says, as it frames the debate as an issue of exploitation, of the poor by the rich, rather than an accidental circumstance.
- An author at nymag crashed a party held by members of a Wall Street secret society and listened to their terrible jokes about “hippies and beatniks” for an evening, so you don’t have to!
- "Our society can't be great if we don't address inequality" Watch video of de Blasio talking about Gov. Christie's charge that income equality equals mediocrity.
- A summation of NASA’s recent, bone-chilling study linking worldwide income inequality with an incipient global environmental collapse.
- The New Yorker reviews “Capital in the Twenty-first Century,” a comprehensive analysis of income inequality by a French economist.