Occupy Philly Still Standing Strong
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 28, 2011, 12:06 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Though ordered by the city to leave yesterday and threatened with arrest, Occupy Philly remains peacefully assembled. For background on the situation in Philly, see our earlier post.
Updates:
- 10:54pm EST: Still there, still peaceful, still no arrests.
- 7:15pm EST: Still at Dilworth! General Assembly underway.
- 6:53pm EST: Police presence reported to be thinning.
- 5:43pm EST: Police are blocking off public park. Occupy Philly still urging supporters to gather, bring cameras!
- 4:40pm EST: More police are reported seen massing near the plaza, but have not yet made any attempt to evict. Occupy Philly is still holding strong at Dilworth, planning to hold General Assembly!
- 12:58pm EST: Occupy Philly will be gathering at 4pm today at Dilworth Plaza**, not at Rittenhouse Square. Please come out and support us as we make plans for the future of our movement in Philly.
- 12:32pm EST: According to Twitter report, power has been shut off at Occupy Philly this morning.
- 11:03am EST: From a Facebook post:
"Our eviction party last night started off at 5pm with about a thousand supporters and an open mic about what kind of world we want to live in. Then we had a dance party, a conga line to Thomas Paine Plaza, and a 5am march against traffic to Rittenhouse Square, where we strolled past police cars at every entrance. Eviction didn't happen, but a lot of fun did! Please go to Occupy Philly to support and relieve people who've been up ALL NIGHT holding the space against the eviction!! We called Nutter's bluff and are still going strong! Much love crew!!! And come and join us tonight." SEE PHOTOS: OccupyPhilly on Facebook
Why are we occupying Philadelphia?
I've asked protesters this question many times and the best response I could get is that 'It is part of the movement'.
So does that mean I should go Occupy my local city because it is part of the movement? How about occupy jobs? How about occupy careerbuilder? How about Occupy A DESK?
WAHHH WAHH, I want people to be equal, WAHH WAHH, I don't think it is right for others to have more than me.
Really? Well then go change your life for yourself. You really think America is going to listen to young people who have barely worked and think they are entitled to something? You must be delirious. Go get a job, move up, and change the world from within the confines of NORMAL PEOPLE.
I'm so tired of hearing this crap about how so little jobs are available. Yet I go out for 2 weeks in the BIGGEST city in America (NYC for those of you without a college education) and find myself a job right in the city that pays me enough to live in Manhattan. And no, I didn't attend some Ivy League school.. I attended community college. I got the job because I busted my ass for interviews, conserved money, and chose not to complain about what isn't fair.
Because face it.. you live in AMERICA. Of course not everything is FAIR, but you are a hell of a lot more fortunate to be here than most other places.
/end rant
Best comment I've seen on this site yet! Nobody wants to start at the bottom of the corporate ladder anymore. They want to graduate college and immediately want a job earning $100,000. Sorry, that's not how it works. There's plenty of jobs out there. I was on Craigslist today and there is tons of jobs. The problem is these people wouldn't dare take a job for $10 or $15 an hour, while they looked for a better job. They feel they should make the big bucks right away. Good luck!!!
About the student loans, how can you complain about it without understanding money? When you took out a loan (years back) the income (money) you had bought you more food, gas rent, anything else. The amount of the loan does not change because of inflation (tax). If was adjusted fro inflation the loan would be smaller. This is a deliberately complicated con game so get yourself educated on it. Look for the essay "Egalitarianism and inflation" by Ayn Rand. Would make you shift your emphasis on the real WS. the "Federal" Reserve.
Occupy Philly should move to a different location. Not because the mayor asked, but because of its more unique situation.
The construction project which will be going on there! In my own opinion, we shouldn't block people from having a "job" and if that is what were doing by sitting in a park?
Why not choose a different location? So that at least the construction crew can work and support their families and as a whole we can continue to convey our message without becoming highly criticized or scrutinized by the public eye due to the fact that we staid denying those workers their right to work and make a paycheck.
Yes i understand theirs plenty more work for them.
Yes i understand that doesn't mean we've forced them to lose a job
However the public's point of view can be a harsher one than the understanding that this is not a nail in the coffin for whom ever is working on that construction project.
project.. no bid conctract... croneyism deal... and the jobs were created for a few lucky union workers will make some money for a few months on wasted tax payer dollars... create jobs.. create jobs create jobs.... if i hear one person say that again... they are getting knocked out... creating public sector jobs out of thin air for no skill havin' lazy arses is not sustainable .... Dilworth Plaze Project = waste of money
What is it with you people? You are so entranced in your own little worlds that you have lost total disregard for others around you. A few lucky union workers? So let me get this right.. you'd rather have NO union workers with a job than some? 'No skill havin' lazy arses'? And what exactly is it that the protesters do? Work 9-5 jobs like the rest of us? It is people in the movement like you who make me SICK. This isn't an ALL or NOTHING country. Life isn't fair, not everything is perfect. Take the jobs where they are offered and work to find new ones. Then change the system from within. Stop bitching about what others have that you don't and do something about it besides preventing every day people from going to work. The '1%' as you call them are laughing at you as we speak. They're saying to themselves, 'If they want jobs so badly, why are they wasting their time blocking others from having them?'
A number of activists have expressed frustration that more people aren’t getting involved and flooding the streets. Some argue people are generally too stupid to understand. But there is another way to look at it- as hope declines all people have left is denial and avoidance. All they feel they can do is drop out and turn on the television.
