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FROM: Occupy PSU
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Nov. 15th, 2011
RE: Occupy PSU Student Walk-Out & Statement of Solidarity
As students, faculty, staff, and other employees of Portland State University, Occupy PSU will convene its First General Assembly meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 16th at 2PM to collectively address the important role that Occupy PSU will play within the nonviolent “Occupy Wall Street” movement that has emerged in cities throughout the United States. Occupy PSU is inspired by the 99% who have occupied public spaces, experienced arrest, and withstood state-violence in order to engage the public and our elected officials in much needed discussions about social, economic, and environmental injustice. As such, we stands in firm solidarity with the larger Occupy movement, particularly our friends and neighbors from Occupy Portland.
While Occupy PSU is undoubtedly a part of the larger Occupy movement, we cannot pretend to adequately represent an entire movement that seeks to solve the structural inequality which plagues our society. Just as honeybees perform different jobs to ensure the prosperity of the hive, members of Occupy PSU know that we have a unique role to play in ensuring the creation of a more just and desirable society. As such, Occupy PSU would like to focus on creating solutions to the social, economic, and environmental issues that are pertinent to higher education. These issues include unsustainable increases in tuition, consistent decreases in public funding, inequitable pay for faculty and staff, the rising tide of student debt, misguided university-initiatives, and the inadequate support that minorities and immigrants receive to help them succeed in college.
As we have grown up, the American Dream has told us to, “work hard, play by the rules, and go to college,” but the dream has become a nightmare because it no longer offers the prosperity that it provided to some of our role-models, neighbors, or family members. Instead, it now promises likely unemployment, tens of thousands of dollars in debt, feeding oneself with food stamps, and returning to live with our families. History has written extensively about the role that colleges and universities have played in promoting social change, and so we, as Occupy PSU, issue a national call for students, faculty, and staff to act together in order to nourish the evolution of the Occupy movement.
It is within this context that Occupy PSU welcomes you and your friends to participate in our walk-out and rally in the South Park Blocks at Noon on Wednesday, Nov. 16th, which will be followed by our First General Assembly at 2PM in the Urban Plaza. At our First General Assembly we will talk about the reasons why we are peacefully assembling, we will vote on a proposal to use an alternate model for democratic decision-making, we will collectively discuss our commonalities and shared grievances, and we will then determine the next steps that we will take as Occupy PSU.
At this time, you can follow our event on Facebook for more information. In joyful solidarity with Occupy Portland, Occupy Wall St., Occupy Together, and all of the 99%,
- Occupy PSU
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/OccupyPSU
you guys suck make messes then dont clean
Maybe that comment should be directed to BP. The spill in the Gulf of Mexico is yet to be cleaned properly.
That comment could more appropriately be directed to BP. They’ve yet to fully clean up the Gulf Oil Spill.
Huge protest at UC Berkeley – vote to set up camp
see link for full story
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/11/16/MN7V1LVH5N.DTL
Justin Berton, Nanette Asimov, Demian Bulwa,Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Protestors post signs atop a University of California at Berkeley building as they participate in an Occupy Cal rally outside Sproul Hall Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011 in Berkeley, Calif. Students have called for a general strike on campus today.
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As many as 10,000 students and Occupy activists overflowed UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza on Tuesday night following a daylong classroom walkout and established a small camp in defiance of the university’s edict that no tents be erected, setting up a potentially tense standoff with authorities.
There were so many people in the plaza that it was hard to move through it, and dozens of police officers stayed on the periphery as the tents went up around 9:30 p.m. The first time students tried to set up an Occupy Cal tent city on the plaza was last Wednesday, and police used batons to block that attempt, drawing community criticism.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau issued orders last week and again on Tuesday that no tents be allowed past a symbolic few in the name of political expression. But the result of a vote by protesters – said to be 88.5 percent in favor of tents – was in clear opposition to those orders.
“The seeds of resistance have been planted, and we will not be moved,” the woman who announced the hand-counted tally said to thunderous cheers.
