Following a mass walk-out by high school students earlier this month in protest of Mayor Bloomberg's plan to close their schools. Even as the demonstration was harassed by Bloomberg's NYPD, students and allies denounced Bloomberg as "Mayor 1%" and demanded fair and accessible education for all. Today at 5:30pm until 8:30pm at Brooklyn Technical High School (29 Fort Greene Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217), there is another event to support NYC students:

(En español abajo)

This Thursday, the Department of Education's Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) will convene again to determine the fate of 25 schools the city is trying to close down.

Since the majority of the panel is appointed by Mayor Bloomberg - and has never voted against his will - this decision will be easy for them. The Panel has never heard or been responsive to voices of real students, parents, teachers, and community members who have already spoken out against their failed educational policy, nor will they be interested in the voices of the hundreds that will sign up to speak the night of. To date, no school slated for closure has been spared.

Join us as we use the People's Mic to reclaim our public meeting and block this fatal vote, while demanding accountability from the DOE to provide adequate support that schools and students need to thrive.

We are Occupy The DOE. We are the 99%. Expect us.

PEP Meeting Agenda: http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/837E0306-0BEE-4575-957C-B6B45CA8AC12/118864/PEP_Agenda_Feb91.pdf

En Español Read More...

The Battle of Oakland by Brandon Jourdan and David Martinez:

"On January 28th, 2012, Occupy Oakland moved to take a vacant building to use as a social center and a new place to continue organizing. This is the story of what happened that day as told by those who were a part of it. Features rare footage and interviews with Boots Riley, David Graeber, Maria Lewis, and several other witnesses to key events."

Following a court issued injunction on behalf of BNY Mellon ordering the removal of "all tents and other structures, camping equipment, and stored personal items" from People's Park, Occupy Pittsburgh is facing an eviction deadline scheduled for 12PM eastern, today. Occupy Pittsburgh will be holding a press conference at that time, which will be livestreamed along with today's other events.

In solidarity, please help Occupy Pittsburgh's official response to their eviction reach as many relevant recipients as possible.

livestream:

twitter:
@occupypgh
#occupypgh
#occupyoccupypittsburgh

webpage:
occupypittsburgh.org

A look back at Occupy Oakland before it was razed.

In a world devastated by poverty, austerity cuts, and bank foreclosures, community action like Occupy Oakland’s recent attempt to turn a derelict building into a vibrant social center for the needs of the 99% should be applauded. Instead, the agents of the 1%, in this case the Oakland police – already under investigation for excessive force – once again attacked. Using flash bang grenades, projectiles, batons, tear-gas, and other weapons, police arrested over 400, bringing total US Occupy-related arrests to over 6,300. As the Occupy Oakland Media Committee said:

“With all the problems in our city, should preventing activists from putting a vacant building to better use be their highest priority? Was it worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent?”

Earlier this month, we celebrated 2011 and declared 2012 would be even bigger. One month in, we’re keeping our word, but the corporate media increasingly dismiss Occupy Wall Street as a dying movement. Covering events in Oakland (“Police use teargas on Occupy Oakland protesters”), the Guardian described OWS as “largely dormant lately.” The Washington Post stated that the Oakland protest had broken the “lull” in OWS.

But we aren’t dormant; we're escalating. The only lull has been in the media coverage of our continuing struggle to create a more just world for all. While the corporate media have shifted focus to the U.S. Republican primaries and Presidential election, government agents of the 1% continue their assault on Occupy camps - inventing new PR-friendly excuses like the "no camping" rule used to rip apart Occupy DC - to dismantle not only our rights, but our homes.

The corporate-funded political status quo, including corporate-funded news coverage, benefits the 1% at the expense of the 99%. This is exactly why the corporate media would rather run speeches by Presidential candidates (all millionaires) than stories of members of the 99% taking direct action to create economic justice, like our comrades in Oakland and DC who are peacefully fighting for their beliefs only to be attacked by police, or the many OWS supporters in cities across the country who are taking direct action to help keep low-income families in their homes by resisting unfair evictions and foreclosures. Our movement to create real democracy and and economic fairness is far more newsworthy than the tired rhetoric and false hope of the Republicans or Democrats.

Bank-beholden politicians created this economic crisis. No matter who wins the U.S. Presidential election circus, only direct action - not the same politics-as-usual - can rebuild democracy and justice. And make no mistake: such transformative revolutionary action is continuing to unfold in every corner of the United States, and across the globe, and no amount of "camping bans" can stop us. Let’s take a closer look by examining a few of the major Occupy stories and actions of the past month that the corporate media would rather dismiss than cover by debunking their myths about OWS...

