Good Morning from Occupy Boston!
Stories of the Day: Camp Charlie was evicted by the Secret Service last night because of a visit by the president of Brazil, reportedly protesters can return this afternoon, but check the website and Facebook page for updates… Here’s some information that’s useful for living in a police state. On Jan. 25, prompted by citizen protests, the Egyptian government cut off approximately 88 percent of the country’s internet access. Just in case, Wired magazine has created a wiki called “How to Communicate if Your Government Shuts Off Your Internet.” And here are some tips on how to film the police: an article called “7 Rules for Recording Police,” and a video called If You See Something, Film Something.“And check out this musical and educational homage to NWA’s “F- tha Police” called “Film The Police” by B. Dolan, Jasiri X and various other rappers – “we the people are the only real media we got.”
Other Occupies/Protests: Occupy Toronto saw some of its tensest moments over the weekend, clashing repeatedly with police after one transgender woman alleged officers brutalized her. Ms. Turvey told reporters police had broken her nose and orbital bone. Her face was puffy, covered in black and blue bruises and her eyebrow was closed with stitches. For more on the story, see article here and television news report here.
“All oppression creates a state of war.” Simone de Beauvoir
Volunteer Opportunities/Announcements:
Occupy Boston’s newspaper, The Boston Occupier, is looking for new staff members, including writers, editors, photographers, and those willing to help with fund-raising and distribution of the newspaper. Everyone is welcome to attend today’s working group meeting (see below)!
For a partial listing of Working Groups looking for volunteers, please click here!
Upcoming Events:
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Justice for Farmworkers! Picket, Delegation and Theater at Stop & Shop Headquarters, Thursday, April 12 at 12pm, Stop & Shop Corporate Office Headquarters, 1385 Hancock St., Quincy.
Just days before the Ahold (parent company of Stop & Shop) Shareholder Meeting, please join farmworkers and Fair Food allies in calling on Stop and Shop to join the Fair Food Program!
For decades, Florida’s farmworkers faced poverty wages and daily violations of their basic rights — including physical abuse, sexual harassment, and in the most extreme cases, modern-day slavery — in order to harvest the food on our plates. Today, however, a new day is dawning in the fields. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) — an internationally-recognized farmworker organization — has reached groundbreaking agreements with ten of the world’s leading food retailers, including McDonald’s, Subway and Trader Joe’s. Hailed by the New York Times as “possibly the most successful labor action in the US in twenty years,” the Fair Food Program establishes a worker-designed code of conduct in the fields and requires retailers to pay one more penny per pound for the tomatoes they buy to go directly to the workers who picked them—all of which is monitored and enforced by the independent Fair Food Standards Council. Supermarkets like Ahold leverage their high-volume purchasing power to demand the ever-lower prices that result in farmworker exploitation. By refusing to partner with the CIW, the steps the company has taken fall far short of the substantive, verifiable and enforceable standards that the situation requires, consumers expect, and others within the industry have embraced.
Join farmworkers and Fair Food advocates in demanding that Ahold uphold human rights and join the Fair Food Program! More information: www.ciw-online.org, Contact: elena@interfaithact.org; 650.678.9127
- Raise Taxes on the 1% Tax Day Rally and March, Tuesday, April 17, 5:30PM, Dewey Square (South Station). Occupy JP and Occupy Boston will participate, along with many other groups, in a protest against the unfairness of the current tax regime, where people such as Mitt Romney pay at rates far lower than those earning far less, and Warren Buffet’s now-famous secretary pays at a higher rate than Warren Buffet. The Rally and March will begin at 5:30pm at Dewey Square (South Station) and the march will begin at 6pm and proceed through the city streets, pass by several notorious corporate tax dodgers, and end at the bandstand in the Commons. Things to bring: yourself (most important), signs, noise-making stuff (pots, pans, kazoos, whatever)
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Event Highlights:
Will MBTA hikes, cuts, and layoffs affect you? Come help Occupy Boston rebuild Camp Charlie at the State House at 5 pm!
Please note that events are subject to change; check https://www.occupyboston.org for the latest information!
