Towards an Enlightened & Sustainable World

Occupy Movement News Round-Up 11/25

ATLANTA: Occupy Atlanta set up its own “really, really free market” downtown as an alternative to Black Friday shopping. The market opened in Woodruff Park at 3 p.m., featuring free food, clothing and other items.

COLUMBIA, SC: Gov. Nikki Haley issued an order November 16th that protesters had to leave Statehouse grounds after 6 p.m. each night. 19 protesters were arrested and charged with trespassing when they refused to leave. Then this week, the protesters were back. Department of Public Safety director Leroy Smith said the protesters could stay on the grounds past 6, but they could not have sleeping bags or other camping gear. Some of the protesters filed a lawsuit claiming infringement of their First Amendment rights. Judge Alison Lee agreed and issued a 10-day temporary restraining order against the governor, allowing the protesters not only to stay at the Statehouse but also allowing them to sleep in tents.

DENVER: There has been a recent trend of police officers ticketing those who honk in support or stop in front of the occupation site at Civic Center Park. about 12:30 yesterday afternoon, when a lone donation ranger attempted to stop in front of the occupation to drop off Thanksgiving food to the gathering outside. Worried that she, like a very generous handful of others, might receive a $130 ticket for impeding traffic for her efforts, protesters tried to wave her around the corner, where they would walk to her, grab the donations and walk them back to camp. (This has since become the new policy for donations.) But the woman wasn’t having it. Instead, protesters on the ground say she knowingly pulled a full stop — and made a statement. The woman, whose name has not yet been released for her protection, pulled up in front of the camp, only to immediately be greeted by three police cars on her tail. The area is consistently monitored by at least three police cars on a daily basis, and any actions are quickly spotted by the group’s DPD bodyguards. Instead of taking a ticket quietly, she put her pedal to the metal and sped around the block, turning left on 14th, left on Colfax and back onto Broadway before she kept driving and then eventually parked down the street in front of the main library. At this point, awed protesters came to meet her and surrounded her car to block it from potential police intervention. During the sound of cheers in the park, with at least twenty protesters gathered around her, she got off scot-free, at least for the time being.

EL SALVADOR: At the U.S. embassy on Thursday (Nov. 24), Ambassador Carmen Aponte held a gala Thanksgiving dinner for a select group of local and North American guests. Outside the castle-like embassy compound, there were some uninvited visitors as well. Nearly 100 Salvadorans and U.S citizens gathered to display their solidarity with the global Occupy/Indignados movement in the first Central American OWS-inspired protest. Nice article, click through to read more about it.

EUGENE, OR: Occupy Eugene protesters were moving from store to store in Eugene, Ore., urging shoppers to spend less money on what they call “Buy Nothing Day.”

HONOLULU: More than a dozen Occupy Honolulu protesters demonstrated in front of a Walmart store in Honolulu, Hawaii, in the predawn hours, NBC station KHNL of Honolulu reported.

LOS ANGELES: This morning in Porter Ranch, an affluent neighborhood in L.A., a woman pepper sprayed about 20 Walmart shoppers and their children, vying to get a limited quantity available X-Box 360 video game. They are calling it “competitive shopping”. The police were called. Emergency medical techs were called. It made national news. (The woman must have been quite shocked that such an act was illegal seeing as it has become quiet the customary activity of our “trusted” police forces against peaceful protesters.)

NASHVILLE: About a dozen of the 60 Occupy Nashville participants protesting corporate greed held an impromptu flash mob down the yarn and crafts isle, chanting “Wal-Mart employees don’t even benefit from over-time pay for their labor today.” They plan to stick notes on items that read: “Draw something, sew something…make something, buy nothing.” Also overnight, the group emerged from two vans to sing in front of a line of shoppers waiting outside the Best Buy in Nashville West. “Jingle Bells, shopping smells, make it go away,” they sang. “Cut up all your credit cards and go outside and play … HEY!”

MONTREAL: In Montreal, police moved in just before 9 a.m. to oust demonstrators who have been camping out in the downtown Victoria Square, near the Montreal Exchange, for more than a month.Police sealed off streets around the square and told the protesters at 9:06 a.m. they had to disperse. Officers then immediately began dismantling tents and clearing debris from the site. While there were some verbal disputes and lots of shouting, the Occupy Montreal protesters did not resist.

