Last night Mayor Bloomberg and the New York Police Department notified protestors of a park cleaning that is scheduled to start tomorrow morning at 7 am. Occupy Wall Street protestors were told they would be allowed back into the park after the cleaning but would have to follow rules that include no lying down, no sleeping bags, and no tarps. There is an emergency general assembly going on right now in New York where they are debating whether to leave for the cleaning or stay at the site. This could very well be an attempt at ending Occupy Wall Street for good. Read the full post and what you can do to help at http://www.occupywallst.org.
40 Responses to “Occupy Wall Street—Emergency Call to Action”
Trash day can’t come soon enough.
Time to mobilize for a mass demonstration against Menino, Bloomberg, and their respective police forces. It’s pretty clear that both cities (and others around the country) want the occupations to end. A mass mobilization in this city, against Tuesday’s police represssion, one that demands the charges be dropped against our 7 brothers and sisters from Tuesday who plead not-guilty, and defending the occupations everywhere, is necessary to be called for Saturday. According to MSNBC, we had 10,000 people in the streets. We should get more than that. We should mobilize our supporters in organized labor, and any other people who sympathize but have not taken part, to defend the occupation with a peaceful, but strong march and rally through the city to Menino’s doorstep.
In my opinion, as part of this movement, the thing to do is to keep Dewey Square, be proactive in talking with the city and the Greenway people to emphasize the symbolic importance of the occupation as a basic right of participatory democracy, which has a wide support among the general population. Meanwhile, to work with the concerns that people raise even if they seem to be red herrings — the pumpkin festival, the food trucks, anything people raise. To be as real and responsible as possible, for survival, while being as respectful to everyone as can be while holding to the principles and spirit. Not to be short-term antagonistic, but to act with dignity, will gain the most support and greatest chance for success. And meanwhile, consider an exodus to the Common — would that work, would it be strategic? After all, it’s called the commons, and people sleep there already — those who have no other place. My 2 cents. I want this movement to work and give as much as I can for it. It has to be open to real self-critique as well as defiant and rebellious spirit, if it is going to work.
Fighting with our city is doing us all an injustice. I stand 100% behind the foundations of this movement, but total anarchy will be its pitfall. We have a Mayor who has taken no action to remove us from our permanent camp, and allegedly has no intention of doing so any time soon. If you bite the wrong hand, you will end up cleaned out. Why CREATE more battles for yourself to fight, thus compromising a movement with such potential?
Continue cooperative dialogue with our city and its police force. We are lucky compared to so many who have experienced real brutality and disrespect (case in point, Bloomberg’s bullshit). Please don’t fuck this up for the rest of us and start marching on Menino’s front lawn. I beg of you.
All who want to keep Dewey should be writing in support of this so that the mayor and governor can see there is widespread support. I agree with “U” below that the goal should be work cooperatively and CLEAR COMMUNICATION with the authorities and no more VERBAL agreements — write what you want, keep the evidence that you wrote and demand response in writing (by the way I am not a lawyer – IT IS JUST COMMON SENSE) –
So to all who support keeping Dewey Sq – go ahead express your support:
1. Mayor of Boston: mayor@cityofboston.gov
2. Boston Globe: jguilfoil@globe.com
3. Governor’s Office
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov3utilities&sid=Agov3&U=Agov3_contact_us
Sage, there are some archaic laws in place regarding the Boston Common. They are not enforced, but they are in place and could be used to thwart any occupation of the Commons. I stand ready for any response in Boston, tho, and if we need signs for Saturday’s march and more bodies we can respond from here.
I would also like to start an Occupation in a sister city if Occupy Boston continues to grow. There are different ways to grow and show that you can’t evict the 99% from the entire country!
It is equally unlawful for the rich as well S the poor to steal bread and sleep under bridges
In other news, his most estimable and exalted Mayorness further declared, “The protestors are welcome to occupy Zuccotti Park provided that they wear their underwear on the outside of their clothes,stand on one leg, and sing “Achy Breaky Heart” once every hour!”
In the immortal words of erstwhile 99%er Bugs Bunny: “What a maroon!”
You forgot that they have to learn Swedish.
54% of america supports Occupy Wall St
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum/2011/10/13/gIQAULRHhL_blog.html
DO NOT LEAVE THE SITE
If this happens in Boston please stay!
Wow, that is inspiring. Thanks for the link. It is amazing in this country that i have viewed as having a pretty asleep at the wheel population for so long.
