On Monday, October 15th 2012, Occupy Chicago and the Overpass Light Brigade Light Up the Streets in Solidarity with the Occupy Our Homes Movement.

Hot on the heels of Occupy Chicago's court victory over last year's illegal eviction from Grant Park (all charges for the 305 arrestees have been dropped) the group teamed up with the Wisconsin-based Overpass Light Brigade in a joint action Monday night. It served to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the eviction and raise awareness of the national foreclosure crisis.

With 14 million home foreclosures recorded in the last five years, we cannot lose track of the fact that those homes contained people – mothers, fathers, kids and grandparents – many of whom could have remained in their homes if the banks were willing to work with the families to come up with some kind of shared financial sacrifice. But no, the bailed-out institutions who streamlined their mass-robbery with predatory lending, robosigners, and mortgage-backed securities still have little interest in fixing the problems they created. That leaves it up to citizen activists in the growing home defense movement to find creative techniques to draw attention to this national disgrace.

Occupy Chicago and the OLB marched through downtown Chicago with their beautiful light message before gathering at "The Horse" statue in Grant Park for a speak-out against the banks. It was a fine example of the power of peaceful and playful protest.

Interested in organizing your own LED-powered resistance action? Start here:

• http://overpasslightbrigade.org/
• http://occupychi.org
• http://occupyriverwest.com/us/occupy-our-homes

Montreal protest, May 22, 2012

VIA22 Call

Student movements, #globalNOISE, Occupy, the Indignados, Take the Square, Democracia Real Ya, Social Forums, Take the Square, Democracia Real Ya, Social Forums, #Yosoy132, Y’en a marre, social movements and long time human rights activists and environmentalists, First Nations, rural and urban populations, organisations of civil society around the world: let us share our knowledge and resources! Let us connect and unite local and global action. May our indignation be our greatest source of creativity…

Who Are We?

VIA22 – a new international, open and horizontal, collective initiated in Montreal, Quebec – is launching monthly processes of local and global actions of convergence every 22nd of each month. These actions will take on the form constructed by local organisers, but, globally, all will manifest a common desire for convergence and unity.

People in Mexico, Spain, Mozambique, Senegal, Belarus, Croatia, England, Austria, Belgium Japan, Greece, El Salvador, Chile and in the US have already expressed an interest in being a part of the movement. Join us in spreading the call as much as possible (translations are welcomed)!

October 22nd 2012 #22O ? Jump in!

On October 22nd, VIA22 will be launched! You want to jump in? Here is how :

• Express yourself on our new site’s, www.via22.org, through the section “Your Voice” (http://via22global.wix.com/via22#!__francais/ta-voix).

• Send us pictures, videos, ideas or all other creative materials about how you see the link between local and global. We will use them to create a portrait of October VIA22. The smalest sign from you will mean a lot to the collective process !

• Twitt #VIA22 #22O

• Come to Mumble (room VIA22) from 12pm to 3pm (GMT-4) to reflect about the process VIA22. Info to get into Mumble : https://occupytalk.org/article/how-connect-our-server

• Watch the livestream channel from VIA22 à Montréal : http://www.om99media.org/p/diffusion-en-direct.html

VIA22 in your area?

If you wish to create a VIA22 collective in your area or network with people around you, please use the Forum. http://via22global.wix.com/via22#!forum

What are the main objectives of VIA22’s monthly process?

• To insist on the necessity of communication and coordination between the local and global.

• To put in question globally the destructive order of things imposed by the hegemony of global political-economic system and its impact on education, health, access to water, security, freedom of expression and association, etc..

• To examine and promote concretes alternatives to a system that deepens inequalities at every level.

• To connect and unite social movements and civil society for the development of global consciousness that respects human dignity and our planet’s ecosystem.

• To insist on the necessity that our popular demonstrations become spaces to share knowledge and to build concrete alternatives.

• To relay initiatives taken by the Indignados, Occupy, #Yosoy132, the Y’en a marre collective, Social Forums all around the world and all other initiatives that affirm the necessity of the multiplication of horizontal, open and inclusive spaces.

CONTACT VIA22GLOBAL:

• via22global@gmail.com

• www.via22.org

• www.interoccupy.net/via22global

• https://www.facebook.com/VIA22GLOBAL

• @via22global #VIA22 #22O

• Livestream : http://www.om99media.org/p/diffusion-en-direct.html

via Occupy Our Homes. Be sure to check out their website for more information on how you can support on-going occupations to save homes from foreclosure, including active campaigns like this one to save the home of cancer patient Jacqueline Barber in Atlanta, the Hernandez family currently being harassed by LAPD in Los Angeles, and many more!

