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We are the 99 percent

#M1 National Day of Action for Education

Posted 12 years ago on March 1, 2012, 6:03 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

m1 education

In December, the NYC Student Assembly and Occupy Education Northern California called for March 1 to be a National Day of Action in Defense of Education. Groups from around the country have responded to this call. Follow #M1, #OccupyEd, and @Occupy_Ed on Twitter! There are a number of actions planned on campuses throughout New York City. Here are a few:

All-City Student Actions: (NYC Facebook page)
2PM Manhattan convergence at Department of Education, 52 Chambers St
3PM march begins at Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn
4PM Convergence at Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Campus Actions:
Brooklyn College: 12-3PM - the Quad
BMCC: 1:45pm Icarus Statue in front of main building
NYU: 12PM - Washington Square Park
Columbia: Low Plaza 11:30-1PM
RSCC contingent: 1:45 PM at the intersection of Duane Street and Elk Street in Manhattan near the African Burial Ground

Actions are also planned in Chicago, Washington DC, Central Florida, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and many other cities. In Philadelphia, Occupiers will meet in front of Gov. Tom Corbett's Philadelphia Office (200 South Broad St):

There’s plenty of resources in Pennsylvania to provide a high- quality education for all. Instead of protecting rich corporations like Comcast and Wells Fargo, the Governor should demand the 1% pay their fair share of taxes so we can protect our schools and communities. Join students, teachers, workers and community members as we demand a fair budget for the 99%!

Update, 4pm EST: Watch live! (NYC Student Walkout Livestream) (UC-Davis "Funeral for Public Education" Livestream) (Washington, DC March on Dept. of Education Livestream)

Photos from #M1 Actions

In New York, demonstrators gathered outside the Dept. of Education before marching to an NYC School Board meeting to protest Mayor Bloomberg's failed policies and cuts to education:

nyc m1

nyc m1 2

In Philadelphia, students shut down a busy intersection and were pushed back by police while trying to enter the governor's office:

philly

philly 2

In Chicago, students took over the conference room of the president's office demanding a public forum on tuition hikes:

chicago

Washington, DC:

DC

The original NYC Student Assembly call to action:

We refuse to pay for the crisis created by the 1%. We refuse to accept the dismantling of our schools and universities, while the banks and corporations make record profits. We refuse to accept educational re-segregation, massive tuition increases, outrageous student debt, and increasing privatization and corporatization.

They got bailed out and we got sold out. But through nationally coordinated mass action we can and will turn back the tide of austerity.

We call on all students, teachers, workers, and parents from all levels of education —pre-K-12 through higher education, in public and private institutions—and all Occupy assemblies, labor unions, and organizations of oppressed communities, to mobilize on March 1st, 2012 across the country to tell those in power: The resources exist for high-quality education for all. If we make the rich and the corporations pay we can reverse the budget cuts, tuition hikes, and attacks on job security, and fully fund public education and social services.

This is a call to work together, but it is up to each school and organization to determine what local and regional actions—such as strikes, walkouts, occupations, marches, etc.—they will take to say no to business as usual.

We have the momentum, the numbers, and the determination to win. Education is not for sale. Let’s take back our schools. Let’s make history.

Global Student Power

Yesterday, while Occupy groups in over 80 cities across the world were holding successful direct actions to Shut Down the Corporations, students in Spain continued their fight against cuts in education by occupying university buildings. Solidarity protests have erupted across Europe after police violently supressed peaceful student demonstrations in Valencia, which has seen as many as 60,000 people in the streets.

valencia

students in leon spain

10,000s are in the streets of Barcelona again today. The student protesters in Spain have also received solidarity from student organizers in the United States. From New York Students Rising:

NYSR STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH STUDENTS OF SPAIN

We stand in active solidarity with the students and people of Valencia, Spain. and condemn the arrests and beating of peaceful protesters taking a stand against cuts to education.

The issues the students in Valencia address are ones that speak to the global nature of our struggle. All over the world we see local governments fail to fund universities, schools, and the other basic needs of the people.As people begin to protest and resist injustices, police attempt to repress the emergence of true democracy led by the people.

