January 20th. It's Occupy San Francisco's Turn.
On a warm and sunny November 2nd, on a few days notice, 20,000+ people gathered in Oakland, California as part of a historic General Strike and the first Occupy Oakland Port shutdown.
On a cold mid-December day, 5000+ people from around the Bay came to that same city and participated as Occupy Oakland catalyzed protests against the one percent across the country and shut down the Port of Oakland again.
Now, it's Occupy San Francisco's turn to party.
On January 20th, five days hence, OSF welcomes you to
Occupy Wall Street West
A DAYLONG NONVIOLENT MASS OCCUPATION
of the Wall St. banks & corporations attacking our communities, homes, education, environment, livelihood, and democracy.
Note: This diary is a redo of this one, published Friday morning, in hopes the evening crowd will take note.
It's happening.
And it looks like it's going to happen big. Occupies around the Bay Area are in support, including Occupy Davis (just back from the holidays and ready to send participants), Occupy Oakland (passing a resolution of support unanimously a few weeks ago), and Occupy SF State University. Also participating will be a diverse collection of progressive organizations (thirty are listed on the website) such as
- Causa Justa; Just Cause
- Progressive Workers Alliance
- San Francisco Labor Council
- California Nurses Association
- Code Pink
- San Francisco Interfaith Allies of Occupy
Why is it happening?
Among the reasons listed are
- To end corporate personhood! Corporations are NOT people; Money is NOT speech. January 20th is the anniversary eve of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which further privileged corporations over people in our Constitution.
- To expose how Wall St. operates in our midst, attacking our communities, homes, livelihoods, education, environment, democracy, and health.
- To demand that banks stop foreclosing on our neighbors and evicting them from their homes for profit.
Specific targets for actions have been designated on this cool Action Map; most are located in the heart of San Francisco's financial district and easily accessible by BART.
Actions will be happening in three waves: starting at 6:00 AM, 12:00 noon and 5:00 PM. But if you don't want to target anything in particular, I'm told there will be plenty to keep you entertained -- the plan is for it to be a street fair and a protest rolled into one.
If you'd like to participate, vast amounts of information on what's happening, how to help and what to do are available on the Occupy Wall Street West website. Or, hell, you can just show up.
More cool posters are available here for download.
Aloha. (Just make sure you stop when you see the Pacific Ocean...)
Occupy Wall Street West.