OccupyMN National Day of Action

Scenes from Minneapolis on the National Day of Action in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. Marchers take over the 10th Ave Bridge with a call to Bridge the Gap on Jobs and Racial Equity. The bridge was completely shut down during rush hour traffic. Eleven were arrested while sitting across the bridge in a human chain, as hundreds cheered their courage and thanked them for taking a stand. Following the arrests, the crowd again took the bridge and marched down Washington Ave to the People’s Plaza, blocking traffic and ignoring police requests to move to the sidewalk. Inconvenienced commuters mostly honked horns and waved in support, and many onlookers cheered from sidewalks and buildings along the way.

 

 

 

 

OccupyMN

October 15, 2011 could prove to be a pivotal date. Protests in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement erupted all over the globe. Here are some images and videos of what has been going down in Minneapolis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Websites: OccupyMN.org, OccupyWallSt.org, OccupyTogether.org
Facebook: OccupyMN, OccupyWallSt, OccupyTogether
Twitter: @OccupyMN, @OccupyWallSt, @OccupyTogether

 

Occupy Wall Street: What Do They Want?

The corporate media sneers at the “punks and hippies” with “absolutely no purpose or focus in life” taking to the streets in NYC and dozens of other cities and ask ”What do they want?”

This is what they want.

Also Check This:

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

Posted on  by 


As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

  • They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
  • They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
  • They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
  • They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
  • They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
  • They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
  • They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
  • They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
  • They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
  • They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
  • They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
  • They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
  • They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
  • They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
  • They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
  • They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
  • They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
  • They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
  • They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
  • They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
  • They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

 

Free Speech in America

Minneapolis, MN – I just spent the weekend at the National Conference for Media Reform that was held here in Minneapolis. If I ever had any doubt about the corporate media’s stranglehold on truth and it’s abuse of power for the sake of profit- all in the name of “journalism”- it was dispelled this weekend. And the most eloquent spokesperson revealing this sad reality was not one of the many intelligent, impassioned, and courageous people who addressed or attended the conference- it was none other than Bill O’Reilly. “Reporting” about the conference on his Fox “news” show, O’Reilly characterized the attendees as lunatics, crazies, and fascists. Fascists??!! The whole point of the conference was to reclaim democratic access to and ownership of the means of public communication, information, and debate- television, radio, cable/satellite, print, and especially the Internet- almost ALL of which is now owned and controlled by a grand total of 6 companies. If you believe you are receiving any semblance of objective journalism in the corporate media, you ought to take a closer look.

It matters. This is how we got into Iraq. This is how we allowed Bush to steal an election. This is why we care more about the next American Idol than we do about Darfur, Tibet, Afghanistan, the environment, our next-door neighbors…

Among the lunatics and fascists at the conference were Bill Moyers, Dan Rather, Amy Goodman, Phil Donahue, Representative Mike Doyle, Senator Byron Dorgan, two current FCC commissioners, and many other incredibly thoughtful and motivated people who care deeply about this country and recognize that truly free speech is the foundation of any democracy worth the name. O’Reilly is either blatantly pursuing his own agenda at the expense of any pretense to truthfulness or he is truly one of the most ignorant people I have ever heard. It would be laughable, except that people believe him.

And that is the point.

This is serious folks. I think the most critical issues of our time are 1) the corporate/capitalist version of economic “growth” that is leading to the decimation of this planet’s ability to sustain life, 2) corporate control of the media, 3) the complicity of government with each. These are the foundational issues. Whatever other problems, injustices, causes that you are (rightly) concerned about, they can likely be traced back to one of these larger issues. In any case, your particular area of concern will never be sustainably resolved until we figure out first things first. Until we get the truth out about what is happening to our world, nothing will change. The truth is that the current system is designed to generate massive profits and power for an elite few at the expense of the earth and the majority of its inhabitants, and to keep the rest of the people either enslaved to poverty or anesthetized.

Who controls what gets said? Who has the power to determine the message? How are we to communicate with each other as free people without truly democratic, decentralized, truthful, locally-connected media? This is how we live together. The political economy and the media are the conduits through which our material and mental/emotional/spiritual lives flow. Who controls them controls our lives.

It’s time for change. And I ain’t talkin’ about Obama (although I hope he wins by the biggest landslide in American history this November). Wake up, folks (myself included). Stakes is high.

Head on over to freepress.net to listen to Moyer’s plenary address at the conference, to view video from other speakers such as Dan Rather and Amy Goodman, and to find out more about the critical need for media reform in this country.