Four years after an economic meltdown precipitated by Wall Street greed, fraud, and recklessness in the housing market, Americans continue to face an epidemic of unjust foreclosures. While homeowners and renters seek help to keep their homes, banks have rushed to foreclose and evict, and in too many communities, homes remain vacant while neighbors sleep on the street.

But homeowners, housing justice activists, homeless advocates, and occupiers have come together to fight back under the banner of the Occupy Our Homes movement. Community organizations and occupy groups came together last December to challenge the housing crisis and confront the crooks at the banks who are stealing our homes. On December 6, 2011, scores of groups around the country participated in a day of action for housing justice, launching the Occupy Our Homes movement.

Homeowners, renters, and the homeless joined forces to fight the banks and reclaim our communities. All over the country, activists declared housing a human right. We came together, occupying our homes to prevent eviction, disrupting foreclosure auctions, restoring vacant homes to community use, and protesting the banks that caused this mess in the first place.

And we showed time and again that when people fought for their homes, they could win.

But the fight is far from over. Despite dozens of victories for homeowners around the country, banks are still choosing to foreclose instead of taking payments. Banks are still refusing to negotiate with families who seek only a fair solution that keeps them in their home. Banks are still using fraudulent tactics like robo-signing to speed through illegal foreclosures—months after a weak settlement meant to stop this practice. Bank-owned houses continue to sit empty and untended, destroying property values and pushing more and more families underwater.

A year since the start of the Occupy Our Homes movement, we are recommitting to reclaiming our homes and our futures. On Thursday December 6th 2012, we call on communities to turn the spotlight on the crisis that continues to hold our neighborhoods and our economy hostage.

We will take action together:

• Eviction defenses/home occupations
• Reclaiming vacant homes for the homeless
• Establishing foreclosure and eviction-free zones
• Foreclosure auction sit-ins
• Marches on the banks

Occupy Our Homes started with a simple idea: bring the bold, creative energy of the Occupy movement into hard-hit communities and build power through victories for the 99%. We've won homes, churches, community landmarks, and stopped evictions while relieving debt and reclaiming land along the way.

On Thursday December 6th, 2012, we’ll re-invest in this movement to defend our homes, hold Wall Street accountable, and affirm the human right to housing. Join us in solidarity with homeowners, tenants and the homeless to build a just housing system—for the 99%.

If you as an individual or any Occupy group or community-based organization are interested in participating in the D6 actions, please complete this form and someone from Occupy Our Homes will be in touch.

Last week we joined the global potbanging-protests targeting the homes, corporate lobbies and leisure locales of the 1%.

The #GlobalNoise effort spotlighted the huge and growing debts ordinary people struggle under, in which millions of us have been seduced into taking on unmanageable mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and more by a corrupt financial system. And movement activists the world over responded in kind, as illustrated by the comprehensive listing of media reports from InterOccupy.net.

This week we will keep building a political movement to #StrikeDebt, including a series of Occupy University discussions on debt. Indeed, you are not a loan, or alone, and with your help the 99% will make sure the world hears all of us.

Wednesday, October 17th, 6:30pm
Occupy Think Tank on Occupy Wall St. Radio
Streaming onwbai.org or FM 99.5 in NYC
This week's Think Tank show will be on housing. What does it mean to have a safe and secure place to live? How does "safe and secure housing" translate into practical terms for people living in NYC and America? How does the concept of ownership and private property factors into secure housing? What’s the relationship between housing and homelessness in America is today. Call in to offer suggestions and comments.

Wednesday, October 17th, 12:15pm
Tear up Your Student Debt
Queens College - Quad
Student debt has reached over a trillion dollars. Over the last 10 years, tuition and fees at state schools have increased 72%. The times are ripe for action! We're calling on everyone who wants to protest outrageously high education costs and mounting student debt to organize actions in their area or join us at Queens College on October 17, where we collectively rip up (or burn up) our student debt statements or tuition bills. We want to send a message that enough is enough!

Thursday, October 18th, 4pm
Hot & Crusty Workers Rally for Justice
Hot & Crusty restaurant, 1201 2nd Ave.
The struggle continues, and despite holding the picket line for over 44 days without a strike fund or any source of financial support, the Hot & Crusty worker’s resolve is stronger than ever. Please join and show management that community presence and participation is still strong and we are watching.

Thursday, October 18th, 4:30pm
International Student Movement - NYC Global Action
Brecht Forum, 451 West St.
Students, youth, and allies have organized an Edu-Festival as part of the International Student Movement's call for a global day of action. It will be a collaborative, celebratory space for developing strategy and sharing about the organizing already underway in New York and across the globe.