Students of the City University of New York, University of California-Davis, and many other campuses have been arrested, beaten, and pepper sprayed during protests done in an increasingly securitized university. However, overt repression represents the failure of subtle forms of social control. As tacit consent and docility are replaced by protest and resistance, the only way to maintain the social order is through the baton and riot shield.What it shows is that we are breaking through and making real gains in our struggle.

Students in Valencia, your resilience, as witnessed by the wave of protests in recent days, gives us resolve to continue, the strength to struggle further, and the courage to dream bigger. Our struggle is one. Solidarity in the streets!

Students are also taking action to support workers and other marginalized 99%ers. In the Netherlands, students along with Occupy Utretch, Occupy Rotterdam, and other local Occupy groups joined 1000s of cleaners who occupied buildings at the University of Utrecht for better working conditions. Today., students at Harvard will be taking action to stop lay-offs of school workers. From last year's student rebellions in the United Kingdom to last months's massive post-secondary strike in Quebec that saw 36,000 students walk out, students are rising up against austerity across the world. Today, Occupy Wall Street joins them in expressing our outrage!

montreal student strike

36 Comments

36 Comments


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[-] 3 points by pinkbarrio (3) 12 years ago

Why is anyone connected with Occupy or their supporters on Facebook? (Hereinafter referred to as FB). FB is the 1% and by using FB you are supporting them. Are you not aware of Goldman Sachs investment in FB? Research: Goldman Invests in Facebook at $50 Billion Valuation. As part of the 99%, I refuse to have anything to do with data-mining corporatist FB. This is not the first instance I've read of occupiers or supporters of occupy supporting the 1% by their activities on and off line. During the early days at Freedom Plaza on the live stream, one of the occupiers suggested going over to Brooklyn to get bottled water and they suggested a corporate box store as a place to get the water. Spending $$ at a corporate box store sends U.S. jobs and $$ to other countries, such as China. A corporate box store = the 1%. Their lobby $$ helps install "free trade" agreements. It's as if some people connected with the Occupy movement are not clear on the concept.

From the amount of $$ I read that OWS received last Fall, OWS could easily start their own non-corporate social network and put corporatist FB and the other major corporate social network out of business. Paz.

http://www.pinkbarrio.com/

[-] 1 points by jimmycrackerson (940) from Blackfoot, ID 12 years ago

"I refuse to have anything to do with data-mining corporatist FB."

This. The fact that Facebook's design is used against it's own users for nefarious purposes by state/federal agencies, foreign/domestic hackers, and even conniving "friends". Why would anyone feel the need to share with thousands of people the routine humdrum of their lives.

[-] 1 points by nweiner (-9) 12 years ago

EGO

But yes, most of these agency's like FB and google, now make more money selling the data to the evil fucking governments of the world than much of anything else.

Any law enforcement agency on earth can now send a photo to facebook and say "Who is this?", ... gotcha

WHY idiots use facebook, or twitter, or google, ... but then its FUNNY these tool are the backbone of OWS, ... note when this forum fires up it wants to start YOUTUBE also owned by google and has tons of tracking shit, and it will bust TOR, if you enable youtube

[-] 0 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 12 years ago

I don't like facebook policy of only allowing other members of facebook to read

having been banned from such a site years earlier resulted in loss in contacts and my own writing

I don't play that

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[-] 2 points by Toynbee (656) from Savannah, GA 12 years ago

Education is the backbone of America. It should not be a profit center.

[-] 2 points by FHampton (309) 12 years ago

"No nation in the world has eliminated poverty by firing teachers or by handing its public schools over to private managers; nor does research support either strategy. But these inconvenient facts do not reduce the reformers’ zeal. The new breed of school reformers consists mainly of Wall Street hedge fund managers, foundation officials, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, but few experienced educators. The reformers’ detachment from the realities of schooling and their indifference to research allow them to ignore the important influence of families and poverty."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/schools-we-can-envy/

[-] 1 points by FHampton (309) 12 years ago

"While it was easy for the Wall Street tycoons to finance charter schools like KIPP and entrepreneurial ventures like Teach for America, what really excited them was using their money to alter the politics of education. The best way to leverage their investments, Brill tells us, was to identify and fund key Democrats who would share their agenda. One of them was a new senator from Illinois named Barack Obama, who helped launch Democrats For Education Reform at its opening event on June 3, 2005."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/school-reform-failing-grade/

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[-] -1 points by Unwashed (-141) 12 years ago

If poverty and education are a problem, then obviously you must support enforcement of our immigration laws. Mass immigration of drop outs is rocket fuel for poverty. Fight poverty: Occupy the Border!

