PEOPLES MOVEMENT
It is my hope that someday these causes will be eliminated that a better society is established for all.
Another World Is Possible.
“The state planned and unleashed naked and systematic violence and repression against people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. This response by those who wield power in this society is utterly shameful from a moral standpoint, and thoroughly illegitimate from a legal and political one.”
“Run” by The Verge of Change Single available on iTunes and CD Baby
Nothing comes easy, you gotta fight for the right It doesn’t seem fair for tax to reach heights People who cannot even afford to live life And the rich sit back, relax, remain ni
Banks no longer a friend, they’re disliked For their blood sucking ways whenever your card swipes Robbed by the so-called good, and that’s life No way, we’re making a change man, don’t take it light
Add a little rhythm, until they cut the ribbon Big brother stop fibbing, we all gotta make a living And for those that live in riches, do you understand the vision Maybe not, because you’re too selfish to take a listen
You know the left is barely left, and the right is never right Now it’s time for an election, and the people wanna fight The FOX is in the henhouse, and the chickens are uptight We’re no closer to an answer, ‘cause the questions have no bite It’s all a corporate selection, and tonight may be the night
So I say run, baby, run, yeah run, just run So I say run, baby, run, run, just run So I say run, baby, run, yeah run, just run Run, baby, run, run, just run
The kids way down on Wall Street say it’s 99-to-1 We’ll ever find that someone who’s fit enough to run
Run baby run, don’t stop until you reach your goals Make a lifelong change, build a future home Young kids are in school, unemployment grows Let’s do it for the world, that’s what youth holds
We all breathe the same air, don’t remain fair That is why educated people need the welfare Help, yeah, that is what we need Let’s all get together, let the peace increase
Get outta bed, the talkin’ heads are beating at their gums It’s this one, no it’s that one whose day has finally come
So I say run, baby, run, yeah run, just run Run, baby, run, run, just run It’s 99-to-1, keep searching for the one ‘Cause he might be the one, hey she can’t be the one
The kids way down on Wall Street are beating on their drums Look forwards, not backwards, a change is gonna come
So I say run Run, ‘cause a change is gonna come Run, yeah run Nothing comes easy, you gotta fight for the right
Keep running towards the sun, run, baby run And the rich sit back, relax, remain nice Keep running towards the sun, run, just run, ‘Cause a change is gonna come
Robbed by the so-called good via youtube.com
For Immediate Release: November 15, 2011
Contact:
Yetta Kurland – 917-701-9590
Daniel Alterman – 917-945-2599
Gideon Oliver – 646-263-3495
Margaret Kunstler – 917-331-8012New York, NY: At around 6 AM on November 15, 2011, attorneys associated with the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild working as the Liberty Park Legal Working Group obtained a temporary restraining order against the City of New York, various City agencies, and Brookfield properties directing that occupiers be allowed back on the premises with their belongings.
Earlier, at approximately 1 AM, the NYPD began massing around Zuccotti Park “aka Liberty Park.” In the following hours reports surfaced that the NYPD entered the park with police in riot gear backed up by numerous police vehicles, including a bulldozer, evicting occupiers. In the process they destroyed property and arrested dozens of occupiers and protestors including NYC Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez and District Leader Paul Newell.
In the coming hours, days and weeks the LPLWG will pursue all legal options to enable the occupiers to continue to exercise their first amendment rights to speech and assembly for speech. Attorney Yetta Kurland, one of the attorneys from the LPLWG, said, “This is a victory for everyone who believes in the First Amendment. We will continue to fight for everyone’s right to continue the occupation.” In response to the injunction, Daniel Alterman, also an attorney with the LPLWG, stated that, “This is a victory for all Americans, for the constitution and for the 99%.” Gideon Oliver, another attorney with the LPLWG reacted by saying, “The LPLWG has been fighting to ensure their right to free speech from day one of the occupation. The occupiers right to free speech is based in our most core legal principles and we will be here till the end to fight for those rights.”
The order is available for download here.
The Liberty Park Legal Working Group is a group of volunteer attorneys and legal workers dedicated to defending the rights of those engaged in constitutionally-protected assembly or protest.
