Occupy St. Louis is holding a candle light vigil on Tuesday, April 3, 7pm at Compton Hill Reservoir Park to stand in solidarity with Occupiers who were brutally beaten on March 15, Trayvon Martin, and all victims of police violence and repression. We will be gathering at the south west corner of the park (Russel & Grand). Please bring candles, small paper cups, and lighters.
https://www.facebook.com/events/377818595572800/?context=create
March 22–Last Thursday, March 15, attendees of the Occupy Midwest Conference were peacefully complying with police orders to vacate Compton Hill Reservoir Park, when they were violently attacked by St. Louis City police officers. The Occupy Movement is a collective response to social injustice and corporate greed. Rather than addressing the ongoing crisis of families being foreclosed on and the resulting destabilization of neighborhoods, a high unemployment rate, and the corporate syphoning of money from public education, the city of St. Louis is using it’s resources to repress a non-violent assembly.
“We felt very safe in the park until the police showed up. As we were crossing the street to leave, a line of blue charged into the crowd – batons swinging – and began striking people. It was chaos. The screams of those being beaten were terrifying to hear. I felt helpless,” reports Carrie Bumgardner Luna.
Despite the fact that he was not resisting arrest, one Occupier was repeatedly beaten in the face with the butt of a mag-lite. After already being beaten and cuffed, an officer then methodically snapped and broke two of his fingers. Another Occupier was repeatedly beaten in the head requiring staples. Both Occupiers were hospitalized. A third Occupier was hit in the neck and choked with a baton, thrown to the ground and kicked in the face causing permanent damage to his jaw structure.
“It’s shocking and disheartening to see people you love being violently attacked, bleeding from their bruised faces. It was a senseless betrayal of trust. It really helps me better understand what people of color in our city go through every day,” said Oren Goldberg.
Occupy St. Louis has always been responsible stewards of public space and disavow the graffiti damage done to the Compton Hill Reservoir Park.
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Such a movement cannot be evicted. Some politicians may physically remove us from public spaces — our spaces — and, physically, they may succeed. But we are engaged in a battle over ideas. Our idea is that our political structures should serve us, the people — all of us, not just those who have amassed great wealth and power. We believe that is a highly popular idea, and that is why so many people have come so quickly to identify with Occupy Wall Street and the 99% movement.
You cannot evict an idea whose time has come.*
— Matt Taibbi breaks it down for us. Read More
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Monsanto Action : The only thing GREEN about Monsanto is their $$$.
Friday : 12 PM (NOON) Meet at Tower Grove Park (Arsenal & Grand)
This is a long term discussion group that sprung from reading Strategizing For a Living Revolution by George Lakey. We meet every Friday at 6:30 pm at the World Community Center, 435 N. Skinker Blvd. We have cancelled meetings until after Occupy the Midwest. We will start up again on March 23.
Pay Day Loan Action for May 1
In order to tie concrete change to actions we are proposing this idea, which we will vibe check at GA and on the Forum after OMW:
Bank of America Conference Call
Abandoned Buildings
Media Working Group
We observed that many of our working groups do not seem to be operating at full capacity. In terms of long term strategy, planning for the spring and summer, it seemed like a good idea to start with the media working group.
Social Media
Organizational Media
Responsible for:
Press
Responsible for:
Livestreaming
Responsible for:
Originally, flyers had been the responsibility of the media working group. We think it might be better if the people responsible for putting on an event or action also be responsible for making the flyer.
Do we need GA approval before putting occupySTL.org on a flyer?
Maybe we could use an apprenticeship model for training new people as they join the media working groups. There is a model the Zapatistas use which could be helpful. It’s called sortition and is Greek Athenian model of participatory deomocracy: http://youtu.be/KsnNpcJtwoo
Other
Would it be helpful to have a Concern (Circle) working group?
What is currently going on with the other Occupy St. Louis (OSTL) working groups?
We are working on a May 1 flyer to be distributed at the St. Patty’s Day parade.
Bob Levine, Bob the Button Man, can make 99% buttons. Mark will ask him to make a bunch.
