Weekly Update: Why we Occupy

Every once in a while, we stop and reflect on why we occupy. This week we were sent two important reasons.

This is the photo of a young man, Alan Blueford, from Oakland who was looking forward to his high school graduation in just a few weeks. Instead of graduating, he was murdered on May 6 by Oakland police for standing on a corner after midnight waiting for a ride home from some friends. He had just called his mom to check in. He committed no crime, had no weapon and there were no drugs or alcohol in his system. Occupy Oakland organized an Alan Blueford Coalition and is working with his family to stop police violence. Please spread the word about Alan’s story and the need to end extrajudicial murders of black men which are occurring once every 36 hours in this country.

And this is the story of a man who worked for Wells Fargo. His daughter developed cancer and needed expensive surgery. So Wells Fargo fired him 3 days before the surgery and the hospital cancelled it. His daughter died. This type of story happens every day in the US (not in other industrialized nations) and is the reason that we must have a national Medicare for all. But first we will have to shift political power from the 1% to the 99%.

How will we shift the power? One way is by not voting for corporate parties. Occupies around the country are organizing to let the Democrats and Republicans know that we are onto their game and we aren’t playing anymore. We hope that you will get involved in some of the following actions!

No matter who is elected this November, austerity measures are coming.Spend some time in Romneyville in Tampa, FL and participate in protests of the RNC. March in Charlotte at the DNC, or if you can’t travel, organize your own Occupy Obama Everywhere in solidarity with Occupy Chicago.

Participate in Occupy the Debates: The People’s Dialogue: Start organizing community general assemblies for October to discuss issues of concern and solutions and be included in the national peoples’ survey which will be shared with all presidential candidates for response prior to the elections. OccupytheDebates.org will be live soon, but you can start preparing now. 

And prior to the elections, we must Occupy the TPP:Stop the Global Corporate Coup. Register for thenational conference call on August 20 at 9 pm eastern/6 pm pacific and let us know if you can attend the Occupy the TPP Direct Action training with the Backbone Campaign in Baltimore, MD on Sept. 8 and 9. Learn how to get attention with creative spectacle actions. Registration limited to the first 50 people. Contactinfo@october2011.org for more details.

We want to let you know about some important events:
If the environment is your top issue, you can join actions being organized to stop pipelines in Texas/Oklahoma and New York City.

Support Bradley Manning during his next set of hearings to begin August 28.

And remember to join three days of activities for the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. The American Autumn OccuDoc will be premiered in Washington, DCon August 20 and will be shown at the Occupy Film Festival.

In solidarity,
October2011.org/Occupy Washington, DC

PS - Join us tomorrow night at 8 pm eastern for a live discussion on Other Possibilities Network about how we will end corporate rule and shift power to the people.