#OccupyWallStreet Convening 9 a.m. Sixth Avenue and Canal Street.
New York, NY — We are a global movement that is reclaiming our humanity and our future. We have stepped into a revitalizing civic process, realizing that we cannot fix our crises isolated from one another. We need collective action, and we need civic space. We are creating that civic space.
To occupy is to embody the spirit of liberation that we wish to manifest in our society. It is to exercise our freedom to assemble. We are creating space for community, values, ideas, and a level of meaningful dialogue that is absent in the present discourse.
Liberated space is breaking free of isolation, breaking down the walls that literally and figuratively separate us from one another. It is a new focus on community, trust, love and hope. We occupy to create a vision of equality, liberty and social justice onto the blank paving stones of public parks, in the silent hallways of abandoned schools, banks, and beyond. Public space plays a crucial role in this civic process and encourages open, transparent organizing in our movement. As we have seen in Liberty Square, outdoor space invites people to listen, speak, share, learn, and act.
Last night, billionaire Michael Bloomberg sent a massive police force to evict members of the public from Liberty Square—home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months. People who were part of a dynamic civic process were beaten and pepper-sprayed, their personal property destroyed.
Supporters of this rapidly growing movement were mobilized in the middle of the night, making phone calls, taking the streets en masse, and planning next steps. Americans and people around the world are appalled at Bloomberg’s treatment of people who peacefully assemble. We are appalled, but not deterred. Liberty Square was dispersed, but its spirit not defeated. Today we are stronger than we were yesterday. Tomorrow we will be stronger still. We are breaking free of the fear that constricts and confines us. We occupy to liberate.
We move forward in the grand tradition of the transformative social movements that have defined American history. We stand on the shoulders of those who have struggled before us, and we pick up where others have left off. We are creating a better society for us all.
Occupy Wall Street has renewed a sense of hope. It has revived a belief in community and awakened a revolutionary spirit too long silenced. Join us as we liberate space and build a movement. 9 a.m. Tuesday morning at Sixth Avenue and Canal we continue.
November 15, 2011 OWS
tear gassing of the kitchen. - Violent arrests pepper spray #OWS #occuppywallstreet Occupy Wall Street November 15, 2011 - Police Eviction NYPD Raid OWS Zuccotti Park Raw Video: Piles of Trash Near Zuccotti Park NYPD raid video: OWS protesters arrested at Zuccotti Park
Police raiding Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night: early news reports and footage — 11/15/11 Occupy Wall Street: Cops clear Zuccotti Park - November-15-2011 - #occupytogether
ABC World News Now: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Cleared From Zuccotti Park
Watch livestream of Zuccotti Park here: http://www.livestream.com/occupynyc .
Go to ‘Occupy Wall Street News and Videos’ here: http://paper.li/f-1319837259 — a daily paper to keep up with and support OWS movement!; and visit my Youtube channel — ‘Munderlarkst’ — for more OWS-related videos!Please feel free to share any news or videos to spread the word and information. That’s what it’s there for! Thanks! -MunderlarkstThanks to people filming down at Zuccotti Park and everywhere!
From: Russia Today OWS destroyed: Cops clear Zuccotti Park (PHOTOS, VIDEO) Published: 15 November, 2011, 11:58 Occupy Wall Street protesters have clashed with police at Zuccotti Park after being ordered to leave their longtime encampment in New York. At least 70 people have been arrested with the police said to have used pepper spray. Meanwhile, City Council member Ydanis Rodriguez, 51, has reportedly been beaten by the NYPD and is bleeding from head. The police operation commenced at approximately 1am Tuesday. Hundreds of police have mobilized around the park showing protesters letters informing them that they need to leave the encampment temporarily. The NYC Mayor’s Office has also posted their demand on Twitter. The tweet read: “Occupants of Zuccotti should temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps. Protestors can return after the Park is cleared.” A group of protesters estimates vary from 40 to 100 are refusing to leave the park. Peaceful protesters have been dragged out of the “kitchen” by their arms and legs while nonviolently resisting NYPD, which has also repeatedly tear-gassed people.