- General Assembly – OB Community Conversation about its Money, 7pm – 10:30pm, Arlington Street Church, 351 Boylston Street (corner of Arlington & Boylston).Community conversation hosted by the Financial Accountability Working Group (FAWG) on Occupy Boston’s relationship to FAWG and to money (following announcements, to last about 2 hours).
Calendar for Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Please note! Due to the increasingly warm weather, meeting locations may change. We encourage you to check the Occupy Boston Calendar for the most up-to-date information.
1pm – 2pm Occupy Harvard Think Tank, Dudley House Cafe (no ID required), Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Cafeteria entrance is at the TOP of the stairs.
These are just some of the many events at Occupy Boston. Check out our Daily Calendar for more information.
For more information on Occupy Boston’s General Assembly, including passed resolutions, click here!
And if you’re interested in learning more about Occupy Boston and how you can participate, click here!
Contact Us: Want to subscribe to the Daily Digest? Click here to have it sent to your email inbox every morning! All Working Groups or Occupy Boston events that need placement in the Daily Digest, please email AnnaC@OccupyBoston.org. And subscribe to the Occupy Boston Media Rundown, a daily listing of Occupy-related news, by contacting JohnM@OccupyBoston.org.
One Response to “Occupy Boston Daily Digest for 4-10-12”
hi every one!
May 1st 2012
Reclaim the world for the 99%!
Occupy the streets! All power to the 99%!
The international workers’ day this year is going to be more global, more radical and more promising than ever. No wonder! In 2011 the world witnessed immense, historic revolutions and movements. In most parts of the world the 99% movement came forward and changed the direction of the 21st century. In the Middle East and North Africa dictators were ousted one after the other. In the West war was declared on the rule of the 1% and the Wall Street. The dark age of the New World Order, of the rampant sway of the free market, of the New Right and of the war of terrorists was declared null and void. The world after 2011 is a very different world. May 1st 2012 will also be different.
The first call for a global May Day was issued a few months ago by the 99% movement in the USA; the birthplace of the international workers’ day. Global Strike! This is the call of this May Day, which means: Citizens of the world! Stop work on May Day! Come out onto the streets! Raise all your demands: from a living wage and equality for women, to justice for immigrants; from the right to education, housing and health care, to the abolition of the state of the 1% and direct rule by people’s general assemblies! Indeed it is the call of the Paris Commune in 1871 and the workers’ “storming heaven” which is now reverberating on the streets of New York, Oakland and Long Beach. The same call that was shouted by the likes of Neda in the revolutionary rising of 2009 in Iran, by Bouazizi in Tunisia, and, with even greater clarity, by the immense gatherings of the people in Al-Tahrir Square in Egypt.
We the Worker-communist Party of Iran join this global May Day call of the 99%. This is another step in the struggle of the workers in Iran over the past 30 years. From the half-million May Day march in 1979 in the capital Tehran until now, a bitter fight has been raging between the Islamic Republic, on the one side, and the camp of May Day and human liberation, on the other. The 1979 Revolution was drowned in blood by the Islamists; nevertheless it threw Iran’s 1% into total disarray. The bourgeoisie in Iran put its fate in the hands of a bunch of reactionary Islamist zombies, criminals and charlatans – some of who now pass off as “reformers” – so they could decapitate humanity and its freedom and May Day with the sword of Islam. Now the world has risen up against what the revolutionary worker rose up against in Iran. It is enough to compare the May Day resolutions of the workers in Iran in recent years with the May Day call of the 99% today, from LA to New York, to see how this call resonates with the working class and its party in Iran. The working class in Iran carried out numerous strikes and protests against poverty and austerity over the last year, and now under the present critical situation in Iran it has to come forward as a leading political force in the struggle of the people to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
The Worker-communist Party of Iran calls on all workers, teachers, nurses, all women and men throughout Iran and Iranians living abroad to support the call for a global general strike on May 1st 2012. On this day, everybody in Iran should come out against the rule of the 1%, against the billionaire Ayatollahs and their entire Islamic system. On this day, we must unite our ranks under the liberating banner of May Day and get ready for the taking of political power by the 99%; for putting an end to poverty, the threat of war and the insecurity that are wrecking the lives of the people; and for installing freedom, equality and socialism.
Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI)
22 March 2012