Reich delivers speech
The vote came just before UC Berkeley professor and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich delivered the annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture in which he blasted economic inequity. Immediately after the hour-long address, the tents sprang up.
“I’m here for a sustained movement,” said graduate student Elizabeth Demartell, 29. “After what happened in Zuccotti Park last night, it was important that we would show our support.”
Police evicted the original Occupy Wall Street crowd at Zuccotti Park in New York City early Tuesday morning.
After the UC tents had been up for about an hour, UC Berkeley Police Lt. Alex Yao said university officials had not decided how to react. He said officers from his department and the Alameda County sheriff’s office were on the scene.
“We’re in constant communication with the UC administration to determine a course of action,” Yao said.
By 11:30 p.m. the crowd had dwindled to a couple of hundred, and police remained on standby.
The tone earlier in the day was also strident, but less confrontational.
Beginning in the late morning, thousands of students and professors initially turned Sproul Plaza into an outdoor classroom with a rebellious twist as they began their walkout.
Organizers with the groups ReFund California and Occupy Cal had asked students and faculty to ditch the indoors to hold teaching sessions and rallies outside as a sign of their rage over rising tuition, executive pay and other issues they consider to be signs of a diminishing public university system.
Many heeded the call – in the name of teachable moments, a bit of hooky and a lot of political messaging.
Anne MacKinney, a senior majoring in history and German, said she had studied in Berlin and found it “shocking to see the difference” between the generous funding of education by European countries and the backward slide of funding for college in California in the past few years.
“It’s really exciting to look around,” she said, standing in the plaza while chants and speeches filled the air. “I was here for the protests (against education cuts) two years ago. This seems bigger and even stronger, and there is more energy.”
Large, lively crowd
Police estimated the strike crowd as peaking at about 5,000, but organizers and observers put it closer to 10,000. All around the stone walking spaces and grassy areas, groups waved signs, gathered for discussions or clustered to conduct classes with a somewhat festive tone of civility.
Among the protest banners and signs being displayed were “Poetry for Justice” and even the double-take-inducing “Stanford is w/Cal.” The Mario Savio Steps, commemorating the late father of the Free Speech Movement, in front of Sproul Hall were turned into an outdoor living room of sorts, with a piano, bookcases and Persian rugs spread across the pavement.
In the early afternoon, hundreds of protesters split off from the crowd and marched down Bancroft Way into downtown Berkeley, blocking traffic as they waved signs and called out chants including “student power!” They then surged back to Sproul Plaza and continued to belt out speeches.
One burning topic was what to do today, when Occupy Cal protesters had planned to picket a UC Regents meeting in San Francisco. Regents canceled the meeting for fear of violence, and now protesters say they plan to march on banks and corporations in San Francisco’s Financial District with which regents have affiliations.
I’ve supported your movement with time, energy and resources. Please make a public statement regarding the state of the Chapman and Lownsdale Parks. There is a sincere desire to restore the parks and a fund being put together. It would be a nice show of solidarity with people who respect and care about public green spaces.
Only the students who had to get into school through scholarships or out of their own pocket should be allowed to attend. People whose parents can comfortably foot the bill for their stay at PSU shouldn’t be included. This whole thing is about privilege after all.
Also, what will protesting at PSU actually accomplish? Go surround the Bank of America building and deny entry to it as long as you can if you want to make a difference through civil disobedience. Otherwise it’s time to move on to the next step.
I arrived at Chapman and Lonsdale Parks late in the morning on Monday the 14th. I stood at 3rd and Main with my sign and protested alone for most of the day while city employees filled trucks and dumpsters with the remains of the occupation and a small army of police stood outside the fences. I never camped in the parks but the occupation was inspirational to me. I came every weekend and marched and protested, washed dishes, helped load dumpsters with trash, smoked cigarettes rolled by Nick@Night and ate my share of the endless food flowing from the kitchen. I loved sitting at the crossroads of Chapman playing my guitar, listening to others making music, and talking to different people, but I could see that the parks were not designed to facilitate what was happening.
