#12M #GlobalSpring #feliz12m #GlobalMay #12MGlobal #12mani #12m15m
Background and more resources on today´s Global Day of Action

Live Updates (all times Eastern)

• 2:30pm: 12-3 arrests at Occupy London; 19 people sitting at the Royal Exchange refusing to move. via @OccupyLondon: Report from the scene: "We've formed a chain. Police are punching people." We have observers there, could do with more.
• 2:15pm: Organizers estimate Barcelona crowds at 250,000+ and growing. 75,000 reporterd in Zaragoza. Outside Spain, thousands also gathered in Moscow, London, Brussels, and in hundreds of other cities.
• 2:10pm: Protests underway in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and at least six other cities in Israel. Estimates put numbers around 30,000. Follow @J14enh for English or @J14ar for Arabic. Meanwhile, Bahraini demonstrators are being attacked and tear-gased by riot police.
• 2pm: Arrests happening in London!
• 1:30pm: London occupation of Bank of England declared illegal; currently holding an assembly to decide next steps.
• 1:20pm: Crowds at Puerta del Sol in Madrid (and in 80 cities and towns across Spain alone) are huge and growing by the minute. In Madrid, four marches from north, south, east, and west are marching through neighborhoods on their way to Sol. Police are being aggressive toward Occupiers at Bank of England in London, where protesters are dancing in the street. Protests are also starting in the next few hours throughout the Americas. The indignad@s in Bogotá, Columbia will gather at Parque Nacional at 5pm NY time. Follow @indignateco.
• 1:15pm: A mobile command unit has been spotted near the the Occupied Farm in Albany, California which has been threatened over the past several days by police and the university who own the land and want to sell it to developers. All those in the Bay Area, CA are encouraged to support the occupation! Follow @OccupyFarm. Later today, Occupy Oakland will also be peacefully protesting Oakland Police Department´s brutality after the murder of another community member.
• 12:20pm: Madrid police asking people in square for identification.
• 12:05pm: Placa de Catalunya in Barcelona beginning to fill up. Other marches starting in Edinburgh, Copenhagen, and more. Bank of England still occupied, riot police nearby.

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#OccupyDataran has occupied Merdeka Square in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia since the summer of 2011, before the occupation of Liberty Square in New York. Like many other movements across the world, their occupation of public space was inspired in part by the indignad@s in Spain who took over plazas to protest austerity, government corruption, and economic injustice one year ago today. In recent weeks, the occupiers in Kuala Lumpur have been harassed, raided, and arrested by police. Now, still united in our call for Real Democracy NOW!, #OccupyDataran joins #OccupyWallStreet and occupiers on five continents to take back the square.

For more on the #12M Global Day of Action, see here. To watch actions across the world live, see here.

Follow #OccupyDataran on Twitter and Facebook.

Protesters in Moscow are occupying Chistye Prudy square under a statue of Kazakh poet Abai. #OccupyAbai is demanding free and fair elections after the third fraudulent election of President Vladimir Putin. On Sunday, the eve of Putin’s inauguration, tens of thousands of people occupied streets in Chinatown and elsewhere in Moscow. In scenes reminiscent of Bahrain or Oakland, police brutally attacked the peaceful demonstrations with batons. Hundreds were arrested, but thousands persisted - taking the streets during the day, and occupying squares at night. Although police have banned tents, the occupiers have adopted mobile tactics using sleeping bags and generators to disperse and re-occupy when evicted by police. Social media covering the protests has been targeted and heavily repressed; last weekend, two of the largest global livestreaming websites (Ustream and Bambuser) went offline due to DDoS attacks on opposition livestreamers in Moscow.

Today, Occupy Abai is marching in solidarity with the indignad@s, Occupy, and allied social movements in the #12M Global Day of Action.

#OccupyRussia on Facebook

They bombard us with numbers, and sometimes they almost make us forget that across from the numbers, thousands of lives are hidden. OUR LIVES. Lets show them we are much more than that! 12th of May: Occupy the streets in every city of the world.

May 12 is a Global Day of Action called by the indignad@s, Occupy, and allied social movements around the world. In 2011 we showed another world was possible. Our struggle continues in 2012; together we will rally against corruption, human rights violations, censorship, police brutality and corporate greed. May 12th, 2012 — everywhere. Join us.

