Power to the People!

2011-10-02 "Wall Street protesters: We're in for the long haul" by VERENA DOBNIK from "Associated Press"
NEW YORK (AP) — Protesters who have been camping out in Manhattan's Financial District say their movement has grown and become more organized, and they have no intention of stopping as they move into their third week, following the second weekend in a row of mass arrests.
The Occupy Wall Street demonstration started out small last month, with less than a dozen college students spending days and nights in Zuccotti Park, a private plaza off Broadway. It has grown sizably, however, both in New York City and elsewhere as people in other communities across the country display their solidarity in similar protests.
The event has drawn protesters of diverse ages and occupations who are speaking out against corporate greed, social inequality, global climate change and other concerns.
Kira Moyer-Sims, 19, of Portland, Ore., said things have changed a lot since the protest started, with the group much more organized. "We have a protocol for most things," she said, including what to do when people are arrested in terms of getting legal help.
She said the protest would only continue.
"They thought we were going to leave and we haven't left," she said of city officials.
"We're going to stay as long as we can," she added.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the department wouldn't be changing its approach to handling the protest, that it would continue regular patrols and monitoring but not assign additional officers. Police officers have been a regular sight at the plaza.
"As always, if it is a lawful demonstration, we help facilitate and if they break the law we arrest them," Browne said.
The Fire Department said it had gone to the site several times over the past week to check for any fire safety hazards arising from people living in the plaza, but there have been no major issues.
On Sunday, a group of New York public school teachers sat in the plaza, including Denise Martinez. The 47-year-old Brooklyn resident works at a school where most students are at poverty level.
"The bottom line is the feeling that the financial industries here on Wall Street have caused the economic problems, and they're not contributing their fair share to solving them," she said of her reasons for camping out Sunday.
She said funding for education has shrunk to the point where her classes are as large as about 50.
"These are America's future workers, and what's trickling down to them are the problems - the unemployment, the crime."
Another voice on Sunday belonged to Jackie Fellner, a 32-year-old marketing manager from Westchester County.
"We're not here to take down Wall Street. It's not poor against rich. It's about big money dictating which politicians get elected and what programs get funded," she said.
Gatherings elsewhere included one in Providence, R.I., that attracted about 60 people to a public park. The participants called it a "planning meeting" and initially debated whether to allow reporters to cover it.
In Boston, protesters set up an encampment across the street from the Federal Reserve Building.
The New York City protesters have spent most of their time in the plaza, sleeping on air mattresses, holding assemblies at which they discuss their goals and listening to speakers including celebrity activist Michael Moore and Princeton University professor Cornel West.
On the past two Saturdays, though, they marched to other parts of the city, which led to tense standoffs with police. On Sept. 24, about 100 people were arrested and the group put out video which showed some women being hit with pepper spray by a police official. On Oct. 1, more than 700 people were arrested as the group attempted to cross to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Some of the protesters said they were lured onto the roadway by police, or they didn't hear the calls from authorities to head to the pedestrian walkway. Police said no one was tricked into being arrested, and those in the back of the group who couldn't hear were allowed to leave.
The NYPD on Sunday released video footage to back up its stance. In one of the videos, an official uses a bullhorn to warn the crowd. Marchers can be seen chanting, "Take the bridge."
Browne said that of the most recent arrests, the vast majority had been released. Eight people were held, three because of outstanding warrants and five others who refused to show any identification.

Nikki Angelo, of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., greets inquisitive pedestrians at the Occupy Wall Street protest's welcoming table in the financial district's Zuccotti park, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011, in New York. The table provides protest literature and an opportunity for new participants to join the demonstrations. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Protestors at Occupy Wall Street's media area coordinate news updates on laptop computers powered by a portable gas-powered generator in Manhattan's financial district's Zuccotti park, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011, in New York. The Occupy Wall Street demonstration started out small, with less than a dozen college students, but has grown to include thousands of people in communities across the country. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Members of the Occupy Wall Street media organization produced bails of newspapers chronicling the past three weeks of protests under the title "The Occupied Wall Street Journal," Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011, in New York.
Volunteers with varying levels of medical expertise man the make-shift hospital area at the Occupy Wall Street protests in the financial district's Zuccotti park, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011, in New York. Medical supplies are either donated by sympathizers or purchased with crowd-sourced funds from the demonstrators. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

2011-10-02 "Declaration of the Occupation of New York City"
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
* They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
* They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
* They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
* They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
* They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
* They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
* They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
* They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
* They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
* They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
* They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
* They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
* They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
* They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
* They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
* They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
* They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
* They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
* They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
* They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
* They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
* They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
* They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.