On Monday, February 27th from 6pm – 9pm, at Christ Church in Cambridge (map), members of the Decolonize to Liberate Working Group will host an Occupy Boston Community Gathering.  The Working Group invites the rest of Occupy Boston and members of the public to join in an ongoing discussion of how the goals and roots of the Occupy movement are related to the history of ongoing indigenous resistance to colonialism and corporate exploitation.  Please join us to learn what it means to “Decolonize Occupy” and how we can better create a global movement that works for everyone.

“Unless we each decolonize our minds, and together decolonize this movement, unless we dismantle the deeply-ingrained systems of oppression that we inherited with colonialism, we risk merely creating a new version of an unjust society,” said Martin Dagoberto, a member of the working group.  The Decolonize to Liberate Working Group has been hosting weekly discussion meetings since it formed and introduced one of the first proposals passed by the Occupy Boston General Assembly, the “Statement of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples.”

Working group member Laurie Leyshon emphasized that the Community Gathering will not only provide a movement-building experience, but also present “a renewed call to action for the benefit of all people and all Life.”  The gathering coincides with “#F27 Occupy the Food Supply and attendees will also have an opportunity to join in on this international day of action.  Added Leyshon, “The privatization, control and manipulation of our food supply is the ultimate form of conquest.  What Monsanto and the like are doing is a continuation of a long history of colonialism – the commodification of life.”

To learn more about the meaning of “decolonization,” people are encouraged to listen to a recent radio broadcast produced by Decolonize to Liberate working group member Ukumbwa Sauti:  “Ancestral Continuum – Decolonization.  The working group has also assembled a collection of articles and materials at decolonizeboston.org.

If you are a dedicated catalyst at Occupy Boston, a supporter, or just curious or completely new to the movement, we invite you to please join us for a unique community learning experience.  This will be a great opportunity to connect, share food, words, and build.  If you would like to take advantage of free child care during the event, please email decolonizeboston@gmail.com.

Occupy Boston’s Community Gatherings are held every Monday evening and are free and open to the public. The Gatherings are designed to build and strengthen the Occupy Boston community through ongoing dialogues, presentations, workshops, and facilitated conversations, in order to build a resilient, widespread and inclusive social movement.

Members of Occupy Boston and the Protest Chaplains will gather at the First National Bank Building (home to Bank of America) in Boston’s Financial District every Friday of Lent to pray for forgiveness from our society’s economic sins and our complicity with them. The gatherings will start this Friday, February 24 at 8 AM and continue every Friday until Easter.

“Come join us as we repent from the sins of greed, corruption, and apathy,” said Occupy Boston member Joshua Eaton. “Come join us as we wait for the world where every chain is loosed and every yoke is broken. Come join us as we Occupy Lent.”

The group plans to recite prayers of repentance, sing hymns, and read passages from scripture that relate to economic justice. Their event announcement quotes Isaiah 58, verse 6: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”

WHO: Members of Occupy Boston and the Protest Chaplains

WHAT:  A gathering each Friday in Lent—the season of repentance—to publicly ask forgiveness for our society’s economic sins and for our complicity with them

WHEN: Friday, February 24 at 8:00 AM and every Friday in Lent (through April 6)

WHERE: First National Bank Building at 100 Federal Street in Boston’s Financial District. Once the Federal Street Church, it was an incubator for liberal religion and the site where Massachusetts ratified the US Constitution. Now, as home to Bank of America,  it stands as a temple to unfettered financial capital.

For more information, please visit:  http://www.facebook.com/events/324346397617221/.

On Monday, February 13, 2012, activists from Occupy Boston and other local Occupations will ride their respective train lines and converge on Copley Square for a mass rally at 4:30 PM to Save the T.  At the rally, Occupiers and advocates for Boston’s working-class, seniors, students and  environmental justice will demand “No Service Cuts!” and “No Fare Hikes!” After the rally, demonstrators will attend a public hearing sponsored by the MBTA and voice their concerns directly to agency representatives.

The public transit system that the 99% relies on has been underfunded by the Massachusetts Legislature for years, and is now threatened with staggering debt – much of it transferred to the MBTA from Big Dig projects. Currently, every penny of our fares is spent paying off this debt – not on the maintenance we need to keep an aging system in working order.  Meanwhile, the big bailed-out banks have exploited the MBTA’s financial situation, raking in untold millions of dollars by underwriting the MTBA’s bonds and profiting off of interest rate swaps with the agency.  Despite the dire situation, the MBTA’s two proposals would do nothing to shore up the long-term sustainability of the T while devastating local communities by raising fares and slashing services.

