Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Updates 11/8/11

Good morning everyone!

Yesterday was an amazing day at SIUC. The student rally drew in over 700 people in support of our striking faculty. You can see a video of this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=MxGevSUX21M . *I actually appear near the end of this video, but I'm not telling you where. :) *
For images and information about why we are doing this, visit http://occupysiuc.wordpress.com/.

And now for your daily updates:

-- About 70 students from Harvard walked out of their Economics class yesterday to protest their professor's teachings, in solidarity with OWS. They claim he uses little to no primary sources or journal articles in his instruction, and that Harvard fails to give them a broad or critical view of the system. The professor had been critical of OWS in the past.

-- Occupy Wall Street has tents popping up all over, and military grade ones at that. In preparation for the harsh winter ahead, OWS has ordered at least 25 of these specialized tents, with plans to use them to stave off hypothermia.

-- Occupy DC has supplied a police report that shows a fourth demonstrator was actually hit by the same car that hit the other three protesters last week. Occupiers are calling for an in depth investigation.

-- 43 Occupy Chicago protesters were cited for blocking traffic at an intersection. The demonstrators were senior citizens who were protesting the proposed cuts to medical and social security benefits.

-- Occupy Riverside was raided Sunday night, and even some police officers are saying it was handled badly. Tents were slashed and bedding was dumped into the river. One Occupier claims she was dragged by her hair, but the police chief discounts that. He did, however, say that several of his officers are being retrained on how to remove encampments.

-- 22 members of Occupy Worcester were arrested over the weekend for staying in a park past closing time at 10pm. The Occupiers are planning a similar event for this weekend.

-- Occupy Tuscon is officially fed up with the city. They have filed a lawsuit to prevent any more arrests, and have filed for a temporary restraining order. Over 450 citations have been issued to Occupiers in Tuscon since the movement began.

-- Occupy Everett has announced they are standing in solidarity with postal workers. They are sending out solidarity statements to other Washington movements, including Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, and all other local occupations.

-- Rural Occupy movements are cropping up more and more often, while editorials and opinion pieces say the movements are dying. Can't really have it both ways, media.

**Amazing story**

-- Steinar Skramstrad is cold. Very cold. He is Occupying the space outside his parents home, which doesn't generally sound like much, until you realize where they are. Steinar is a one man revolutionary, as it says in the news piece, because he is Occupying Antartica. He is protesting, by himself, in negative 50 degree (F) temperatures.

**

-- Occupy Ft. Myers is returning to Centennial Park after leaving the courthouse. They were granted a permit, and have been working on the move for a few days.

-- According to CBS News, San Diego Occupiers grew angry with street vendors when they ran out of food to give away, and began to vandalize their carts, rob them, and throw blood and urine on them. CBS reports a fundraiser is ongoing to replace the damaged carts, but no other information or news sources are carrying this story. Hmm.

-- Rev. Jesse Jackson is having a very public brawl with the niece of MLK. She is claiming her uncle would never have supported OWS, and he is calling her out on it.

-- Occupy groups across the country are hitting the courtrooms hard, with First Amendment in hand. Nashville, Tuscon, and Cincinnati are some of the many fighting ongoing court battles to be free to assemble.

-- Occupiers in Russia have had every protest end with mass arrests, most recently in Moscow.

That's all I have time for today everyone. I'm running a little behind. Please, email me if you have any new information, comments, or corrections at elvishbutterfly@hotmail.com.

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