Read: “Austerity Measures: Cutting Back On Hope” at www.josephcouture.com
That´s why growth is essential in the struggle for freedom Focus on protesting, marching, making ourselves heard, organizing, educating, convincing, enlightening others, educating others, educating ourselves, getting more people to join etc. on the way to a free, democratic, egalitarian and just society is important
struggleforfreedom
Haha. Yeah. The people are not joining the revolution. If you read any revolutionary from Western Europe in the 1960s they had the same problem. They couldn't find a way around it, declared themselves to be the revolutionary vanguard and eventually resorted to terrorism.
Sorry. The people aren't stupid and they are upset with the status quo. You just aren't offering any actual solutions that they can embrace.
How about get money out of politics? Isn't the solution to that complaint fairly obvious? A prohibition on corporate donations coupled with a limit on private donations of $1000 per individual (or something similar), ensuring that the 1% can never outspend the 99%.... and as an added bonus worthless fence-sitting no-substance politicians who can't manage to keep people interested wouldn't be able to get enough money to run their campaign.
I think the larger problem is that the MSM keeps repeating over and over "they have no clear demands" "they have no clear demands" "they have no clear demands... and no solutions."
Most people are intelligent, but lets be honest they have no interest in politics, little conception about how politics affect their lives, and what little they do understand comes from the distorted 30 second news bites presented by the MSM.
The situation isn't hopeless, as long as people continue to stay in the streets keeping the issue alive, and educating others, the movement will continue to grow; and that is exactly what the establishment is afraid of.
If campaign finance reform was the one major and central demand OWS would have a good shot at success. I agree that this is the primary reason why our system is messed up. People would easily understand this issue and many more would join. The problem is that it is lost in the litany of other complaints. Some people are running around demanding revolution while others want to ban capitalism. There is no group/leaders that can formulate an actual proposal that will be taken seriously.
That's a valid point, there are a lot of divergent views; but the similarities are easy enough to spot. Campaign finance is the keystone, because without it there is no democratic system operating in the interests of the people; and things will simply never change.
IMO the Litany of complaints really stem from the same source, the intersection of corporate influence and government corruption, and the fact that its been a problem for so many years.
Once democracy returns, perhaps we can move onto other things like a debate as to whether a more equitable system involves more government intervention or less government intervention.
I think what is clear tho, is that if the status quo remains; the misery manifesting as OWS will just be the beginning, and we'll see whether spooked politicians turn America into a totalitarian police state, or whether the people successfully take it back.
Very well put. There has not been a solution to the problems. So now it looks almost like a tantrum.
No, the majority are not stupid just brainwashed! A lot do not even realize the trouble the US is in and the corruption because they are to busy with their lives as they know it and their stuff because all they watch is main stream (brainwashing) media. They need to be shown reality and realize that it will take 100% of the 99% to straighten out the crooks in our government, financial and insurance systems. Solutions? Fire, evict, change laws in our government ... why do we have to come up with solutions? Let's see what is the population of the 99% and how would that population look standing in front of the White House demanding change? Or we can just wait for the whole economy to collapse then they will wake up!
The majority have never and will never join any movement. Pretending otherwise is stupid. You have to come up with simple, clear solutions so that your movement has any shot at actually making a change in the system. There is energy in the movement but it is directed everywhere and nowhere. Given an actual proposal you have a shot at forcing it through government.
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This will only steel us
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OWS needs to not only mobilize the middle class in their protests but also lower income communities.
http://littlebiggy.org/4660547
Hear, hear!
struggleforfreedom
As I mentioned in my article "The Transition Phase: The Road to Freedom" we have to expect that the police are going to make things difficult for the Occupy Movement. It is, however, important to think in long term perspective. On the way to a free, democratic, egalitarian and just society we must continue the fight no matter what. We have to expect lots of opposition from the elites and their supporters and servants. Not only do we have to expect and prepare ourselves for media-propaganda, we also have to expect more police brutality. Its a natural reaction of the finacial elite who will become more and more scared of the movement(s) as they grow. The state and government are often very servile to the wealthy finacial elite, especially in the US where the wealthy more or less control policies. The police is a tool of the business-run, or business-influenced state to try to crush the ones who want to take back from the wealthy what has been stolen thru bailouts, exploitation and speculation at the stock exchange. The elites are starting to feel threatened, they want to keep all that they have stolen, so naturally they want to stop The Occupy Movement and anyone else involved in the struggle with police force. These tendencies are however an indication that we´re on the right track: The elites are getting scared, and react by increasing their effort in trying to crush movements. The finacial elite will however fail. Police brutality is counter-productive, it just leads to more support and sympathy for people engaged in the struggle among the general population.The Occupy Movement should, as I mentioned in the article, react with non-violent means including an increasing number of strikes; sit-down strikes, local general strikes, all of´em.
"What you should do is exactly the kinds of things that are going to lead to hysteria among privileged and powerful people" -Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky on where we go from here (at Occupy Boston, Q&A)
Noam Chomsky: Alternatives to Capitalism
Greetings and solidarity from Norway. yours s. struggleforfreedom
This petition, intended to bare the government's empty lip service to democracy, needs lots more signatures by Sunday to force the White House to react in some way: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/we-demand-vapid-condescending-meaningless-politically-safe-response-petition/gCZfn86x Spread the word!