“The proposed MBTA service cuts and fare hikes are the perfect way to appease elected officials and their corporate partners by draining the remaining resources of the 99%,” said Brett West, an organizer for Occupy Boston. “For us, affordable and accessible public transit is a necessity, not a luxury.  We say ‘none of the above’ to the MBTA’s so-called solutions and demand a permanent funding solution that does not attack the resources of Boston’s elderly, students or working-class people.”

Monday’s Day of Action will offer activists a number of ways to have their voices heard.  Several local Occupations and community groups will ride their respective trains and buses to the rally and engage other riders about the cuts and hikes through live streaming, flyering, mic-checking, singing, and conversation.  Confirmed meeting times are as follows:

• Occupy Boston will meet at Downtown Crossing at 3:00 PM (contact brett@occupyboston.org for more info.)
• Occupy Somerville will ride the rails in from Davis Square at both 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM (occupysomerville@yahoo.com).
• Occupy Dorchester will meet at Fields Corner at 3:45 PM.
• Occupy Quincy will be leaving at the Quincy Center T station at 3:30 PM (brykoulouris@gmail.com).
•  Occupy JP and Occupemos El Barrio are planning similar actions; check back here or contact your local Occupy for meeting times and locations.
• Students Against the T Cuts will meet at the Boylston T Stop at 4:00 PM (media@studentsagainsttcuts.org).

At Copley, the Occupiers will join the T Riders Union and a coalition of dozens of community, student, senior and environmental groups for a rally to say “No!” to the MBTA’s draconian proposals of service cuts and fare increases and demand that the Legislature fund a transit system that benefits everyone.  At 6:00 PM, the rally moves indoors for the MBTA’s public hearing.

Whether you can make one or all of the above actions, we need you on Monday. The T is a lifeline for our communities and vital for building a strong, sustainable economy. A strong public transit system is a linchpin of a society that prioritizes the needs of all before the profits of a few. Join us!

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM, students from more than twenty campuses across  New England will gather at Harvard University for the first Occupy Boston Student Summit.  The Summit, which will be held at Emerson 105 in Harvard Yard, will bring together a diverse array of students to strengthen relationships and exchange ideas among those who have been or want to be involved with the Occupy movement.  All students, whether officially enrolled anywhere or not, are encouraged to attend.

Occupy Boston has provided student activists from varying backgrounds the opportunity to meet and work with others who wish to unite to reform both our political and economic systems.  The Student Summit will offer participants a chance to delve deeper into issues that affect student occupiers, including systemic oppression within the occupy movement, the roots of education inequality, the history of radical student movements, and the organizational future of Occupy Boston Students.  The summit will also include a session on how student loan debt is used to enrich banks and needed systemic changes — including forgiveness — to the student loan structure.

Whether you’re a seasoned Occupy veteran or just curious about the movement, please join us at the summit on Sunday!

For more information, please visit: http://www.facebook.com/events/374522779228867/.  The agenda for the summit is available here.  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2722240691032&set=o.159369867486219&type=1&theater

On Saturday, February 4, The Action for Peace Working Group of Occupy Boston will co-sponsor a rally and march as part of an international day of action to demand NO WAR ON IRAN.  The march, which begins at Park Street Station at 1:00pm, will include a visit to the Israeli Consulate and will end with a rally at Copley Square.  Saturday’s Boston action is one of fifty-five demonstrations taking place in the United States and in six countries to demand, “No War! No Sanctions! No Assassinations! No Intervention!”  All members of the 99% who want peace, not war, are encouraged to attend.

“The United States is now following the same path of aggression with Iran as it did with Iraq – using the false pretext of WMDs to start a war whose real goal is control of oil by the 1%,” said Marilyn Levin, a member of the Action for Peace Working Group.  “The costs of war – in lives and to the economy — are staggering.”

The United States went to war in Iraq after twelve years of crippling sanctions using the fabricated claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.  The costs of that war were devastating:  thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and the destruction of a country that posed no threat to the United States.  The war also unleashed a decade of endless war with a massive war budget, cutbacks on social services, and attacks on our Bill of Rights.

The campaign of demonization against Iran – including brutal sanctions and threats of war from Israel and the United States – mirrors the run-up to the war on Iraq.  This time, the false claim is that Iran is developing nuclear weapons when there is absolutely no evidence that Iran is doing anything but developing nuclear power, a legal act that poses no threat to other nations.  Once again, we are seeing the 1% threatening to start a horrible war to dominate the flow of oil from that region.

Added Levin, “To prevent that disastrous history from repeating itself, we need the voices of the 99%. Join us on February 4.”

The march and rally are co-sponsored endorsed by many peace and justice organizations in the Boston area, including Boston United National Antiwar Coalition, United for Justice with Peace Coalition, International Action Center, and Dorchester People for Peace.  For more information, please visit http://www.facebook.com/events/214341975322807/.