An occupier from Chicago reminisces on her first year in the movement as Occupy Chicago celebrates its anniversary:
“I now recognize our occupation, our movement to occupy every form of oppression everywhere, to be the only possible tide to rise against the financial-governmental machine of privatization, profitization, racialization and devastation of our homes, lives, bodies and thoughts. The one percent demands that we believe in their systems and institutions even as they crack and fall all around them, but the time has come for human beings to evolve. I will continue to use my skills as a writer, performer, and organizer to fuel the worldwide revolution for a sustainable culture until I wake up every last sleepy consumer. I occupy my art and other’s minds as best I can — I see no other way to be!”
Day Five of the CTU strike:
I’ve been through a tornado, a house fire, the death of a dog, and three minutes of CPR for my oldest daughter. But this strike—the facets to it, the swirl of vitriol and misinformation, the heft of it, its dimensions and nooks and crannies—it’s in some sense more terrifying than the other travails. A cloud of uncertainty. If we lose, if all of this were for nothing, I don’t know. The job would feel tarnished. I would feel betrayed by my profession.
Read more from the day here.
Out of the Classrooms and Into the Streets!
An occupier takes part in several picket lines in support of the teacher’s strike in Chicago, then takes to the streets with thousands of teachers, students and supporters:
“What struck me about joining the picket lines was the power of having public spaces for communities to gather and discuss topics such as workers’ rights and the state of our public education system. It’s what I have spent the last year seeking out, with the help of Occupy. Want to talk about the economic crisis? Let’s meet in the financial district. Mental health clinics closing down? Meet us across the street and we’ll discuss why we need them to remain open and public. NATO bombing civilians without your consent? Time to show up outside their summit and bear witness to veterans decrying the War on Terror.”
“Parts of the conversation were more difficult. He told me that he’d been “in the hole” (solitary confinement) all of last week, and hadn’t been allowed visitors. The reason they gave him was that there “weren’t enough cells.” I could tell that he didn’t buy that excuse, and neither did I. He looked sad and a bit lost when he said, “I didn’t even do anything, and they put me in the hole all week.” I wanted to give him a hug, because he looked like he needed it.”
An activist from Occupy Chicago finds solidarity even behind locked doors and iron bars.
Intervention in Southampton: a report from Occupy’s protest outside David Koch’s home, highlighting Mitt Romney’s “Koch problem.”
A group of three visited Mark Adams in prison today. Here is their reportback.
UNTIL THE PRISON WALLS ARE RUBBLE
Here’s part two of a three-part series on Jail Solidarity for the NATO 5 “terrorists”:
Even though I gasped in horror and empathic pain, verbally echoing the looks of sadness, pain, rage, and anger emanating from the faces of our friends filling courtroom bench, there was nowhere else I’d rather sit. I had to see, not just for myself, but for the defendant as well. I needed to sit on the front lines of injustice, listen to the lies of state, absorb the fuel to figuratively burn this society down and nonviolently establish more beneficial structures for all people, especially ones like the defendant and the NATO5, whose only crime is raising their voices against a cancerous state.
We Are All Mark Adams!
You may have heard about our friend and comrade Mark Adams, a member of the OWS community who, earlier this week, was sentenced to 45 days on Rikers Island.
Here is a report on Monday night’s march in solidarity with Mark, and the candlelight vigil that followed afterwards outside Revered Cooper’s home.
Occupied Stories asks: aren’t OWS and the Tea Party in a way kind of for the same thing? Can they get their acts together?
“They say that us students are violent. Sometimes a window might get broken, but that’s not violence. It’s the police who are violent. They just get more violent. All we want is a better world. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
A student discusses his thoughts on the protests, explaining his use of the red square in his artwork.
From our latest out of Montreal, The Universal Language: “Fuck the Police.” Read the full story here.
