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UE union is occupying Serious Materials factory, the former Republic Windows, right now.

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1333 N. Hickory Chicago (Division & 3 blocks west of Halsted)

• Smaller Class Sizes
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To show our power, on May 1st, 2012, we will be organizing for such a mass participatory and bold collective action: a national general strike, mass boycott, student strike/ walk-out and mass day of action. We will be organizing within our unions- or informal workplace organizations where there’s no union or the union isn’t supportive- to hold a one-day general strike. Where a strike is not possible, we will be organizing people to call in sick, or take a personal day, as part of a coordinated “sick-out”. Those who are students will be walking-out of their schools (or not showing up in the first place). In the community, we will be holding a mass boycott and refusing to make any purchase on that day.

We, the 99%, will build our power and show our power until we’ve occupied our workplaces, our communities, our schools, our lives, our world… until we’ve occupied everything!

[Castellano]

Which way forward for the 99%?

Build Power & Show Power through Mass Participatory Bold Action

There have been a wave of repressive attacks on, and evictions of, various Occupy camp sites throughout the country including where the movement started in Zucotti (Liberty) Park. But even before the evictions and repression escalated to the current levels, questions were being asked: what’s the way forward for the movement? Already there have been glimpses of organizing and action that are leading the way and shining a light for the rest of us to follow: the Oakland General Strike, Occupy Foreclosures, and other actions. These actions show that, fundamentally, all of the strategic questions revolve around the question of power. The power of the 99% vs. the power of the 1%

Although the 99% holds enormous power -all wealth is generated, and the current society is built and maintained through, the collective labor (paid and unpaid) of the 99%-, we do not frequently exercise this collective power in our own interests. Too often we fight amongst and scapegoat each other as the source of the problem through: racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, occupational elitism, geographical prejudice, heterosexism, and other forms of division, oppression and prejudice. This is necessary for the 1% to maintain control because their power is only exercised by different segments of the 99% actively oppressing and working against other segments of the 99%, in addition to us neither being fully aware of, nor organizing to utilize, the collective power we have. The result is that many segments of the the 99%- people of color, women, GLBTQ, immigrants, those with less formal educational credentials, those in less socially respected occupations or unemployed, the homeless, and others- deal with overlapping forms of oppression and societal prejudice; all of us remain divided amongst each other; and the 1% continues to increase their power and wealth because of this.

Currently, the state of the economy has hit all of us (some facing overlapping prejudice and oppression, harder than others). There are too many people out of work; our pay has barely or hasn’t kept up with rising costs; our social services have continued to be cut; our influence on government has eroded; and our civil liberties have been attacked. This has been going on while the elites of this country have captured an increasing share of wealth; have had the highest decreases in the amount of taxes they pay; have attacked our social services and organizations of popular defense (such as our unions and community organizations); and have consolidated to an even greater degree their power over politics. The Business Insider- ironically- provides one of the more useful series of charts that root the Occupy movement’s concerns in the sobering historical fact that we experience.[1]

The way forward must involve building and showing our popular power against that of the elite. But the form of our power must be different from theirs: we must fight fire with water. Where they exercise hierarchical power over us to dominate, control, exploit and oppress; we must build and exercise horizontal, bottom-up power with each other to cooperate, liberate and collectively empower each other. We need to organize ourselves autonomously from all forms of hierarchical power relations in our communities, schools and workplaces to fight collectively for our interests. This must include a rejection of attempts to divide and rule us; a rejection of racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, elitism and other forms of oppression; a rejection of attempts by electoral parties, powerful special interest groups and others to co-opt and control our movement.

The camp occupations built the movement and brought global attention to the variety of concerns of the 99%. They inspired many; provided a sense of hope and solidarity; brought economic justice and the problems of power inequality back into spotlight of national conversation; highlighted the need for cultures, societies and institutions of direct democracy based on “power with”- not “power over” – each other; served as a spaces of convergence for sharing ideas and planning action; and in some camps, they even provided a temporary space for those who needed a home and a community where folks could face less harassment than they normally faced. The camp occupations have served a fundamental role in the movement; but it’s time to move beyond them.

We need to develop the movement beyond the camp because the majority of the 99% can’t camp out in a city center. The majority of the 99% have obligations and vulnerabilities that prevent them from such time-consuming, geographically-specific action including: work, school, responsibilities in caring for children or other dependents, particular health needs, etc. So in order for us to truly exercise our power as the 99% and to truly be participatory, we need to find ways where all of us can participate, and be valued, in whatever capacity and with whatever time we have to contribute. We need our action to be as participatory, diverse and widespread as possible. We must boldly show and build our collective power.