I feel invested in the Occupation — if they try to evict Dewey Square, i will be there. I chose not to get arrested over the new camp, though i was there to witness, but I have a feeling that I would lay it on the line for the core camp. It is giving me so much hope that it means a lot to me. I think the same holds true for a lot of people. I think the general feeling is that this is a good thing — at least that it should be allowed to exist — it has a symbolic importance and only takes up a half acre of city grass for goodness sake.
I want this movement to succeed, so I am hoping that it conveys itself as respectfully as possible while sticking to the spirit and principles that it stands for. If you study the Civil Rights Movement — or if you are old enough to have taken part in it — then you know that a main tactic was to be, and to appear, as dignified as possible. This is very important, because it reduces all the stupid red herring arguments that people will use to crush it, and to turn the popular opinion against it. Examples: the $150k shrubbery, the pumpkin festival, the supposed $2 million it has cost the city, the slanderous stupid ad hominem things like “Get a job you smelly hippies” and on and on … I know in my heart that those are pretty much stupid arguments from people drinking the KoolAid from the right wing radio, or just generally people who don’t get the spirit of a real popular movement. But so what? These are hurting the movement, and will enable the city to kick us out. So try to reduce them as much as possible. If you really do care about the movement more than your own ego, then think about this please.
I give so much credit to all the people working so hard and spending so much more time than me down there. I’m coming by as much as I can after work. If I get the alert that the city is threatening Dewey Square, I will be there as fast as possible. In the meantime, the more that I can respect the movement, the more I will be willing to defend it. Keep it up, and keep being self-reflective as well as critical of the system and the 1%. Thanks for listening.
I can’t think of any course other than this: We move anything we can’t afford to lose to an off-site location. At the core camp we begin building larger tents out of plastic sheeting, tarps, and used lumber. If they try to shut us down we allow ourselves to be arrested, make bail, and then come right back. Lather, rinse, repeat unitl they stop evicting us, then we bring the important stuff back in time for winter
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/10/why-occupy-wall-street-is-not-the-tea-party-of-the-left/#comment-126995
CALL TO ACTION TO ALL OCCUPY BOSTON SUPPORTERS – Answer on CNN Blog – “Why Occupy Wall Street is not the Tea Party of the Left”
This is when it gets ugly because of course once the message becomes clear they will want to break us up before it spreads. Stay strong! Stay non violent! My prayers are with those in boston newyork and every city occupied
Well put, Nicole!
This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans, they’re both different doorways to the same hell. It’s about the system and fixing it. Both sides have had their chance and have proven that they don’t want things to change, because the system, as is, benefits them.
Here’s the problem in a nutshell:
The denizens of K street, the lobbyists, arrange large amounts of donations to our elected officials. The money comes from those groups which the lobbyists represent, including our felonious bankers (more on that in a later post).
The groups receive much of their money due to laws and policies which the politicians create.
The politicians create these laws and policies in order to help the groups who’ve donated money to them as both pay back and pay forward.
Think of the money flow as being in the form of a big funnel which tax revenues continually fill. The funnel is connected to a hose which the politicians steer towards their preferred benefactors. As the money flows out of the hose towards their chosen groups, a few percent flows back from those groups to the politicians who steer the money gushing hose in their direction. In essence, the Democrats and Republicans are fighting to control the hose’s direction as much as possible so that they, themselves, reap the maximum benefit in contributions. They want to stay in Congress so they can continue to steer the hose and receive large amounts of campaign contributions.
The answer on how to break this cycle of having the politicians favor the special interest groups is to reform the campaign finance laws.
– Each candidate who files papers and acquires the necessary amount of signatures needed to file should be given a set amount of taxpayer money for their campaign.
– Additionally, each candidate should be given the same amount of media time on television that corresponds to the elected office that they’re pursuing. (A presidential candidate should get more time than a senator, a senator more time than a congressman, a congressman, more time than a state senator, etc..). The media has FCC licenses and as a condition of keeping these licenses, they can be required to provide free air time for candidates.
– 529-type of organizations designed to get around these limits should be outlawed.
Once every person running for office is put on an equal campaign finance footing, the politician with the message that reverberates with the most people will win. Not the one who can take a weak message and weak voting history but pound it into the voters’ heads to saturation due to a heavier campaign fund warchest and buying multiples of the air time of a rival.