OKLAHOMA CITY: Ten Occupy Oklahoma City protesters were arrested Friday morning after a protest at a Walmart store in Del City, Okla. One of those arrested, Mark Faulk, 55, of Oklahoma City told the newspaper that he was filming the group’s “mic check” when “Del City police ran and started tackling people from behind.” Police Lt. Steve Robinson told The Associated Press that no excessive force was used.

OAKLAND: Occupy Oakland’s Thanksgiving gathering turned violent Thursday after police orchestrated the removal of portable toilets from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Port-a-potties were delivered but police prevented them from being unloaded. “Then, for reasons unknown, a scuffle begins between two officers and a man, and the three fall to the ground,” Mercury News reports. Officers then appear to put handcuffs on the man and another person on the ground. “Later in the video, you can see a cop drawing his taser, and a resident preventing him from discharging his weapon,” Occupy Oakland says. People in the encampment can be heard yelling for an ambulance. The group announced on Twitter about 12:45 p.m. that it was gathering at the site they call Oscar Grant Plaza to celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

PHILADELPHIA: Managing Director Negrin responded that Occupy Philadelphia could move to Thomas Paine Plaza and continue its activities, if they agreed to a set of new terms and conditions, including: A limit on activity from 9 am to 7pm; Agreement that no overnight activity or sleeping is allowed; And that no structures or tents are allowed. Today, the Managing Director has reviewed the appeal and granted a revised demonstration permit for Occupy Philadelphia Reasonable Solutions. Click through to see more details.

SAN FRANCISCO: On the busiest shopping day of the year, Occupy SF protesters tried to shop-block consumers from buying gifts in Union Square. For a while, dozens of demonstrators sat in the middle of the intersection at Geary and Stockton streets, blocking traffic. But after police created a barricade around the intersection, the protesters got up and started doing laps around Union Square as hundreds of curious shoppers looked on. They later went and sat in the intersection at Geary and Post streets. They’re don’t appear to have been any arrests so far.

SEATTLE: Police have launched an internal investigation after a 19-year-old woman claims she suffered a miscarriage after being pepper-sprayed at an Occupy Seattle protest. Jennifer M. Fox says police kicked her and hit her in the stomach with a bicycle at the encampment on November 15 and also doused her with pepper spray. She says she was three months pregnant at the time. After being kicked and sprayed, she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance where she said an ultrasound confirmed that her baby had not been affected. But she began cramping and went back to the hospital five days later, and she said she was then told by doctors that there was no heartbeat for the baby. SOURCE.
On Black Friday, Occupy Seattle held a rally from noon to 5 p.m. at Westlake Park in Seattle’s downtown retail core and a demonstration at 2 p.m. at the Wal-Mart in Renton. Occupy Seattle says it’s promoting homemade gifts and local businesses as an alternative to what it calls “rampant consumerism that plagues society, destroys the environment and supports the 1 percent.” SOURCE.

TORONTO: More than 1,000 union members marched through downtown Toronto Thursday afternoon alongside about 100 Occupy protesters from Toronto, London, Kingston, Hamilton and Ottawa. Occupy signs and union flags in hand, union members and protesters gathered outside City Hall and marched through the financial district to the Toronto Stock Exchange, chanting “We are the 99 per cent!” The rally comes a day after police and bylaw officers cleared St. James Park, the epicentre of Toronto’s Occupy movement since it began Oct. 15. The daylong operation saw 11 protesters arrested, all tents and yurts dismantled and the park cleared of garbage. Despite their eviction, protesters have vowed to keep the movement alive — and labour unions want to help.

WINNIPEG, CA: The Manitoba government has issued a warning to the Occupy Winnipeg group after a tent fire ripped through its site on Friday. The blaze was reported around 5:30 a.m. The province said it’s concerned following the tent fire and is prepared to shut the camp down at Memorial Park, across from the legislature, if vacant tents are not removed and if safety measures are not followed. Jeffrey Kohut lost all his possessions in the fire. That’s not as sad to me as what this might cause negatively for the occupy movement, I hope I haven’t contributed to that,” said Kohut. “We’re restructuring and we’re getting more organized so that we’re more safe,” said Terry Weaymouth from the Occupy Winnipeg movement.

Source: occupyonline