Show Power

To show our power, on May 1st, 2012, we will be organizing for such a mass participatory and bold collective action: a national general strike, mass boycott, student strike/ walk-out and mass day of action. We will be organizing within our unions- or informal workplace organizations where there’s no union or the union isn’t supportive- to hold a one-day general strike. Where a strike is not possible, we will be organizing people to call in sick, or take a personal day, as part of a coordinated “sick-out”. Those who are students will be walking-out of their schools (or not showing up in the first place). In the community, we will be holding a mass boycott and refusing to make any purchase on that day.

This action will necessarily be a symbolic show of power because any decrease in economic activity that day will likely be compensated for by purchases and extra work activity the days before and after May 1st. But it will be symbolic in the way a cannon shot across the bow of a ship is symbolic: it doesn’t do any damage; but it warns our opponent that we are willing and able to damage their boat if necessary. And perhaps just as important as the day itself, the massive organizing and outreach efforts in the months leading up to May 1st will allow us the opportunity to talk to our co-workers, families, neighbors, communities, and friends about the issues of the 99%, the source of our power, the need for us to stand up to the attacks we are facing, the need to confront the various oppressions that keep most of us down in one way or another (some of especially so) and all of us divided, and the need for us to stand in solidarity with each other to fight for our collective interests, which is structurally, and therefore inherently, against the interests of the 1%. We can build our collective consciousness, capacity, and confidence through this process; and come out stronger because of it.

Build Power

In addition to showing our power on May 1st, we need to build bases of popular, bottom-up, collective, anti-oppressive and anti-hierarchical power in our workplaces, communities, and schools. So we will be doing a variety of workshops, building a variety of organizing campaigns, and engaging a variety of actions on the local level to contribute to the building of such collective power. Some of the workshops, campaigns and actions that we will develop and engage in include: organizing new unions, becoming more active in participatory unions; making our hierarchical unions more participatory; occupying foreclosures; building tenant unions; blocking evictions; preventing foreclosures; and creating solidarity networks, to name a few. We will not be co-opted by electoral parties, or hierarchical organizations looking to use the movement to serve their interest while diffusing our power. Instead we will organize, educate, and agitate where we are at to build power with each other and to fight directly for our interests: the interests of popular power against the interests of elite power. All of us must contribute for this effort to be effective; but, to the greatest degree possible, those contributions must be collective in nature because our true power is in our solidarity with each other.

Through this effort we are looking to offer real solutions to addressing issues of immediate concern where each of us is at, through direct collective action from the bottom-up. The goal is to continue the ongoing shift currently happening within the movement from just mobilizing, to organizing (or to move from mobilization, to massification[2]). Mobilizing is necessary, but it is not enough. We can’t just call people out to engage in action. We need to build the networks, organizations and campaigns that provide the opportunities for an ever greater number of people to participate in the decision-making process and functioning of the autonomous popular organizations we are creating. Our movement is leaderless, which also means that we all must be leaders. But the leadership we build is again, with, not over, others. We need to all truly listen to and support each other in developing our consciousness, capacities and confidence. We need to see the fights against the various oppressions which keep folks down and divide the 99% against itself, as central to, not distractions from, the effectiveness of our struggle. We must discourage and isolate egotistical, self-serving and movement-killing tendencies we encounter while encouraging and developing collective, liberatory and movement-building tendencies. Our participatory, bottom-up networks, organizations and campaigns will be the way through which we build our power and make small gains in the medium term. But they will also serve as the basis for a new world that we are building toward. This new world in our hearts that we are building and showing, within the shell of the old one that we are confronting, is one in which people share power with, not over, each other. It’s where workers themselves democratically control their workplaces; where everyone can find meaningful, socially-useful and balanced work that is carried out in comfortable conditions. It’s where those who aren’t able to work (or who have put in their share of their lifetime) are taken care of by society; where we abolish rulers over us and instead societies directly decide for themselves how to live, develop and grow. It’s where our environments are healthy, beautiful and sustainable; where we all have the educational and social opportunities to develop and contribute our full capacities to our families and societies. It’s where people can live in nice homes and safe communities, get their health needs fully taken care of, eat healthy and well, and not have to worry about meeting their needs or the needs of their families; where we can all have time and resources to enjoy life; and where the global human society is driven not by competition, oppression, exploitation, domination and war; but by love, freedom and solidarity. We, the 99%, will build our power and show our power until we’ve occupied our workplaces, our communities, our schools, our lives, our world… until we’ve occupied everything!

