LIVE: #F29 Shut Down The Corporations: Leap Into Action! Reclaim Our Future!

Live Updates, 2/29

• 1:10PM EST: Banner drop at Grand Central overpass (photo)

• 1:04PM EST: Protesters put bed in middle of intersection (photo) at 43rd st. and Madison Ave. Who are you in bed with? (Twitter) (Facebook)

• 1:00PM EST: Riot police have surrounded anti-Wal Mart demo in SoCal, where protesters have been celebrating and listening to music in the intersection after shutting down all targeted warehouses.

• 12:30PM EST: Actions starting in dozens more US cities, including Huntsville, AL; Dayton, OH; New Brunswick, NJ; Nashville, TN; Buffalo, NY; Albany, NY; Richmond, VA; Eugene, OR; Pensacola, FL; Albuquerque, NM; Peekskill, NY. Reports of arrests at BoA HQ in NYC.

• 12:00PM EST: Large crowd in Pittsburgh protesting drastic cuts in public transit system, including potential shut-down of 35% of services, half of all routes, and 500 jobs. Pittsburgh livestream. Orlando begins march on BoA. Orlando livestream.

• 11:30AM EST: In Spain, massive protests still underway in Valencia and other cities. Barcelona livestream. Teach-in underway in Bryant Park in front of Citibank discussing toxic loans, foreclosure, & bank crimes as Wells Fargo gets eviction notices in NYC. Anti-Wal Mart protesters continue to hold intersections in SoCal.

• 11:20AM EST: Rally in Portland will begin 11:30am PST at SW Naito Pkwy & Ankeny. Currently PDX bike swarm is preparing for actions. Portland livestream.

• 11:00AM EST: DC will regroup at Wal-Mart construction site (Georgia & Missouri NW) at 3pm, and at Friendship Heights metro at 7pm. Pfizer HQ in NYC completely surrounded by police barricades, area around shut down by massive police presence and protesters. March now headed back to Bryant Park to prepare for BoA shutdown. SoCal has shutdown a third Wal-Mart distro center, reports "all targeted warehouses closed for the day." Austin begins "evict Monsanto" rally.

• 10:20AM EST: Reports that 2nd warehouse in SoCal is closed! Atlanta begins protest in front of AT&T. March in NYC arrives at Pfizer (43rd & 3rd), police have set up a kettle. Protesters, joined by doctors for universal health care, are taking the street instead.

• 10:10AM EST: 10 arrests and Monsanto on lock-down in DC. Police seen barricading Bank of America tower in preparation for demo in NYC.

• 9:50AM EST: In NYC, march leaves Bryant Park to shut down Pfizer. NYC Livestream. In So. Cal, Occupiers report one Wal-Mart warehouse closed for the day, now marching to 2nd warehouse.

• 9:45AM EST: 400 people from multiple Southern California Occupations including LA, Long Beach, Orange County, and Riverside begin march to shut down Wal-Mart distribution centers in support of non-union warehouse workers. SoCal Livestream

• 9:30AM EST: Student protests have erupted across Spain. The University of Valencia is being occupied by students engaged in a weeks-long campaign to stop cuts and austerity. Students in Valencia were violently attacked by police during peaceful protests in recent weeks. Solidarity demonstrations have also spread in Barcelona, Madrid, and many other cities. In the U.S., arrests already reported in Washington, DC as Occupiers block entrances at Monsanto HQ.

This Wednesday, Occupiers in New York, Oakland, Mexico City, and over 80 other cities will take part in a coordinated National Day of Action to Shut Down the Corporations. Occupations have been preparing a variety of decentralized actions in response to Occupy Portland's call to target the American Legislative Exchange Council:

We specifically call on people to target corporations that are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The biggest corporations in America, like ExxonMobil, Bank of America, BP, Monsanto, Pfizer, and Wal-Mart use ALEC to buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves only the interests of corporations and not people. They then duplicate and spread this corporate legislation in Washington, D.C. and in state legislatures across the country. The anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona are two recent and destructive examples of what corporations use ALEC to do. 

ALEC seeks to erode our democracy, undermine workers rights and attack unions, destroy our environment, obstruct efforts to address climate change, undermine public education, pursue destructive agricultural practices and fuel the prison industrial complex.

Simultaneously, European trade unions have declared Feb. 29th a European Day of Action against austerity, following massive demonstrations against budget cuts in Greece, Spain, Belgium, and elsewhere. Decentralized actions in all 27 European Union nations and beyond will be "sending a clear message to the EU leaders: this imposed austerity is going to plunge Europe into a recession!"

The effects of the financial, economic and social crisis have reached unbearable levels in several countries. Faced with the extreme seriousness of the situation, European leaders are making the race for austerity their priority response. The crisis serves as a ready-made pretext to attack the European social model, justify cuts in wages and public services, weaken social protection, make the labour market hyperflexible, and attack trade union rights.

Thus, at a time when the European summit has to adopt a treaty plunging Europe into recession and job insecurity for the long haul, the European trade unions are saying “enough is enough” and putting employment, recovery, social justice and solidarity at the forefront of the discussions.