Mass demonstrations are planned in Barcelona, Valencia, and over 60 other cities across Spain. In Madrid, the movement will return to Puerta del Sol. From the 12th to 15th of May, protesters will take the square for assemblies, performances, workshops, and discussions on the the alternatives they’ve worked on for the past year. Assemblies and actions are planned to address education, migration, the housing crisis, the economy, the environment, unemployment, civil disobedience, feminism, youth, pensioners, and more. Protesters are also planning to protest at banks responsible for the Spanish and global financial crises. The Spanish government, which recently began a severe crackdown on protest movements, has said they will not allow the protesters to camp in Sol or other squares throughout the country. The government says it will end the protest at 10pm. The major marches are not scheduled to arrive at Sol until around 9pm.

Occupiers in London will return to St. Pauls Cathedral across from the London Stock Exchange and then march through London to ¨Meet the 1%¨ on a tour of different banks and institutions whose greed is responsible for the global financial crisis. Demonstrations are also planned in Ireland, Chile, Portugal, Brazil, Germany, Cuba, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, France, Malaysia, Russia, and at least 384 cities in over 50 countries across the world.

In the U.S., solidarity actions are planned in Portland, St. Louis, and many other cities. Occupy Los Angeles will be hosting a 12M anti-capitalist General Assembly. In Boston, the People of Color Group of Occupy Boston will host a ceremony to preserve the last standing grove of Silver Maple trees that are slated to be cut down for “redevelopment” as luxury apartments for the 1%. Occupy Denver will be protesting and occupying the Downtown Denver Partnership, a business organization behind a law that attacks Occupy and would criminalize the survival act of sleeping by homeless people. Occupy Chicago, labor unions, community groups, anti-war and international solidarity groups and faith based activists will host a Peoples Assembly on Alternatives to War and Poverty to begin a week of actions that will culminate in protests against NATO.

In Brooklyn, as part of a citywide week of action against budget cuts and austerity, Occupy Bushwick, Healthcare for the 99%, and others will fight to save Wycoff Hospital. Occupiers, unions, immigrant rights groups, students, anti-war activists, environmentalists, and others from across Texas and the country will also gather near Dallas to protest the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a massive, new international trade and investment pact currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the United States and countries throughout the Pacific Rim and pushed by Wall Street banks and other corporate interests.

Resources:

• TakeTheSquare.net
• 12M on Democracia Real YA
• May12.net
• TomaLaPlaza.net
• SquaresDatabase.crowdmap.com
• GlobayMay.org
• Partial list of international 12M Facebook events

More:

• International Assembly: Global May Manifesto
• The Road to May 12th

via Occupy Bushwick
for full schedule of the May 10-15 Week of Action, see here

Join Healthcare for the 99% for a Day of Action Against Budget Cuts!

Governor Cuomo appointed Wall Street banker Stephen Berger to fix healthcare in Brooklyn. Berger recommended merging and downsizing Wyckoff and other Brooklyn hospitals that provide necessary healthcare in low-income and medically underserved communities.

Join us to speak out against hospital closings, service reductions, and budget cuts!

Reclaim Healthcare for the 99%!

@2:30pm Maria Hernandez Park, northside, at Starr St and Irving Ave. Subway from Manhattan/Brooklyn take L Train to Jefferson Stop. From Brooklyn Food Conference atBrooklyn Tech High School take B38 to DeKalb Ave/Knickerbocker Ave.

@3pm March to Wyckoff Hospital Speak out on healthcare cuts and hospital closings in Brooklyn, and picket at Wyckoff Hospital, Stockholm St and Wyckoff Ave. Take L Train to DeKalb Stop.

This action is part of the “Another City is Possible” Campaign which is organizing a week of action protesting budget cuts in New York City.

RSVP on Facebook

As hundreds of thousands of people around the world prepare to take to the streets this weekend as part of a global call for change, the International ‘Global Spring’ Assembly – an international and inter-movement assembly formed of supporters of Occupy, Take the Square and Latin American, African, Asian and Middle Eastern social movements – has released its first statement describing concrete suggestions for a ‘global change’.

The statement – the Global May Manifesto – calls for systemic change in the global economy: the radical democratisation of international institutions like the IMF, BIS and UN; the replacement of the G8/20 with a democratic UN assembly; a system of global taxation on financial transactions; and for the abolition of tax havens. It does not represent the position of any local or city assembly; rather it is offered for their consideration.