http://rt.com/news/ows-clear-zuccotti-park-347/
NOVEMBER 15, 2011, 5:39 A.M. ET Police Clear Zuccotti Park Occupy Wall Street Protesters Arrested in Unannounced Raid By JESSICA FIRGER, MICHAEL AMON, AARON RUTKOFF and PERVAIZ SHALLWANI New York City police and sanitation workers swept in and cleared out the tents inside Zuccotti Park during an unannounced raid on the Occupy Wall Street encampment Tuesday morning, arresting 70 protesters who refused to leave. At least 400 New York Police Department officers dressed in riot gear surrounded the park at around 1 a.m. Tuesday. Officers used bull horns to warn the protesters who have been living in the small, privately owned plaza that the area would be temporarily evacuated and cleared of illegal structures, which were described as fire hazards.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190504577039253668863814.htm
Press Suppression at Occupy Wall Street Raid Around 1:00am on Tuesday, November 15th, the NYPD moved in to clear Zuccotti Park of all protestors and equipment. Members of the press, both independent and mainstream, were systematically prevented from covering the story ” #BREAKING: Police in riot gear raid Zuccotti Park, order protesters to vacate bit.ly/uDycwr #OWS NBC New York 5 hours ago ReplyRetweet ” “I’m press,” I said. “Don’t care,” officer replied. #OWS Andrew Katz 2 hours ago ReplyRetweet Village Voice writer Rosie Gray sums up the theme of the night: ” Me: “I’m press!” Lady cop: “not tonight” #ows
Commentary: What is found interesting is that if the root of many issues being faced by the 99% is caused by the two tiered (Democrate and Republican) political system and their Corporate Croonies rooted on economic monopololy what changes will be achieved in this world, if this incredible movement allows the same system to remain in place?
Essential Knowledge For A Wall Street Protestor
TheTiny Dot
Time’s Up! New York City’s Direct Action Environmental group has been working with Occupy Wall Street since its inception. Recently, they have focused on replacing all the gas generators in Liberty Park with Pedal Power Generators. We currently have one up and running, but need your help to build 11 more and power the whole park!
We’ve received funding for 5 bikes but need at least 6 more, and any donations above that will be used to build more energy bikes which will be sent to other occupations. Go to http://times-up.org/and push the donate button
via youtube
GENERAL STRIKE & MASS DAY OF ACTION – NOVEMBER 2 - Occupy Oakland
Below is the proposal passed by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on Wednesday October 26, 2011 in reclaimed Oscar Grant Plaza. 1607 people voted. 1484 voted in favor of the resolution, 77 abstained and 46 voted against it, passing the proposal at 96.9%. The General Assembly operates on a modified consensus process that passes proposals with 90% in favor and with abstaining votes removed from the final count.
PROPOSAL:
We as fellow occupiers of Oscar Grant Plaza propose that on Wednesday November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.
We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.
All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.
While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.
The whole world is watching Oakland. Let’s show them what is possible.
The Strike Coordinating Council will begin meeting everyday at 5pm in Oscar Grant Plaza before the daily General Assembly at 7pm. All strike participants are invited. Stay tuned for much more information and see you next Wednesday.
Occupy protesters rally around wounded veteran
Veering around police barricades, anti-Wall Street protesters held a late-night march through Oakland streets, a day after one of their number — an Iraq War veteran — was left in critical condition with a fractured skull following a clash with police.
An exchange of opinions between a supporter of the Occupy Wall Street protests, right, and passersby attracts attention at Zuccotti Park in New York on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. Some businesses and residents are losing patience with the protesters in the park, the unofficial headquarters of the movement that began in mid-September. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
A protester holds a sign asking for donations for pets at the Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011 in New York. Some businesses and residents are losing patience with the protesters in Zuccotti Park, the unofficial headquarters of the movement that began in mid-September. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
A protester post a sign about the cost of war, reflecting the range of issues found among participants of the Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011 in New York. Some businesses and residents are losing patience with the protesters in Zuccotti Park, the unofficial headquarters of the movement that began in mid-September. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
An Occupy Oakland protester spraypaints the side of a building during a march on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011, in Oakland, Calif. Except for a couple incidents of graffiti and minor confrontations with police officers, the protesters, who numbered about 1000, remained lawful. (Photo/Noah Berger)
The show of force in Oakland along with SWAT arrests in Atlanta have sent chills among some anti-Wall Street demonstrators.