[-] 1 points by FHampton (309) 12 years ago

No, I don't believe in restrictions on immigration, because people should have freedom of mobility.

But if you support restrictions on immigration, surely you'd also support restrictions on how companies can do business--restrictions on trade, restrictions on multinational companies setting up factories across borders, restrictions on foreign-direct investment. In other words, you'd like to see a world of autarkic national economies with no foreign markets.

If you don't believe in all of the above, but also believe in restrictions on immigration, then you're a partisan of capital--since you believe capital should have mobility, but people shouldn't. Get your position out in the open.

[-] 0 points by Unwashed (-141) 12 years ago

Typical liberal, support mass immigration of poor people without educations and then bitch about poverty and the schools.

I support that of which we benefit. Trade helps us as a nation; being flooded with drops-out via immigration doesn't.

[-] 1 points by FHampton (309) 12 years ago

Being pro-trade at the expense of all else is the classical liberal position--the position you take. What I wrote wasn't liberal at all, in fact. But you need a political education to understand that.

An education such as that which workers received when companies relocated after NAFTA passed, and left them jobless. Or the type of education a Latin American farmer receives when subsidized agricultural goods imported from North America put his farm out of business, forcing him into the cities, to work in a factory for minimum wage, or maybe forcing him to leave his country altogether when the only alternative is to starve.

Let's be clear about the terms of the debate: I advocated a sensible position that would mean a good education for everyone who participates in our global economy. You advocated a nationalistic position that enforces poverty and cuts educational and other services.

[-] 0 points by HCabret (-327) 10 years ago

Abolish the border and treat ALL people like people. Education is not a business.

[-] 2 points by struggleforfreedom80 (6584) 12 years ago

I say: End this tyrannical state-Capitalism, and let´s work for a free, just, democratic society with free education for all!

Solidarity. sff. http://struggleforfreedom.blogg.no/

[-] 3 points by JDub (218) 12 years ago

capitalism and democracy are not incompatible. The problem is that capitalism is not what we have. We have an oligarchy at best. Since a corporation may spend like a person, but is not held liable like a person, we have lost both our capitalism and democracy. If you swindle someone out of money, regardless of the contracts you sign with them, you should be held liable, yet time and again the investment bankers do just this, and are instead rewarded.

[-] 2 points by struggleforfreedom80 (6584) 12 years ago

Making the economy democratic would dismantle capitalism: http://occupywallst.org/forum/capitalism-must-be-replaced-by-real-democracy-libe/

I agree, we don´t have pure capitalism (that would be awful)

[-] 1 points by jimevanhoe1 (55) 12 years ago

OBAMA AND THE REPUBLICANS are leading us down to no where, as a Nation of People. OBAMA is BS and always has been. Education for all American Students rich or poor as to be come reality or we face 100s of millions of Americans living in Poverty. Obama failed when he had total control for over 700 days (2 yrs) with Pelosi and Reed in charge yet they only put us further in Debt and Saved the Corporations who threw us into Debt.....Obama backed financially by Goldman-Sachs in his first race OBAMA appointed a large number of Goldman-Sachs executive to posts inside his administration, but did you get a job, could you afford to go to college and if you were lucky enough to go to college could you find a job that pays enough to off set expenses?? Or was the economy in major recession caused by the backers of Obama and now also Romney. It is time to move this Country out of the Dark Ages of Obama and the Republicans. It is time to take things into our own hands, to fight no matter what it takes to WIN. IT IS > time < TO TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY ONE WAY OR THE OTHER........and in my opinion only Mayor Mike Bloomberg will get us some where.......he may not take us......completely there, but he will give us a better opportunity to at least TRY and Get There! OBAMA & the Republicans are total failure...if they were not we would not be in the mess we are today, tomorrow and for decades to come, end the BS...........take out OBAMA and the Republicans....Vote them all out.............! JPE