Endorsed by consensus on 4 May 2012 by the International Assembly, this statement has been in development since January 2012. It was a process that has seen thousands of people from six continents and hundreds of cities participating in the discussion and planning for the international days of protests this month – particularly focusing on the 1, 12, 15 and 18 May. These International Assembly meetings have been convened in bi-weekly assemblies, over an online VoIP platform (called Mumble, which enables mass conference calls and give the assembly its formal name – the International General Assembly on Mumble).

The process for developing this global manifesto – which is a work in progress – started by collecting statements from the different local and city assemblies, then merging these into a common statement. Individuals were then invited to make new proposals through a public website and a number of mailing lists that are used for international inter-movement communication.

Alvaro Rodriguez, 31, of the Indignados movement in Spain, who participated in the process of writing the statement, said: “This is the beginning of a new global process of bringing the opinions of many people around the world together. It represents the beginnings of a form of global democracy in its infancy which is direct and participatory – of the people, by the people and for the people. While the statement does not represent the position of local and city assemblies, the next step is to present it to assemblies around the world for consideration, discussion and revisions, as part of a dialogue of the ‘Global Spring’ movements taking place across six continents.”

Next steps for international coordination
Individuals around the world are invited to participate in this process of further developing this global manifesto through their local and city assemblies, through the facebook group and through the website.

Global May Manifesto

The statement below does not speak, or claim to speak, on behalf of everyone in the global spring/Occupy/Take the Square movements. This is an attempt by some inside the movements to reconcile statements written and endorsed in the different assemblies around the world. The process of writing the statement was consensus based, open to all, and regularly announced on our international communications platforms, that are also open to all (e.g. the ‘squares’ mailing list, the weekly global roundtables and the ‘international’ facebook group). It was a long and difficult process, full of compromises. This statement is offered to peoples’ assemblies around the world for discussions, revisions and endorsements.

There will be a process of a global dialogue, and this statement is part of it, a work-in-progress. We do not make demands from governments, corporations or parliament members, which some of us see as illegitimate, unaccountable or corrupt. We speak to the people of the world, both inside and outside our movements. We want another world, and such a world is possible:

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via ChicagoSpring.org

On May 19, Mayor 1% Emanuel will bring to Chicago military and civilian representatives of the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heads of state and finance ministers of the G-8 world economic powers.

They meet on behalf of the 1% of the world, the rich and the powerful, the bankers and generals. Their agenda is to continue to impose austerity, or poverty, by cutting social spending for workers and the poor to maintain profitability for the rich and to launch more wars to stop the rise of the poor nations of the Third World.

The people of this fine city do not want these summits. The mayor has his own agenda. In anticipation of widespread opposition to the war & poverty agenda of the NATOG8, Mayor Emanuel passed a set of first-amendment crushing ordinances, known as "Sit Down Shut Up", to stifle the exercise of free speech and assembly during the summits. The mayor single-handedly gave himself the abililty to issue no-bid security contracts and deputize out-of-town law enforcement while imposing harsh restrictions on parades, marches and demonstrations.

But we will not be silenced. We will stand up to this corrupt system and say enough! Join Occupy Chicago, Coalition Against NATO/G8 (CANG8), the Midwest Antiwar Mobilization and many more as we gather in Chicago in May!

The Coalition Against NATO/G8 is a broad formation that includes labor unions, community groups, anti-war and international solidarity groups and faith based activists. From the CANG8 website:

• Protest the NATO/G8 Summit on Saturday, May 19th, 2012!
• Noon rally at Daley Plaza, then march to McCormick Place!
• Join in a legal, permitted, family-friendly march and rally that will end within sight and sound of the summit at McCormick Place!

At the invitation of the White House, military and civilian representatives of the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heads of state and finance ministers of the G-8 world economic powers are meeting in Chicago, May 19-21, 2012. To that we say…

• No to War and Austerity!
• Money out of politics! Represent for the people, not the money!
• No to NATO/G-8 Warmakers!
• Jobs, Healthcare, Education, Pensions, Housing & the Environment, Not War!

