EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION: Prevent the forcible closure of Occupy Wall Street!
Posted Oct. 13, 2011, 2:14 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Bloomberg handed a notification to #OWS that the City is planning to
clean the park, etc. Nasty notification. Bloomberg needs his head
cleansed:
http://occupywallst.org/article/emergency-call-action-prevent-forcible-closure-occ/
Tell Bloomberg: Don’t Foreclose the Occupation.
Join us at 6AM FRIDAY for non-violent eviction defense.
Please take a minute to read this, and please take action and spread
the word far and wide.
Occupy Wall Street is gaining momentum, with occupation actions now
happening in cities across the country.
But last night Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD notified Occupy Wall
Street participants about plans to “clean the park”—the site of the
Wall Street protests—tomorrow starting at 7am. “Cleaning” was used as
a pretext to shut down “Bloombergville” a few months back, and to shut
down peaceful occupations elsewhere.
Bloomberg says that the park will be open for public usage following
the cleaning, but with a notable caveat: Occupy Wall Street
participants must follow the “rules”. These rules include, “no tarps
or sleeping bags” and “no lying down.”
So, seems likely that this is their attempt to shut down #OWS for good.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION:
1) Call 311 and tell Bloomberg to support our right to assemble and to
not interfere with #OWS. If you are calling from outside NY use this
number 212-NEW-YORK.
2) Come to #OWS on FRIDAY AT 6AM to defend the occupation from eviction.
Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping the park clean and safe —
we even have a Sanitation Working Group whose purpose this is. We are
organizing major cleaning operations today and will do so regularly.
If Bloomberg truly cares about sanitation here he should support the
installation of portopans and dumpsters. #OWS allies have been working
to secure these things to support our efforts.
We know where the real dirt is: on Wall Street. Billionaire Bloomberg
is beholden to bankers.
We won’t allow Bloomberg and the NYPD to foreclose our occupation.
This is an occupation, not a permitted picnic.
Here a news story that plays up the sex, drugs and filth angles; from a Murdock paper, the Daily Mail (where sex drugs and filth are the main attractions). It does feature many pictures of the OWS encampment in its present state. Many are actually heart-warming scenes (reminiscent of Woodstock); some show the objective reality of the trash build-up that inevitably occurs in an encampment; one is a guilty pleasure of actually “shitting on the cops”. Objectively, some motion of people for a clean-up of the site is reasonable, followed by reoccupation. I hope OWS shows some agility in this regard. However, OWS must beware of any attempt to “clear out” the encampment, as Douglas MacArthur did in 1933 with the Bonus Army. Back then one excuse was sanitation, and the camp was systematically burned (as shown in the video Louis posted).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047168/Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters-make-love-class-war-sex-drugs-tap.html
Comment by Manuel Garcia, Jr. — October 13, 2011 @ 7:27 pm
This is not unexpected.
I knew it was just a matter of time before the oppressive, bourgeois dictatorship that rules with its iron hand would try to take down the opposition movement as we’ve seen in other uprisings around the world.
Don’t give up warriors, keep fighting comrades.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 13, 2011 @ 7:43 pm
The International Action Center just posted this:
Tomorrow, come to Zucotti Park to say:
BLOOMBERG, NYPD:
HANDS OFF OCCUPY WALL STREET
HANDS OFF THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY
Billionaire Bloomberg has announced that tomorrow he wants to “clean” Zucotti Park, the site of Occupy Wall Street.
Interesting how when the righteous protest against banks gains massive popularity, Bloomberg suddenly becomes concerned about health and safety.
Where was Bloomberg when New Yorkers needed him to “clean” the city streets after an average winter snowstorm just before New Year’s Eve?
What steps does he ever take against absentee slumlords, who allow their building to fall into dangerous disrepair? Where was his concern when the MTA laid off station agents and closed bus lines?
Obviously the people don’t trust this billionaire and his police force one bit. The protesters at Occupy Wall Street have their own cleanup crews and are quite capable – indeed, more capable than the mayor, who puts profits before people – of taking care of their site.
It can’t go unmentioned that tomorrow at 1:00 PM, members of the Muslim community have scheduled Jummah Prayer at Zucotti Park, along with providing food for OWS members and anyone else who is hungry.
