March on Wall St South – Mobilization info

#S17 Updates for the week of August 29th

As you read this, the whirring machinery of mass media is increasingly focusing the spotlight on Romney, Obama and the spectacle of elections.

A lot will be decided this November but almost none of it where the public can see. We receive an endless stream of TV commercials funded by SuperPac billionaires in lieu of a true democratic discourse. The 99% is left in the wake of campaign commercials acting as currency for both the candidates and the media charged with covering them for us.

If you want to have the greatest impact on our democracy, cast your ballot on September 17th - in the streets. Join us.

August 26th Day of Action – Women’s Equality Day

Call to Action via Women Organized to Resist and Defend. Occupiers across the country are organizing in solidarity; we encourage everyone who can to attend! In NYC, we will gather at 47th St & 6th Ave at 1pm.

On Women’s Equality Day, August 26 – on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, which will be immediately followed by the Democratic National Convention - women and their allies will take to the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago and other cities across the country in defense of women's rights.

August 26th - Women’s Equality Day - commemorates the 1920 passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. Winning the right to vote was an important victory, but the struggle for full equality continues. Celebrate Women’s Equality Day by taking to the streets and demanding full equality now. Honor the women who fought for the rights we’ve won and continue the struggle for full equality

Many women voted for President Obama believing he would stand up for women’s rights. But he has compromised with the anti-choice forces on many occasions. When Republicans opposed a 2009 provision for family planning, he dropped it. In 2011, the White House took the unprecedented step of overruling the FDA in order to keep Plan B out of the reach of women under 18. While President Obama is not a right-wing pro-lifer, we cannot count on him or any politician to defend our rights. In fact, in order to reach a budget compromise with Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner in July 2011, President Obama said, "I'll give you abortion in D.C." Meaning, low-income women in the District of Columbia would be prevented from receiving Medicaid assistance offered by the D.C. government for abortion procedures.

Women’s reproductive rights continue to be slashed at the state level. Legal restrictions on abortions tripled from 2010 to 2011. 92 new abortion restrictions were enacted in 2011. In 2011, there were 114 reported violent attacks against abortion providers. Clinics that provide vital services for millions of working-class women are under siege. More than 55 percent of reproductive age women now live in states that are “hostile” to abortion rights. (Guttenmacher Institute)

So while they’re convening and concocting new ways to attack our rights and our lives, let’s come together in the streets to stand up and fight back!

There will be mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities around the country. We will mobilize thousands in the streets to show the world that there is a new women’s movement rising and we will not go back.

We believe that access to reproductive choice – the basic right of women to control our own bodies – is a fundamental right and must be defended. We believe in equality. We support working women. We are tired of the right wing trying to turn back the clock and take our hard-won rights away. All people who support equality and choice should organize with us and help these actions grow.

If you can’t make it to protest in Tampa and Charlotte, join or organize a protest in your community. There is a long, proud tradition of women in the United States mobilizing and fighting to win equality and respect.

Let’s continue this legacy this summer!

On #S17, Follow the Money: All Roads Lead to Wall Street

Last September 17th, as part of a wave of global protest, people from across the country raced to the heart of New York’s financial district to occupy Wall Street. In the face of big banks foreclosing on our homes, killing our jobs, buying up our democracy, and turning our environment into just another toxic asset, you showed up, and we became the 99%.
On September 15-17th, join us in this fight for our country, our world – this fight for our lives.
For years, people all over the world have been crippled by the corporate greed of the 1%. They built their bonuses out of stolen pensions of teachers, civil servants, and our neighbors. We pay for their welfare. They bet and borrow against our future. We drown in debt. So who is really in debt to whom? Now our elected representatives want us to embrace austerity–work harder for less, retire later (if at all), and say goodbye to our fundamental labor protections. They’re betting on our obedience. They’re betting wrong.
Join us for three days of education, celebration and resistance to economic injustice with permitted convergences and assemblies, concerts, and mass civil disobedience.
For every crumbling aspect of our society, the cause of the ruin can be traced back to corporate greed. Follow the money. All roads lead to Wall Street. And in the days and weeks before (and long after) September 17th, we will be here, demanding a system that puts the health of our communities over the profits of the 1%. We are the 99%.
Can’t join us in NYC? It’s just as important that we Occupy Main Street. Pick a local target that embodies corporate greed—occupy your state Capitol building like the people of Wisconsin, or a chamber of commerce conference as they did in D.C. Take inspiration from revolutionary occupations worldwide, from the railroads of India to the rivers of the Amazon to the streets of Spain. Wall Street has occupied our entire planet. What do you have to say about that?
There are more of us than them and they know it!!!!!!!

Fight back! Join in the GLOBAL EDUCATION STRIKE.Global Education Strike: Oct. 18 & Nov. 14-21

We are calling for a Global Education Strike. It is the first time that an education strike is being coordinated worldwide. We will UNITE in solidarity, because no matter where we live, we face the same struggle against national state and profit driven interests, and their hold on education. Increasing tuition fees, budget cuts, outsourcing, school closures, as well as other phenomena are linked to an increasing commercialization and privatization of education. Only by uniting globally will we be able to overcome these and enable free emancipatory education for all.

We are all struggling against cuts in education. Most of us are drowning in student debt. The increasing pressure to perform just makes us sick and the restrictions on education and ever-increasing tuition fees, among other barriers, make us angry! Everyone must have access to education no matter their monetary or social status. We have had enough of the pressure to measure everything - even the unmeasurable! We are sick and tired of competitiveness being the only criteria dictating everything! It is about time that we do something about this together – UNITED!

We are all people affected by the increasing commodification and commercialization of education. This is vividly portrayed by the symptoms affecting us, such as schools and universities being de-democratized and the further implementation of more hierarchical structures. The education market and competition between institutions is being facilitated by governments around the world, which are increasingly privatizing education, health care, and all other social needs.

In June 2012 alone, we recorded 45 protests in more than 40 cities in connection with the struggle for free emancipatory education. Governments have chronically underfunded the institutions, often using the current economic crisis as a pretext. They promote 'solutions' such as: rankings encouraging competition; closing schools that 'underperform'; increasing student enrollment without increasing faculty, staff, and student resources; outsourcing everything that can be outsourced; promoting elite institutions. All these 'solutions' are steps towards an increasing commodification and privatization of education, which also has negative impacts on the conditions for teaching and learning.

The education market and national states require that profits take priority over developing the capabilities for emancipatory thinking. Both need obeying 'citizens', consumers and cheap labour, not emancipated individuals living self-determined lives.

We are being mechanized to function as cogs in the capitalist machine. We are socialized to compete with our fellows on every level. Our creativity, our energy and our free spirits are actively being crushed by the educational institution.

The education system within capitalism consists mainly of training factories which are supposed to produce human capital for the exploitation on the labour market as well as knowledge to be commodified. To point out these links and interrupt this mode of production we herewith call for the closing down of educational institutions worldwide during the Global Education Strike.


All justice begins with knowledge. Stand with us as one this October and November, and the whole world will hear our call to Reclaim Education.