Download the "Chicago Principles"

For parade maps and other information, please visit:

http://cang8.wordpress.com

May 12-13: Peoples Summit
May 14: Money for Education not War
May 15: Immigration: No Human is Illegal
May 16: Foreclosure: Housing is a Right: No Evictions, No Foreclosures!
May 17: Environment: Planet over Profits!
May 18: Austerity/NNU March for the Robin Hood Tax
May 19: Health Care
May 21: Democracy - Shut Down Boeing!

For full schedule, see below. For more: NATOprotest.org | ChicagoSpring.org | OccupyChi.org

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#SaveOurClinic #MHMChicago #OccupyChi

OCCUPY CLINICS – HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE!

A call from Mental Health Movement to Occupy Wall Street and all others coming to Chicago to protest NATO and the war and austerity agenda of the 1%

To all our family from the global 99%, To all those who believe that healthcare is a human right, To all those coming to protest NATO and its wars for profit around the globe, To all those who have struggled with mental illness personally or with loved ones, To all those who have been denied healthcare, To all those who have waited all day in emergency rooms, To all those public servants facing layoffs or cuts to salary and pension, To all those who are sick and tired of being sick and tired, To all those who believe that another world is possible beyond this madness.

The Mental Health Movement calls on all protesters coming to Chicago to join us in the fight for healthcare not warfare. As NATO war-makers come to this city to plan wars that leave people traumatized and cost trillions of dollars, clinics that help people heal from trauma and deal with mental illness are being shuttered for lack of $2.3 million dollars. As our battle to save our clinics has intensified, Occupy Chicago and other Occupy groups around the city have become powerful allies. Now we ask members of Occupy Wall Street, other Occupy groups and all other sectors of the social movements coming to Chicago to protest NATO to join us in occupying clinics by setting up a 24/7 presence outside of recently closed mental health clinics. We will dramatize the contradictions of a system that finds billions to wage NATO’s endless wars for profit but leaves its most vulnerable without basic healthcare.

For 26 days, we have maintained an around-the-clock presence at the Woodlawn Clinic at 6337 S. Woodlawn, one of six mental health clinics recently closed by Mayor 1% Emanuel. On April 12th 23 people – most of us patients from clinics facing closure - barricaded ourselves inside of the Woodlawn Clinic, only to be evicted and arrested by the SWAT team and Chicago Police and sent to jail, the future home for the mentally ill who cannot find treatment. Upon release, we returned to the clinic and have been camped out 24/7 ever since. Through this struggle we have seen 41 people arrested but have reached thousands of Chicago residents with our stories. We will not be held back. The Huffington Post has called the struggle to save Chicago’s mental health clinics “the Birmingham and Stonewall of the mental health movement.” We consider this fight ground zero in the struggle for a world that sees healthcare as a right and invests in healing and human rights, not warfare and corporate subsidies.

Today, we are expanding our campaign to the Northwest Mental Health Clinic in Logan Square at 2354 N. Milwaukee. This clinic has served the predominately Latino community of Logan Square for 30 years. This is the first site of our expanded resistance to clinic closure. We know that we can count on the people mobilizing for the NATO demonstrations to respond to our call with the tactic of non-violence and in a way that continues to lift up the voices of those of us whose lives hang in the balance of this struggle. We are clear that our enemy is the system that deprives us of healthcare and other basic human rights, the politicians that administer that system, and the 1% who profit from it, not the police sent in to do Mayor 1%’s dirty work. Just as Occupy Chicago has stood with us, taken arrests with us, and been a true example of dignity and solidarity, we know that you too will see that our causes are one and the same and that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by connecting local and global struggles.

Mayor 1% claims that closing clinics is a way to expand mental health services by throwing a few crumbs to private clinics. He has ignored our cries about the importance of the trust built through years with our therapists. He has ignored our cries about the importance of having safe spaces like these clinics in our communities. He has ignored our cries about his plan’s complete elimination of all black male therapists. He has ignored our cries about his plan’s 50% reduction in the number of Spanish-speaking therapists. He has ignored our cries about the 18 people who have already been hospitalized due to stress surrounding the clinic closures and loss of therapists. He has ignored our cries about the difficulty of finding care in the private sector given prohibitive co-pays, Medicaid cuts, and a steady decline in mental health funding for all providers. He has ignored our cries that a small fraction of the hundreds of millions in tax breaks he got for his campaign donors at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange could save our clinics. He has ignored our cries that Cook County Jail is the largest provider of mental health care in the state of Illinois. He has ignored our cries that closing clinics when the need for mental health services is growing, destabilizes communities and makes the wars on Chicago’s streets even worse. He only spoke personally about the clinic closures after representatives of the Nobel Summit visited our clinic occupation and denounced his plans. But he spoke of bus passes and his words were just another reminder that he has ignored our cries.