PROMOTE THIS FACEBOOK EVENT:
Let’s build the power of the 99% so we can show the power of the 99%!
Cities/Occupy GAs Who’ve Endorsed the Call for an International General Strike on May 1st 2012. Email occupymayfirst at gmail dot com or occupym1 at riseup dot net if your GA or organization endores the call!
Miami…, Los Angeles, Boston, Riverside, CA, Long Beach, CA, Venice, CA, Melbourne, Australia
LINK UP WITH OCCUPY MAY FIRST #occupym1
Friend: Occupy May 1st Like: Occupy May 1st Follow: Occupy May 1st

Occupy May 1st

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1
[2] http://libcom.org/library/mobilisation-massification

Occupy Chicago’s Overnight Occupation with Pastor Corey Brooks

New Beginnings Church of Chicago, 6620 S. King Drive

7pm

Occupy Chicago, South Side Rooftop Reverend Encamp to End Community Violence and Improve Lives of the 99%

Chicago 12/2 – Sunday, Occupy Chicago will unite with Pastor Corey Brooks’ one-man Occupation to promote community improvement and halt violence in the Woodlawn and Englewood neighborhoods.

Brooks has said he began camping because he has buried too many teenagers.

“I am here because I can no longer sit on my apathy and continue to watch our young men and women gunned down, victims of violence and their families being left with grief, heartache and disappointments. We have an opportunity to change a community by creating jobs and saving the lives of many young children and teens by acquiring and developing this abandoned motel right across the street from my church,” Brooks said on his website.

This Sunday, Occupy Chicago, along with Occupy the South Side and Occupy The Hood Chicago, will hold a General Assembly at Pastor Brooks’ occupied hotel at 66th and King Dr. across from New Beginnings Church of Chicago, at 7pm. Later, they will join the Brooks and encamp with tents overnight. Previously, over 300 Occupy Chicago supporters have been arrested for attempting to establish their own community encampment and have been denied permanent public space by “Mayor 1%” Emanuel.

“”Mayor 1%” Emanuel has said he supports Brooks’ actions. What Rahm doesn’t realize is his and his predecessors’ budget cuts and defunding of schools and social services have destroyed Chicago’s neighborhoods. If Rahm really wants to support Brooks, he should start by actually representing the 99%’s needs with a more equitable budget,” said Carter Faillan, a participant in Occupy Chicago.

Pastor Brooks is raising money to purchase the vacant hotel through Project HOOD and with neighborhood help, rehabilitate it in to a community and economic development center.

“At Occupations across Chicago, we are all working to improve life for the 99%. We are sick of politicians taking advantage of our votes and then ignoring our community needs. We will be the change we wish to see. We will take back our neighborhoods and occupy spaces like Pastor Brooks, turning them in to community centers, not bank-owned empty eyesores. We will take our country back one building at a time,” said Loren Taylor of Occupy the Hood Chicago.

For more information on Pastor Brooks, see http://www.projecthood.org/Pastor_Corey_Brooks.html

For more information on Occupy Chicago’s Overnight Encampment, see http://www.facebook.com/events/211539028920120

The court location is 2452 W. Belmont 2:30pm.

Articles about the action:
http://www.thenation.com/article/164030/rediscovering-civil-disobedience
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ct-biz-1012-phil-20111012,0,6969721.column
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKwPT6AbqVU

Tuesday, November 8 · 5:30pm – 8:30pm

Plaza Tenochtitlan – 18th St & Blue Island & Loomis

When: Saturday and Sunday July 9th and the 10th 2011 all day

What to Do: Call Owner Tom KirkPatrick.   If he doesn’t answer leave a message.

Demand: That fellow worker Matthew Bair be reinstated and to continue work at Jimmy Johns.  That they stop their campaign against Jimmy Johns workers organizing for a better future.

Sample Text: Hello Mr. KirkPatrick, I am calling to insist that fellow worker Matthew Bair be reinstated at Jimmy Johns.  It is illegal to terminate someone for their organizing activity.  Please join the consensus of working people around the nation and stop the union busting efforts against your workers.

Tom KirkPatrick

Phone: (616) 617 3773

Grand Rapids, MI

The Jimmy Johns Workers Union, open to employees at the company nationwide, is affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the the World labor union.  Gaining prominence in recent years for organizing Starbucks workers, the IWW is a global union founded over a century ago for all working people.

