OWS Updates for the week of October 17th

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.