But another showdown between police and protesters in Oakland appeared to be averted late Wednesday night as several hundred filed out of a plaza declared off-limits for overnight use and marched through nearby streets.
An AP photographer on the scene said police erected barricades to prevent the marchers from reaching a freeway, sending the group down side streets en masse.
Small contingents of officers could be seen following behind but there were no signs of any confrontations or arrests. The march tapered off after about an hour, with most of the protesters apparently dispersing.
On Tuesday, an Iraq War veteran marching with Oakland demonstrators suffered a cracked skull in the chaos between officers and protesters, further raising concern among some in the movement.
Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine veteran, was in critical condition Wednesday after he had been struck, said a spokesman for Highland Hospital in Oakland.
It was not clear exactly what type of object hit the veteran or who might have thrown it, though the group Iraq Veterans Against the War said it was lodged by officers.
Police Chief Howard Jordan said at a news conference that the events leading up to Olsen’s injury would be investigated as vigorously as a fatal police shooting.
“It’s unfortunate it happened. I wish that it didn’t happen. Our goal, obviously, isn’t to cause injury to anyone,” the chief said.
While demonstrators in other cities have built a working relationship with police and city leaders, they wondered on Wednesday how long the good spirit would last and whether they could be next.
Will they have to face riot gear-clad officers and tear gas that their counterparts in Oakland, Calif., faced Tuesday? Or will they be handcuffed and hauled away in the middle of the night like protesters in Atlanta?
“Yes, we’re afraid. Is this the night they’re going to sneak in?” said activist William Buster of Occupy Wall Street, where the movement began last month to protest what they see as corporate greed.
“Is this the night they might use unreasonable force?” he asked.
The message from officials in cities where other encampments have sprung up was simple: We’ll keep working with you. Just respect your neighbors and keep the camps clean and safe.
Business owners and residents have complained in recent weeks about assaults, drunken fights and sanitation problems. Officials are trying to balance their rights and uphold the law while honoring protesters’ free speech rights.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday that the Occupy LA encampment outside City Hall “cannot continue indefinitely.”
Villaraigosa told the Los Angeles Times that he respects the protesters right to peacefully assemble and express their views, but they must respect city laws and regulations.
San Francisco police have already cleared two encampments. Most recently, police estimated at least five protesters were arrested and several others injured in a clash Tuesday evening.
Some cities, such as Providence, R.I., are moving ahead with plans to evict activists. But from Tampa, Fla., to Boston, police and city leaders say they will continue to try to work with protesters to address problems in the camps.
In Oakland, officials initially supported the protests, with Mayor Jean Quan saying that sometimes “democracy is messy.”
But tensions reached a boiling point after a sexual assault, a severe beating and a fire were reported and paramedics were denied access to the camp, according to city officials. They also cited concerns about rats, fire hazards and public urination.
Demonstrators disputed the city’s claims, saying that volunteers collect garbage and recycling every six hours, that water is boiled before being used to wash dishes and that rats have long infested the park.
When riot gear-clad police moved in early Tuesday, they were pelted with rocks, bottles and utensils from people in the camp’s kitchen area. They emptied the camp near city hall of people, and barricaded the plaza.
Protesters were taken away in plastic handcuffs, most of them arrested on suspicion of illegal lodging.
Demonstrators returned later in the day to march and retake the plaza. They were met by police officers in riot gear. Several small skirmishes broke out and officers cleared the area by firing tear gas.
The scene repeated itself several times just a few blocks away in front of the plaza.
Tensions would build as protesters edged ever closer to the police line and reach a breaking point with a demonstrator hurling a bottle or rock, prompting police to respond with another round of gas.
The chemical haze hung in the air for hours, new blasts clouding the air before the previous fog could dissipate.
The number of protesters diminished with each round of tear gas. Police estimated that there were roughly 1,000 demonstrators at the first clash following the march. About 100 were arrested.