**Español abajo**
Join Us In Solidarity: Resist Police Repression of Political Expression!
Chicago May Day March Organizing Committee and Supporters against the Chicago Police Department’s May Day March Unjust & Unlawful Citation
Save the Dates:

Thursday May 19th at Noon
We count on you to attend the Press Conference, Action and Picket in front of the Chicago Police Department Headquarters (Thursday May 19th, 12noon, 3510 S. Michigan Ave). We will present a Citation to the CPD for their illegitimate attempts to limit political expression and for their ongoing attacks against the immigrant community.

Tuesday May 24th at 9:30am
We count on you to attend and help mobilize people for the Court Hearing and protest through your organization’s networks: website, listservs, media contacts, allies. Stand with us Tuesday May 24, 2011 at 9:30am, 400 W. Superior, Room 101 (Our Goal of Supporters for the Court Date is 1,000 and more supporters. Supporters’ presence is Vital!)

What happened on May Day, 2011 is part of a pattern of repression that we must face as members of a local, national and international community. We see it as no coincidence that the CPD first singled out a young activist of color. We are all too familiar with this cynical abuse of power that could not allow a collective of voices speaking against the status quo to have the final word. We know that this citation is not intended to punish us for where we marched, but for the fact that we marched at all. This citation is one seemingly arbitrary action, but we know it to be part of a pattern of police repression of political action.

If you also feel as compelled as we are to act on behalf of our right to assemble and our right to be free from intimidation, join us in resistance! Support our actions by signing on to this letter and by mobilizing others to do so as well.

We Invite You to Join Us! And ask for your Endorsement and Support for the Chicago May Day March Organizing Committee against the CPD’s May Day March Citation.
Send your organization’s name and contact info to:
moratoriumondeportaions@gmail.com
Visit:http://moratoriumondeportations.org/
To review the account of the events and for more detail information on “What Really Happened on May 1st 2011″

***********************************************************
Únase a nosotros en Solidaridad
¡Resistiendo a la represión policial por causa de la expresión política!
Comité Organizador de la Marcha del Primero de Mayo y partidarios se unen en contra de la injusta e ilegitima Citación que la policía municipal otorgó al grupo por haber marchado en la calle.

Guarde las Fechas:

Jueves, 19 de Mayo a las 12 del Mediodía
Contamos con ustedes para asistir a la conferencia de prensa, Acción y piquete en frente a la sede del Departamento de Policía de Chicago (Jueves 19 de Mayo, 12 del mediodía. 3510 S. Michigan Ave.) Vamos a presentar una citación a la CPD por sus intentos ilegítimos de limitar la expresión política y de los ataques en curso en contra de la comunidad inmigrante.

Martes, 24 de Mayo a las 9:30 am
Contamos con ustedes para ayudar a movilizar a la gente y asistir a la audiencia y protesta (El día Martes 24 de mayo 2011 a las 9:30 am, Dirección: 400 W. Superior, Sala 101) a través de sus redes de organización: página web, listas de correo, contactos de prensa, aliados, etc. (Nuestra meta de personas de apoyo para la audiencia es de 1, 000 y más personas. ¡La presencia de la gente el día de la corte es vital!)

Lo que pasó el primero de mayo es parte de un patrón de represión que debemos enfrentar como miembros de una comunidad local, nacional e internacional. Vemos que no es una simple coincidencia que el departamento de la policía haiga señalado primero, como responsable de los hechos, a un joven activista de color. Estamos muy familiarizados con este abuso cínico de poder que no permite, acepta o reconoce la última palabra de las voces colectivas que denuncian y hablan en contra del sistema.Sabemos que esta Citación a corte no pretende castigarnos por el donde marchamos, si no por el simplemente hecho de que marchamos en lo absoluto. Esta Citación es una acción aparentemente arbitraria, pero sabemos que es parte de un patrón de represión policial de acciones políticas y que las consecuencias no solo nos afectan a nosotros como organizadores y activistas de derechos.

Si te sientes con la misma convicción que nosotros tenemos para actuar en nombre de nuestro derecho de reunión y nuestro derecho a estar libre de intimidación, ¡únete a nosotros en la resistencia! Apoya nuestras acciones mediante la firma de la presente Nota y ayuda a la movilización de los demás a hacer lo mismo.

¡Te invitamos a participar! Y pedimos tu respaldo y apoyo para el Comité Organizador de la Marcha Primero de Mayo 2011 en contra de la Citación a corte que otorgó el departamento de la policía de Chicago Envía el nombre de tu organización e información de contacto a:
moratoriumondeportaions@gmail.com

Para revisar la cuenta de los hechos y para mas informacion y como apoyar favor de Visitar la pagina web:
http://moratoriumondeportations.org/