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[-] 1 points by shoukan (1) 12 years ago

It's great to see solidarity with the Occupy movement around the world. It would be nice to see more visible support at home. The core principles of the Occupy movement are a winning formula. Keep fighting everyone.

http://www.occupolitics.com

[-] 1 points by Jeka (3) 12 years ago

маааа

[-] 1 points by OccupyNews (1220) 12 years ago

Isn't it somewhat ridiculous to give a free pass to the college administrators when it appears that some of if not many of them are making six figure income along with a six figure pension?

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[-] 1 points by Toynbee (656) from Savannah, GA 12 years ago
  • BRAVO!

  • Keep it up. As long as it takes.

  • Students are not "Profit Centers"

  • Stronger Educational Institutions produce a stronger America

  • Good affordable education should not be a privilege for children of the 1%

[-] 1 points by mexicael (23) 12 years ago

Thank you Occupy Wall street ! Now 100 000 students are in strike in Québec. video of the last demonstration : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVcqtcxQDjI

[-] 1 points by JohnWa (513) 12 years ago

Basic Education to the highest standard should be a state function where the people can demand accountability for its funding, implementation, content and direction.

While Education is split into a thousand factions we all remain divided from childhood.

Many countries run state systems that are secular, ethnically and religiously sensitive, far more efficient with less private sector profit taking and perform at a higher level.

Stronger teacher Unions provide balance and safeguards against political interference by powerful corporate greed and bigotry.

Education has to be free to work for all and make a better society.

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[-] 0 points by go99ers (31) 12 years ago

Ever notice how all the pics in the U.S. are panned real narrow...where are all the people?

[-] 0 points by gentium1 (0) 12 years ago

Interview to Mr. Carlos Taibo about of decrease. (in spanish). You interestingcan transalte, is very interesting. Tanks:

it's the link: http://gentium-humanitas.blogspot.com/

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[-] -2 points by HCabret (-327) 10 years ago

Why not instead of organising a mob on "education action day", people read at least one book that they haven't read before on that day?

How does a mob benefit education?

READ a book. It is that simple.

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 10 years ago

Why pull up a post that is over a year old and complain about it now?

[-] 0 points by joshC (-4) 10 years ago

Some guy came on the forum a few hours ago and started bumping old posts. He must have bumped around 30. I'm sure HCabret just saw it at the top and didn't realize it was old.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

one problem with our lame duck government is its pushing the same agenda as long as it can

[-] 0 points by joshC (-4) 10 years ago

It's corrupted. The agenda is being pushed by big businesses which control government.

[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

they only control the government because the people allow them

[-] -2 points by joshC (-4) 10 years ago

Yes indeed. Hopefully that will change. If only we could unite the right and left towards common goals like getting corruption out of politics. It's too bad Occupy adopted purely leftist positions on some issues, essentially scaring away the right. It should have stuck with the problem of corruption Wall Street, and transparency in politics. These are issues the right and left agree with. We could have really seen big numbers of followers that way.

Leave the clear cut issues with political parties.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

right and left is a false paradigm of division

[-] 0 points by joshC (-4) 10 years ago

It's simplistic and naive. Individuals are complex and we shouldn't try to box them with simple labels like "right wing shill" or "Obamapologist". True. But there are issues on which people are divided, like privatization vs socialism. I don't think Occupy should touch those if it wants a chance at creating the 99%. It really should stick to issues that unify the whole populace. It's always possible to create another group to deal with trying to render US politics closer to socialism.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

it makes support of simple ideas complex by placing them into a constructed partition

[-] 0 points by joshC (-4) 10 years ago

It's interesting how simple ideas can be made more complex when limiting their flexibility by boxing them into crude prefabricated labels. It's like clipping the wings off a bird. It seems natural and simple when it flies, but without wings it becomes tormented and gestures in neurotic fashion.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

lol

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