Thursday, October 18th, 5:30pm
Romney and Obama in NYC: Protest Austerity
The Waldorf Astoria Hotel at 301 Park Avenue and E.50th St.
Romney and Obama will both be in town for the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner, which is the only NYC event with both presidential candidates present. Join Healthcare for the 99%, Physicians for a National Health Program-NY Metro and allies against cuts to our social safety net – Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Thursday, October 18th, 6pm
Entrepreneurship and Exploitation in the Music Industry
Assembly Hall at Judson Memorial Church - 239 Thompson Street, NYC
Musicians regularly surmount myriad problems from low to no pay, to inconsistent work. We make it work because we have to make a living. These issues are not unique to the music industry. They extend to many professions deemed “entrepreneurial” or “independent”, including taxi drivers, childcare workers, construction workers, writers, and others. Join musicians and other workers for a facilitated discussion and strategy session to explore ways we can act together against the systems that keep us isolated and divided.

Thursday, October 18th, 7pm
The Visual Culture of Debt with Nick Mirzoeff
Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, 323 West 39th Street
Neo-liberalism has visualized the debt society as a distinctly new arrangement of public space that Occupy has tried to counter. While debt is often said to be invisible, it is the means of naming, separating and ordering space in such a way that it comes to seem right. This teach-in will offer ways to analyze this visualization of debt, both in the present and by means of a comparison with the Civil Rights Movement.

Thursday, October 18th, 9pm
Justice for Jazz Artists March for Fair Pay & Pensions
Washington Square Park
The J4JA campaign marches on, and is going back to the Blue Note with a live band to tell the club owners that musicians and jazz fans want them to do the right thing. The demands of the campaign include: Pension, Pay scales, and Protections on recordings for all musicians who play the club.

Friday, October 19th, 7pm
Value: Who Decides?
Momenta Art - 56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn
Occupy Museums invites you to to a discussion on value. It is said that art represents our cultural heritage, our common legacy. Does it? What value is shared when art objects become markers of class hierarchy and easily manipulated commodities, screened by auction-house connoisseurs and turned into “tangible assets” as they enter the secondary market? But how can we value art apart from this model? How might this value system work?

Saturday, October 20, 12:30pm
March to Stop the Purple Monster
Washington Square Park
The Purple Monster is at it again. NYU's administration is planning a massive expansion in Greenwich Village against the wishes of residents and the majority of NYU's own faculty. The expansion will flatten green spaces, including a children's playground and a community garden. Join the rally and march through the planned construction zone. For more information visit http://nyufasp.com/

Saturday, October 20, 2pm
On Municipal Debt with Ann Larson
Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, 323 West 39th Street
Is your town experiencing a budget crisis? Is your city laying off workers and cutting services? If this is happening in your community, you are a debtor. Come and learn about municipal bonds, the favorite weapon of mafia capitalists everywhere!

Saturday, October 20th, 3:30pm
Lessons from the Chicago Teachers' Strike
The Silver School of Social Work at NYU
Room 411 at 1 Washington Square Park North Hear from featured speakers Xian Barrett, member of the Chicago Teachers Union and the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) and Julie Cavanagh, member of the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) and the United Federation of Teachers. And discussion questions including: What are the strategies teachers, parents, & students in Chicago have used to turn an attack against teachers into a broad fight for social justice? What can we learn from this struggle in New York?

Saturday, October 27th, 8:30pm
Tidal #3 Party
Momenta Art at 56 Bogart street
Come celebrate the third issue of the magazine Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy. Tidal is a printed magazine and online and in-person horizontal conversation among those who have spent most of their lives thinking about this moment, and people in the Occupy Movement who are making decisions every day about its future. All people involved in this project are heavily involved in Occupy Wall Street. Go to occupytheory.org/ to learn more.

Thursday, November 1st, 8pm
Benefit Concert for the National Lawyers Guild - NYC
The Riverside Church at 490 Riverside Drive
Since 1937, the NLG-NYC has been on the frontlines of social justice struggles in the courts and on the streets. Guild attorneys have worked for over seven decades to support the legal rights of political dissidents, racial and religious minorities, immigrants, workers, and other oppressed groups far from the center of American power. A diverse group of performers are rising up in support of the NLG-NYC’s work defending robust political dissent in New York City. Head to nlgnyc.org for tickets.

JOIN US FOR A GREAT WEEK OF HORIZONTAL DISCUSSIONS AROUND DEBT!

5 Sessions! All THIS week!

• On Debt and Race!
• History of Debt Resistance!
• The Visual Culture of Debt!
• Contemporary Art, and the Specter of Communization!
• On Municipal Debt!

About Occupy University: http://university.nycga.net/
Facebook event invite

** N.B. Events at EFA coincide wth "TO HAVE AND TO OWE" an exhibition on how we understand and experience debt, as well as EFA sponsored artist open studio tours!

EXPLORE NEW WAYS TO THINK ABOUT DEBT THROUGH ART!

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