But we know that one man cannot hold back the power of a people’s movement. We know that with our struggle we create space to talk about the trauma and mental illness that is too often buried under mountains of silence and pain. We know when Occupy Wall Street and others stand with us it will help amplify our cry around the world: HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE!

In solidarity,

Mental Health Movement

LOGISTICS FOR JOINING US IN THE FIGHT FOR HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE: Show up at 2354 N. Milwaukee or 6337 S. Woodlawn when you get to town, whenever you come we will be there. Email us at MentalHealthMovement@gmail.com or call (773) 340-9598 if you need help with directions.

via AnotherNYC.org

Thursday, May 10: Assembly & Speak-Out
Friday, May 11: Homes, Jobs, & Services
Saturday, May 12: Food, Environment, & Health + GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION
Sunday, May 13 (Mothers Day): Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, War & Immigrant Justice + Citywide Movement Assembly at Judson Church 5pm
Monday, May 14: Education & Student Debt
Tuesday, May 15: GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION -- A day of action against the banks that caused the global crisis and a mass rally at Times Square at 6pm. - Facebook event
(Full schedule of the week below)

Say no to the system that produces record profits for the 1% by impoverishing the 99% of us; say yes to a fair city and a better world!

Beginning on May 10th and culminating on May 15th in a mass convergence at Times Square, NYC organizations and individuals from all across the city will join together in action around the many issues we face: from cuts in social services, to an austerity agenda that redistributes your tax revenue into private hands, to the financial institutions (that we bailed out) that continue to make record profits at our expense.

As part of a global resistance, as part of the Occupy movement, as a broad movement for social, political, and economic justice, we say enough! We reject Bloomberg’s New York, and we demand another city. We reject the notion that there is no alternative, and we demand a better world. Join the week of actions, take to the streets, raise your voice, and come to Times Square on May 15th at 6 PM to stand together as a global movement and declare that another city, and another world, is possible!

99%NY • ALIGN • ALLIANCE FOR QUALITY EDUCATION • BROOKLYN FOOD COALITION • COALITION FOR EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE • CODE PINK • COMMUNITY VOICES HEARD • GOOD JOBS NEW YORK • GRANNY PEACE BRIGADE • HEALTHCARE FOR THE 99% • HUMAN SERVICES COUNCIL • MAKE THE ROAD NEW YORK • MOTHERS RESISTING RACIST POLICING • NEW YORK COMMUNITIES FOR CHANGE • NEW YORK STUDENTS RISING • PICTURE THE HOMELESS • OCCUPY WALL STREET • OWS BIKE COALITION • PARENTS FOR OCCUPY WALL STREET • PSC-CUNY • REV BILLY & THE CHURCH OF EARTHALUJAH • ROC-NY • RWDSU • STRONG ECONOMY FOR ALL • STUDENTS FOR A FREE CUNY • UNITED NY • TIME'S UP • UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS • VOCAL-NY

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10:30am: Arrests have been made as victims of Bank of America foreclosures attempt to enter the meeting.
9:30am ET: After several marches converged earlier this morning, at least 1000 people are currently occupying the intersection of 5th and college in front of the Bank of America headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina in a peaceful sit-in protest. About a 100 shareholders who support the movement are inside as heavily armed police guard the BoA building.

For background, see here. See also NCAgainstCorporatePower.org, UnityAlliance.org and The99Power.org.

Follow on Twitter: @The99Power, @JWJnational, @domesticworkers, @codepink, @BankVsAmerica, #99power, #MakeBoAPay.

Yesterday, Occupy Fights Foreclosure in Los Angeles “fraudulently foreclosed” on a Bank of America branch in solidarity with the 99% protests in Charlotte. Occupy Detroit protesters also occupied the Bank of America building in Detroit. A flashmob played a game of human ¨Monopoly¨ before taking to the street to demand mortage relief and make clear not a single dollar more of public money should be used to save the banks who ruined Detroit. At 4pm today, Occupy Detroit will protest BoA again. Solidarity protests are also planned against Bank of America in DC, Los Angeles, Austin, and other cities.