On Wednesday, Oakland officials allowed protesters back into the plaza but said people would be prohibiting from spending the night, potentially bringing another clash with police.
About 1,000 people quickly filled the area, but later many of them filed out and began their march. By early Thursday, about 50 people were left at the site and few police could be seen.
In Atlanta, police in riot gear and SWAT teams arrested 53 people in Woodruff Park, many of whom had camped out there for weeks as part of a widespread movement that is protesting the wealth disparity between the rich and everyone else.
Mayor Kasim Reed had been supportive of the protests, twice issuing an executive order allowing them to remain.
Reed said on Wednesday that he had no choice to arrest them because he believed things were headed in a direction that was no longer peaceful. He cited a man seen walking the park with an AK-47 assault rifle.
“There were some who wanted to continue along the peaceful lines, and some who thought that their path should be more radical,” Reed said. “As mayor, I couldn’t wait for them to finish that debate.”
Reed said authorities could not determine whether the rifle was loaded, and were unable to get additional information.
An Associated Press reporter talked to the man with the gun earlier Tuesday.
He wouldn’t give his name — identifying himself only as “Porch,” an out-of-work accountant who doesn’t agree with the protesters’ views — but said that he was there, armed, because he wanted to protect the rights of people to protest.
In Portland, Ore., the protest seems to be at a crossroads. Organizers have been dealing with public drunkenness, fighting and drug abuse for weeks, especially among the homeless who are also in the camp.
Some are floating the idea of relocating it, possibly indoors. Others see that as capitulation.
“I don’t know if it would be a good idea. Part of the effectiveness of what’s going on here is visibility,” protester Justin Neff said. “Though I’d do it if there’s a possibility that we’d get seen and noticed. I don’t know how that would work indoors.”
City officials haven’t said what would cause them to forcibly evict the protesters. They said they evaluate the camp daily.
In Baltimore, protesters like Casey McKeel, a member of Occupy Baltimore’s legal committee, said he wasn’t sure aren’t sure what to expect from city officials, noting that some cities have arrested protesters in recent weeks.
“Across the country we’re seeing a wide range of reactions,” he said. “For now we’re hoping the city will work with us.”
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she is willing to work with them, but they should realize that they are camping out in a city park and that was not its intended use.
“I have absolutely no interest in a violent exchange,” she said. “It’s not about pitching a tent. It’s about getting the work done.”
Police brutality against Occupy Wall Street protesters worse than in Iraq says US marine
Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park, New York. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty ImagesTo all those across the world currently occupying parks, squares and other spaces, your comrades in Cairo are watching you in solidarity. Having received so much advice from you about transitioning to democracy, we thought it’s our turn to pass on some advice.
Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call “the Arab spring” has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a system that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants. As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme.
An entire generation across the globe has grown up realising, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under structural adjustment policies and the supposed expertise of international organisations like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, industries and public services were sold off and dismantled as the “free market” pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even. The profits and benefits of those freed markets went elsewhere, while Egypt and other countries in the south found their immiseration reinforced by a massive increase in police repression and torture.
The current crisis in America and western Europe has begun to bring this reality home to you as well: that as things stand we will all work ourselves raw, our backs broken by personal debt and public austerity. Not content with carving out the remnants of the public sphere and the welfare state, capitalism and the austerity state now even attack the private realm and people’s right to decent dwelling as thousands of foreclosed-upon homeowners find themselves both homeless and indebted to the banks who have forced them on to the streets.
So we stand with you not just in your attempts to bring down the old but to experiment with the new. We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying. We are reclaiming those same spaces of public practice that have been commodified, privatised and locked into the hands of faceless bureaucracy, real estate portfolios and police “protection”. Hold on to these spaces, nurture them and let the boundaries of your occupations grow. After all, who built these parks, these plazas, these buildings? Whose labour made them real and livable?
Why should it seem so natural that they should be withheld from us, policed and disciplined? Reclaiming these spaces and managing them justly and collectively is proof enough of our legitimacy.