This is exactly what our political incumbents don’t want to happen. They want the current system to continue enriching themselves and allowing them to develop such huge levels of funding that they can’t be beat even if it was incumbent Saddam Hussein running against challenger George Washington.
However, the 2010 election scared the incumbents badly, it sent notice to both the Democratic and Republican parties. The Tea Party movement has them extremely worried; at heart it’s not an offshoot of Republicans regardless of how much they’d like that.
It’s a movement against the established political system. And they know it. Their attempt at developing a “super committee”, is their answer regardless of it being unConstitutional. If they can minimize the power of the nascent Tea Party and similar efforts by establishing a more tightly controlled system for creating laws and policies that bypasses the full Congress, they can minimize the problems that the Tea Party can pose for them. Because a Tea Party member will never make it onto the “super committee” and any legistation which the Tea Party, etc., will oppose, can be funneled through the invoked “super committee” to get around the Tea Party road block.
So how do we regain control of our political system? How do we go back to the “one person = one vote” system from our current “one dollar = one vote” system?
We need to get as many people on the Federal ballots in 2012 such that true campaign finance reform laws are both discussed and then followed through on.
This would be a bloodless revolution of our country, replacing those who want to use the current system to enrich themselves with those who want to do the right thing for the most people as was intended by our Founding Fathers.
To me, this is far more preferred than a bloody revolution. Historically, a revolution which is bloody is 10 times more likely to produce a Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, etc. new leader than one akin to the father of our country, George Washington.
Thank GOD! I hope this happens in Boston- sooner or later it will. You are all gross and disgusting smelling up the city where people walk by daily to go to work..WORK..something none of you seem to comprehend. Leave and go somewhere where they care. Everyone is laughing at U..U are not the majority. Most of you are losers with no friends and are using this as a means to socialize..seriously GeT A LIFE u hippies!
http://youtu.be/u40U-uDNzgc
DK,
You might want to check out a few news sources other than FOX before you make random rambling statements like that.
October 13, 2011 3:13 PM EDT
“Multiple polls have indicated more Americans support rather than revile the Occupy Wall Street movement. A Time Magazine poll conducted during the same period found that 54 percent of respondents said they were very to somewhat favorable of the protesters, while 23 percent said they felt somewhat to very unfavorably about them. Twenty-three percent said they did not know enough about the movement to have an opinion.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/230781/20111013/occupy-wall-street-support-polls-show-americans-support-occupy-wall-street.htm
My God, will you please give it a rest? You people are embarrassing yourselves. Disorganized, no message, endlessly repeating the sane vague notions…
All you are doing is WHINING and NOBODY is listening! If any of you think that change will come from this, then you all have way to much time on your hands. And I dont need to watch FOX news to know that this area of Boston smells like dirty hippies who havent showered in days. I will be so happy when you are all forced to leave. Quit bitching, get a job and stop thinking everything should be handed to you on a silver platter. MOST of us have had to work hard to have jobs, pay off loans, keep up with bills…THAT IS WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT! Once again…you are all a bunch of hippies who think its ” cool” to pitch a tent in downtown Boston, sit around in circles with guitars and spend hours and hours demanding to “occupy” parts of the city claiming its your right. If more people were onboard- then you would see them out there. Get a clue…nobody is listening. Two weeks from now- none of you will matter and none of you will be remembered. You are using this as a means to socialize with people- clearly, none of you have basic skills to get out there and work and socialize like the rest of us.
DK,
Uhhmm. I work and make quite a nice living thank you. I just appreciate that these kids are opening up the dialog about WS behanior that was missing before.
I guess I am just part of the 54 percent.
DK I hope you can keep your job and pay your bills. One big issue that fuels this protest is that a lot of people can’t do either of those things, no matter how hard they try.
You wouldn’t believe what it’s like to be unemployed and not be able to find a job. Or get out of school, in debt, and not be able to find a job and have almost no prospect of one. And don’t say ‘go work at McDonald’s.’ Honestly, try it. Try getting a job at McDonald’s after you get out of college. My brother in law couldn’t even get a job at the convenience mart after his B.A.
It’s so convenient to blame other people. I work hard and have a job and pay my bills and I support this protest. I am lucky but I know plenty of good people that aren’t so lucky right now.
That “54%” Rush Limbaugh sound bite is such a lie (as you, he and everyone else knows). Stop being so dishonest and spewing forth this self-serving tripe. If you want to engage in a discussion of the issues then fine. Otherwise go spew your hate somewhere else.