Anyone who comes out to defend the right of OWS against shutdown will also be defending the right of Muslims to join this inspiring occupation. One only need remember the recent revelations of the NYPD’s CIA-backed campaign of spying and harassment of the Muslim community to know how important this is.
Call 212-NEW-YORK (212-639-9675), and tell them you want Occupy Wall Street to be allowed to remain in Zuccotti Park without restrictions on their ability to camp overnight.
TOMORROW, COME TO ZUCOTTI PARK STARTING AT 6:00 AM
IF YOU CAN’T COME THAT EARLY, COME WHEN YOU CAN
Sources:
Notice from Brookfield Real Estate distributed by NYPD, October 13, 2011
“Occupy Wall Street Responds to Bloomberg’s Cleaning ‘Eviction Notice,’” The New York Observer, October 13, 2011
Comment by Karl Friedrich — October 13, 2011 @ 10:01 pm
Well, if the eviction is a 7am then I doubt anyone is getting through police lines at 6am.
Comment by Brian Gallagher — October 13, 2011 @ 10:27 pm
Hey Brian. No pessimism needed here at this time. The shit’s going down sometime in the early AM in NYC. That’s when the billionaire mayor says one thing the day before then does anothert a day later. I’m confident these supremely organized massess are prepared to deal with whatever he unleashes competently.
Aren’t you in the UK? If so, you need to start organizing the exact same type of actions there. Only in that way, in the age of the internet, will this become an international movement that rocks the foundations of every stupid thing that exists in the staus quo order.
Long Live #OWS!
Comment by Karl Friedrich — October 13, 2011 @ 11:57 pm
I meant my comment more as advice to anyone thinking of heading there – get there now, if possible. But you’re right, the organization and outreach abililties of the OWS people has been impressive and they’ll find a way to manage.
BTW, Bloomberg’s girlfriend is on the board of directors of Brookfield Properties, the owners of the park. Not that that’s any more significant than Bloomberg himself being the spawn of Wall Street. His phone has probably been ringing for weeks. Imagine that, a vigorous lame-duck politician.
Comment by Brian Gallagher — October 14, 2011 @ 12:05 am
Occupy goes global tomorrow October 15th.
Amazing how something that started off so small has turned into a global phenomenon.
It goes to show when you push people, some people push back as Ward Churchill said.
The Occupy movement is pushing back. HARD.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 14, 2011 @ 5:39 pm
I loved the news coverage from Global Occupy Day in Hong Kong.
The protesters were holding up Apple logo signs that read in English: APPLE STOP STUDENT LABOR.
Apple is doing the same thing that Hershey Chocolate, Inc. has come under fire for by hiring exchange students who often work under very poor conditions, long hours and paying for lodging leaving them with little money.
The students complained at Hershey that lodging was included in the five thousand dollar program fee they pay for the foreign exchange experience.
If Apple is guilty of this too, this trend in corporate America is very disturbing.
The students wind up becoming slaves with no collective bargaining rights and Americans get pink slipped in exchange for the corporation getting cheap labor.
The way I see it is it’s a lose-lose situation for the students and the laid off American workers.
It’s definitely a windfall for the corporations.
I applaud the Hong Kong protesting these injustices going on at Apple because I’m sure many aren’t aware of it and it may slow down all of the saintly news coverage about Steve Job’s passing which is really too much.
He certainly was not a Ghandi or Malcolm X.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 17, 2011 @ 3:48 am
I need to clarify my last post.
Hershey Chocolate Corporation, Inc. of Pennsylvania was accused by media outlets of exploiting foreign exchange students as slave laborers.
Apple was accused in 2010 by media outlets of using child laborers as young as 15 working in horrible sweatshop conditions, though they say they’ve since stopped the practice (yeah sure).
My previous post sounded like I said Apple used foreign exchange students and I meant student as in child labor to be clear.
Why the media has glorified Steve Jobs as such a great man when they are well aware of Apple’s use of exploited children as slave workers is absurd.
He may have been an innovator, but many children he exploited paid a heavy price as he was enriched by their toil.
Not a hero to me.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 17, 2011 @ 4:31 am