In our own occupations of Tahrir, we encountered people entering the square every day in tears because it was the first time they had walked through those streets and spaces without being harassed by police; it is not just the ideas that are important, these spaces are fundamental to the possibility of a new world. These are public spaces. Spaces for gathering, leisure, meeting and interacting – these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just. We have and must continue to open them to anyone that wants to build a better world, particularly for the marginalised, the excluded and those groups who have suffered the worst.
What you do in these spaces is neither as grandiose and abstract nor as quotidian as “real democracy”; the nascent forms of praxis and social engagement being made in the occupations avoid the empty ideals and stale parliamentarianism that the term democracy has come to represent. And so the occupations must continue, because there is no one left to ask for reform. They must continue because we are creating what we can no longer wait for.
But the ideologies of property and propriety will manifest themselves again. Whether through the overt opposition of property owners or municipalities to your encampments or the more subtle attempts to control space through traffic regulations, anti-camping laws or health and safety rules. There is a direct conflict between what we seek to make of our cities and our spaces and what the law and the systems of policing standing behind it would have us do.
We faced such direct and indirect violence, and continue to face it. Those who said that the Egyptian revolution was peaceful did not see the horrors that police visited upon us, nor did they see the resistance and even force that revolutionaries used against the police to defend their tentative occupations and spaces: by the government’s own admission, 99 police stations were put to the torch, thousands of police cars were destroyed and all of the ruling party’s offices around Egypt were burned down. Barricades were erected, officers were beaten back and pelted with rocks even as they fired tear gas and live ammunition on us. But at the end of the day on 28 January they retreated, and we had won our cities.
It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose. If we do not resist, actively, when they come to take what we have won back, then we will surely lose. Do not confuse the tactics that we used when we shouted “peaceful” with fetishising nonviolence; if the state had given up immediately we would have been overjoyed, but as they sought to abuse us, beat us, kill us, we knew that there was no other option than to fight back. Had we laid down and allowed ourselves to be arrested, tortured and martyred to “make a point”, we would be no less bloodied, beaten and dead. Be prepared to defend these things you have occupied, that you are building, because, after everything else has been taken from us, these reclaimed spaces are so very precious.
By way of concluding, then, our only real advice to you is to continue, keep going and do not stop. Occupy more, find each other, build larger and larger networks and keep discovering new ways to experiment with social life, consensus and democracy. Discover new ways to use these spaces, discover new ways to hold on to them and never give them up again. Resist fiercely when you are under attack, but otherwise take pleasure in what you are doing, let it be easy, fun even. We are all watching one another now, and from Cairo we want to say that we are in solidarity with you, and we love you all for what you are doing.
Canada-based Adbusters wants the Occupy Wall Street protest movement against economic inequality to take to the streets to call for a 1 percent tax on such deals ahead of a November 3-4 summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in France.
“Let’s send them a clear message: We want you to slow down some of that $1.3 trillion easy money that’s sloshing around the global casino each day — enough cash to fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world,” the activist group said on its website, www.adbusters.org.
Adbusters put out the initial call for Occupy Wall Street and since protesters set up camp in a park in New York City’s financial district on September 17, they have inspired solidarity demonstrations and so-called occupations around the world.
Thousands turned out for a global day of protests on October 15, which were mostly peaceful apart from in Rome, where there were riots.
Occupy Arrests, a Twitter feed compiling arrests related to Occupy Wall Street, said that since the movement began five weeks ago nearly 2,400 people have been arrested around the world, including in New York City.
Occupy Wall Street prides itself on not having any leaders and doing everything by consensus at daily general assemblies. Adbusters has asked protesters to approve its plan for a “Robin Hood” tax and global protests at their general assemblies.
The proposal by Adbusters comes as some people question whether the movement can sustain momentum and ask what will happen next. Critics accuse the group of not having a clear message.
“As the movement matures, let’s consider a response to our critics. Let’s occupy the core of our global system. Let’s dethrone the greed that defines this new century,” Adbusters said on its website.
The protesters say they are upset that the billions of dollars in bank bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume earning huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment and job insecurity.
They also believe the richest 1 percent of Americans do not pay their fair share in taxes.
Occupy Wall Street is urging protesters to close their bank accounts and transfer their money to credit unions, a move that is due to culminate with a bank transfer day on November 5.