Please – all the folks who have negative comments about OWS/OB, read and think about this essay: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/occupy-wall-streets-political-disobedience/?hp
Just let go of your grudges and knee jerk responses for a few minutes and read it. It is the most elegant articulation I have read on the “Occupy” phenomenon.
Right on DK.
Think life is hard now?
Are you 13 and working 7 days a week in a factory?
Are you 18 and freezing in the Ardennes getting your ass shot off by Germans?
Are you 20 and getting sent to the jungle with a machine gun?
You are coddled ridiculous people.
Time to man up and do something productive.
I would recommend allowing the cleaning and maintenance to take place on schedule and to assist them by not leaving anything to be cleaned up. It is private land that we are talking about here and it is held by one of the largest real estate conglomerates in the world with $150 billion dollars under management all over the US,Canada,Brazil, Europe,Asia and the MidEast.They have been gracious to allow the protesters to stay there and if they are treated with respect, they may allow it further. The truth is that they can change the sleepover rules to be beneficial to the protesters if they want to, but are not likely to do so if they are treated with disrespect. If forced to take action, they can simply shut down the park and not let any traffic in, so I would not pick a fight with them. Instead, I would petition them politely and ask for permission to stay. And get ready to have to make other arrangements, always knowing that the worst can happen. The protesters may have to find a public park, public gathering place and permits to continue. With private property, If the owners want the protesters evicted, the protesters have no recourse and will be met with blunt police action if they resist. They will be charged with tresspassing on private property and may serve time and be fined for continual violation. i would not push my luck here but try,rather, to approach them civilly.
Yes, Gigi, this isn’t the time for making a stand that will only cause the movement grief and pain and alienation. All the polls say that America is on the side of the protesters – for now. (In the polls I read, about two to one agree with the Occupiers and about two to one disapprove of the Tea Party!)
If worse comes to worst in NY (or in Boston) find someplace else to go and keep the message alive. Doesn’t really matter where it’s done, only that the outrage about social and financial inequities is kept in the face of politicians and that the Occupy movements continue to gather every-day working folks in support.
I cannot believe people would blame the protesters for staying in the park. The park isn’t even dirty and there is nothing that is going to happen in the park that can’t be fixed later. News sources make it clear the park is FINE.
If it did get dirty (and it’s NOT dirty) then the protesters will clean it up. Really. This is so unnecessary.
It is a ruse. It is absurd. I cannot blame the protesters for refusing to leave. I think it is obvious the whole thing is a sham.
Being a cautious sort, I am almost wishing the protesters would find some other place or something else to do. This could have some bad results. Except the protesters are in the right here. This is what they are doing as a protest–occupying. They have done no damage of any sort to anything. So honestly, how can you blame them?
Their back is to the wall and they have to make this stand, as far as I can see. They are deciding that their protest matters more than some sham attempt to sweep a sidewalk. It’s rather necessary to the success of their protest to resist this attempt by the city to disperse them. They are protesting something that is a huge problem for many, many people right now–lack of jobs, corruption in politics, inequality.
I hope people in the media and across the country will see how reasonable their response is and I hope more than anything that no one gets hurt here. If someone does get hurt, it is on NYC’s back and on the Mayor’s doorstep since he is doing something provocative toward peaceful protesters who have a reasonable message and no other way to be heard.
They can all go home and write their congressman, I suppose? That hasn’t helped. We’ve come to the point where it is necessary to do something like this.
No, not write your congressman, just vote.
Don’t be discouraged by the fact that voting is trending in exactly the opposite direction of what you represent.
I give you a week, two at the max. You’ll be gone and it will not require the police.
I’m not there. I’m watching from the outside.
Are you kidding about ‘don’t be discourage by the fact that voting is trending…’ bla bla bla?
You don’t know what I represent. And voting and polls do ‘trend’ that way. The problem is that politicians either can’t or won’t do the things they say they will do, they don’t care enough about the things they say they care about–like the average person’s ability to get a job, pay for an education, keep their home and so forth.
The things I think we need right this minute are absolutely things that have been possible in this country for the last 50 years and were a reality until recently.
But ask yourself this–why are you angry about this? Why are you angry period? Why the scorn and contempt without really knowing what’s going on?
I will be horribly discouraged if I think this is a country where my kid can’t have a decent life. Call me crazy. Among some other things, that is pretty goddamn discouraging.