Occupy protests have reached across the globe. Here is (Un)Occupy Honolulu.

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As daylight broke this morning around 5:40am, helmeted and armed mobs of U.S. Park Police – some wearing unnecessary hazmat suits, backed up by dump trucks and riot police on horeseback – moved to forcibly dismantle tents and other infrastructure at McPherson Square in Washington DC, where Occupy DC on K Street has called home and provided for the needs of one another and the public since October 1st. All in DC are encouraged to go to McPherson to show support. Outside DC, if you don't like what the National Park Service is doing, call and let them know at 202.485.9880!

Follow #OccupyDC, @OccupyKSt for live updates via Twitter.

Live Updates

• 7:30: As cold rain sets in, now-homeless protesters vow to hold General Assembly tomorrow and regroup in spite of having had their homes destroyed by police. Reports of tasering and others beaten by batons throughout the day. Solidarity demos have begun in other cities, including Oakland. Via @Sara Jeans:

  "This will not kill #occupydc. We may not be there tonight but we are planning & will come back stronger"

Read More...

via Occupy the Bronx:

Today! 3:30pm until 6:00pm

3rd Ave between 161st and 163rd, Bronx, NY
The beating of Jatiek Reed and the murder of Rahmarley Graham are just two more examples of Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly’s failed policy of harassing, incarcerating and murdering our Black and Latino youth and we, the community must stop them. Enough Police Brutality in our communities! We demand justuce for Jatiek, Rahmarley, and all victims of police violence! It is time to fight back! This march will be after the press conference from the two families and Assemblymen Erick Stevenson.
Directions: 3rd ave between 161st and 163rd Street, Bronx NY
2 or 5 Train to Prospect Ave
BX 15, BX 13, BX 21, BX 55, TO 161ST OR BX 6 TO 3rd ave

Also today, marchers in New York will be joining with Occupiers in Boston, Milwaukee, and many other cities across the U.S. and world to say "No Sanctions, No War, No Dictatorship on Iran!" Via Facebook:

Today, 1:00pm until 4:00pm
46th St. and 7th Ave, Manhattan, NY

A coalition of individuals, groups and organizations including World Can’t Wait, ANSWER, Iranian-Friendship Committee and many more have called for a nation-wide “Day of Mass Action to Stop War on Iran” on Saturday, February 4th. Unfortunately, this call to action makes no reference to the democratic movement in Iran, otherwise known as the Green Movement, which mobilized millions in 2009 followed by a brutal government crackdown. We know the Iranian government manipulates such gatherings as the forthcoming "Day of Mass Action" into evidence of support for the regime. We also know that some individuals and organizations in the anti-war movement have historically aligned themselves with the regime, regardless of its violent suppression of Iranian people working towards political and social change.

We, a group of Iranians/non-Iranians in New York City, not affiliated with the coalition mentioned above, will participate in the Day of Mass Action to voice our ardent objection to sanctions and to reject calls for war against Iran. But we also find it imperative to stand clearly with the Iranian people’s struggle for democracy. The Iranian people are the only legitimate power to bring about the changes they want. Any foreign intervention only stifles prospects for a more genuine democracy by strengthening the ruling elites in Iran who would pose as “defenders of national self-determination.”

The Iranian Green movement, Arab Spring, and occupy movements have inspired us all that another world is possible! A world in which we are no longer victims of corruption, war, and exploitation. We stand in defense of the Iranian people’s right to economic and social justice. We refuse to be the pawns of a broader struggle between the world’s elites who only seek to profit from our suffering.

We, therefore invite you on February 4th with your Green slogans and signs. Our participation would be more meaningful and our message clearer if we show up together.

"When the poet stands at nadir the world must indeed be upside-down. If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch.”— Excerpt from, The Time of the Assassins, a study of Rimbaud, by Henry Miller

There is no reality-based argument denying this: The present system, as defined by the neoliberal economic order, is as destructive to the balance of nature as it is to the individual, both body and psyche. One's body grows obese while Arctic ice and wetlands shrink. Biodiversity decreases as psyches are commodified by ever-proliferating, corporatist/consumer state banality.