The reaction to this from some people is strange because I doubt you don’t share any of the problems or concerns that this protest is about. Even if you don’t–even if you have a totally different vision for society that could never possibly include this protest–it seems incredible that you would not have any concern or interest in the students worried about getting jobs, their huge students loans, people who can’t pay their medical bills, people who have been unemployed for so long they fear they will never work again, people who lost their homes, people who believe they are one step away from losing their homes?
These are such basic, human problems. Maybe you think the protests are a bad idea but it doesn’t make sense for an American to have contempt for a peaceful, basically ethical protest and it doesn’t make sense for *anyone* to have contempt for people who want to make their society better because they fear for their future in it.
So do you not like the people because you imagine they are some type of person you don’t like? Even that’s wrong–there are people from every walk of life doing this protest.
<>
Access to cheap government backed credit to fund education has caused education costs to soar over the last 30 years. Annualized cost increases have been in the 8% range since that time, far outstripping increases in salaries of college graduates.
This is a bubble just like housing and when graduates can longer afford to make student loan payments like we’re increasingly seeing now, this bubble will pop, too.
30 years ago when I went to college, professors would go on sabbatical every 4 or 5 years. Now it’s every 3 years.
Now we have 75 year old professors receiving $200k salaries but only teaching two classes a week, each with a dozen or less grad students. They don’t want to retire, why should they want
to? They spend 3 hours a week in class, 3 hours a week
prepping, and the rest of their time is their own. And they have one year off out of each three. This makes perfect economic sense for them to want to stay under those conditions but those conditions make no economic sense and are hallmarks of a bubble. (young professors fighting to get tenure track know exactly what I’m talking about.)
The only way these economic impossibilities can be created and maintained is via cheap student loan credit. Bubble theory economics says that will continue up until the point that graduates can no longer afford to make those loan payments. When that happens with a high enough occurrence rate, the bubble will pop. This will end badly for those on the other side of the student loans and should force rates higher and loan limits lower, putting downward pressure on tuition prices. This will force colleges to become more efficient.
However, the felonious banksters (more on that in a later post) being who they are, got Congress to change the law such that student loans are no longer dischargeable in bankruptcy proceedings..
Right On “Outside Observer – you all check this out:
The movement is gaining ground and credibility. Piers Morgan reported tonight on CNN.
Author Michael Lewis tells Piers Morgan the Occupy Wall Street protests have legs and makes sense. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/10/13/piers-michael-lewis-wall-street.cnn
Another “Outside Observer”
the only disappointment is that the OccupyBoston movement is not as well organized as the NYC one despite all the brainiacs we have in this town — can someone more practical maybe help out?
They’re doing OK so far. It’s actually pretty impressive if you think about the logistics and the complexity of the whole thing
“why the scorn and contempt without really knowing what’s going on?”
Because I do know what is going on. How many businesses have you started? I’ve started three. How many people do you employ? I employ dozens.
Why do you believe that the government or politicians are the reason for a slow job market?
How about the fact that we are competing with the rest of the world who also wants to raise their standard of living? Do they not have the right to do so?
I don’t want to take away from the presence in person but more needs to be done online, petitions, calls to our representatives CALLS TO ACTION – here is what NY did:
“The early morning announcement from the Mayor’s office in New York came after 300,000+ Americans signed petitions to stop the eviction, and flooded the 311 phone network in solidarity with those in Liberty Square. At 6 AM this morning, 3,000+ New Yorkers, unions, students, and others joined the occupiers in the square to send a clear message to the 1% who want to silence this peaceful assembly of the 99%. Donations poured into the protesters from Italy, England, Mexico and many other countries by everyday people hoping to help the movement grow. ” (http://www.occupywallst.org/)
The above was to Outside Observer.
And to you – Patrick, it is great you have been successful and employ people, but many small businesses are swallowed by the big corporations and don’t stand a chance. So I do know what’s going on. You are still part of the 99% but will only know it once you fail. Your employees will know once you have to expand and go to Mexico or wherever…to hire people and have to lay them off. I wish you the best of luck and not to fail. I embrace capitalism and have tried to start a small business myself unsuccessfully. However, if the climate will change and banks start lending to small businesses, I will try again.
YOU ARE THE 99% Patrick…
If you have tried, try again. And why don’t people in Mexico deserve to have jobs exactly? Only Americans deserve good jobs? Why?
Sounds like you are a bit of a nationalist.
GO TO WORK!