But the raging soul of the world will not be assaulted without consequence. Mind and body are intertwined and inseparable from nature, and, when nature responds to our assaults, her replies are known to humankind as the stuff of mythic tragedy and natural catastrophe.

"When the poet lives his hell, it is no longer possible for the common man to escape it."

— Excerpt from, The Time of the Assassins, a study of Rimbaud, by Henry Miller

But take heart. As the saying goes, it is always darkest right before it goes completely black. Read More...

On Saturday, January 28, thousands of parents, families and engaged citizens gathered together to open a community center in the heart of downtown Oakland. The Police, under orders from Mayor Quan, responded to this peaceful demonstration of direct democracy and community building by arresting around 400 people. Hundreds more were injured when an army of officers marched on these unarmed families, raised their guns and fired bullets, tear gas canisters, smoke bombs, concussion grenades and other explosive devices into the crowd. Mayor Quan, on the same day as solidarity marches were organized by dozens of occupations across the nation, has called on the Occupy Movement to denounce Oakland’s show of bravery under fire and community strength. We stand with Oakland and call for the immediate resignation of Quan, who on Saturday made it clear that the state has abandoned democracy and joined the 1% in declaring war against the people.

Extreme economic injustice and true democracy can never co-exist. We have seen this violent truth before: in Pinochet’s Chile, 1990’s Russia, Suharto’s Indonesia. Four months ago, the Occupy Movement showed that this historical truth has finally come home: The economic oppression by the 1% has become so egregious that it cannot exist without destroying the spirit of the American democratic system. Across the country, people are rising up to demand a more just nation, and police brutality and state violence are the only things keeping this injustice in place. In Oakland, thousands of active community members chose to engage in true democracy by supporting the real and pressing needs of the people. The state, which supposedly represents these people, exercised extreme police brutality and violence to protect the 1%'s vacant assets. The explicit goal of the action was to build community—to open a desperately needed community center with a library, medical care, free education and emergency housing in a city that has suffered massive budget cuts, high unemployment rates and ravaged public schools. In response, the city government poured hundreds of thousands of dollars, bullets and canisters of tear gas into declaring open war on these parents, students, workers, artists, teachers, children and veterans. These people’s only offense was to believe so deeply in the American tradition of democracy, self-sufficiency, and sacrifice for the next generation that they were willing to put their bodies on the line to make this nation the empowering democracy that we know it can be.

On Saturday, Mayor Quan's actions again demonstrated that open war has been declared on the spirit of democracy and the people of Oakland and this nation. We call for the end of Mayor Quan's administration and a regime change in Oakland. We continue to stand in solidarity with Occupy Oakland and will support them as they continue peaceful protest and community building until this and all other authoritarian administrations have been ousted from their place of illegitimate power. Together, we are building a stronger world, a stronger community, a stronger promise for the next generation.

In the wake of a recent Congressional hearing on Occupy DC, misleading threats from Mayor Vince Gray about nonexistent "health" concerns in the park, and yesterday's taser attack that hospitalized a resident of the park, the National Park Service has given Occupiers in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza until 12:00 noon today until they will begin enforcing a no-camping ban. Occupy DC has begun preparing nonviolent resistance and is calling for all supporters to join them.

Tents and other belongings have been piled in the center of the camp so that police cannot pick off individuals, while others are planning civil disobedience in defense of their home and our collective right to protest economic inequality! Watch Twitter feeds for #OccupyDC, #McPhersonSQ, #defend99, #J30, @Occupy_DC, and @OccupyDCAction. If you can't make it to McPherson, you can phone blast the Park Police at 202-610-7500. As @OccupyKSt tweeted:

One more time: we refuse to accept a world where you have to pay somebody just to take up space. We have no homes. Let us keep our park.

Live Updates:

• 10:00am, Tuesday Jan 31: The Tent of Dreams still stands. No arrests. Occupiers spent the night resting and playing games. There is a 10AM hearing for Occupy DC's injunction against NPS at 333 Constitution Ave NW. Lawyer invites Occupiers to come support. Read More...

Sunday morning, while the National Park Service police were handing out "no camping" notices to McPherson Square, an occupier at Occupy DC was tazed apparently for walking near his home. The tazing resulted in a seizure - most likely due to a pre-existing medical condition. Witnesses say the victim attempted to notify the police about his medical condition but the police initially blocked his request for an ambulance. He was eventually sent to a hospital. The attacking officer's name is allegedly Lemke - NPS badge number #398.

Read More...