That evening I went to the GA in Pioneer Square where I found a crowd larger than I had expected. All the core occupiers were there along with many families, with children, that wanted to see the changes that the movement embraces. Everything went smoothly until certain people, not following GA protocol, demanded to have their say. The facilitators eventually gave in and let them have their say. It got ugly. Not that I’m the virgin Mary, but the language got foul and one guy with a flag on a long pole even insulted the crowd. As the crowd started to thin a little, I wondered how many might have been alienated and hoped people could get past this moment.
On Tuesday afternoon, I wandered into Pioneer Square to find a very informal GA. People shared ideas—it was a relaxed scene. I joined a march with probably about 100 people and just about as many police, keeping us out of the streets. We marched to the US Bank building and went inside. I thought we were going into a bank and thought “uh-oh.” I didn’t know it was a small mall with shops. One shop owner quickly closed his doors in fear of the crowd. This illustrated his perception of what we were all about. I wondered how many other people shared his misinformed fear. We marched through the mall chanting our slogans. The police remained outside and were there to meet us as we exited. We marched on with the police keeping us on the sidewalks and making sure we safely crossed intersections when the traffic lights changed. A few protesters demonstrated their animosity of the police, taunting them. The police remained calm and refused to be baited. I don’t really know for sure but it seems that there wasn’t a definite route we were taking through the streets. The police didn’t seem to know where we wanted to go next, making their job more difficult. I hoped this was not the intention of those that seemed to be leading us. At one point we came to a standstill, the police surrounded us. Down the street, a group of police in riot gear were marching in formation toward us. They looked like storm troopers from the Empire Strikes Back. It was very confrontational. If I had had children or my 88-year-old father with me, I would have left the march at that point, fearing for their safety. I am not protesting to fight with police, or to shove my ideas down someone’s throat. I am protesting to draw attention to the social, political, economic injustices we’d like to see changed. The standstill ended without incident, we marched on peacefully to City Hall where we chanted and danced and then dispersed.
I don’t live in Portland, but it seems to be one of the most tolerant cities I’ve ever visited. The people, including the homeless, are friendly to me. I feel safe walking the streets late at night. In some places, the police are looking for reasons to hassle people, but I don’t get that feeling in Portland. They seem to look the other way when I jay walk, which could be a reason to be hassled and searched in many other places. The city is full of beautiful parks, public restrooms, and I love all the bubbling water fountains everywhere. Michael Moore said we had the largest occupation in the county when he visited us.
We have to put behind us all the bad blood that the occupation of Chapman and Lonsdale Parks caused. We have to stop demanding apologies and stop bickering. We need to focus on moving forward. We need to be almost inhumanly reasonable and peaceful. We need to occupy a spiritual park where parents feel that their children and elderly parents are safe when they join us. We need to rely on and include the police in order to accomplish this. When we march and publicly assemble, we should lovingly demand that the police see to our safety. We should approach them as friends because we need them to accomplish what seems to be an almost impossible goal—changing a world motivated by greed into a world motivated by love and tolerance.
What an extraordinary person you are! So glad you discussed the Monday GA. I attended via livestream for the very first time (probably many other neophytes as well) and it was not a good experience. The behavior and prolonged discussion/point of orders/stacks were way off topic to say the least.
Stuck with it to the very end, but turned off my computer with a sinking and dismal impression. Felt like I was an eyewitness to the de-evolution of the human race.
Please stop the infighting, the discussion of the parks, asking for apologies, the endless marching, the victimization, the whining, time wasted on deciding where to live, the finger pointing and taking difficulties personally.
Everyone has made mistakes, little ones and big ones. If the movement can’t acknowledge their own mistakes and blindly insists on it’s own perfection, it’s destined to die of it’s own self-determined hypocrisy and contradictions.
I am so very sad, for all of us.
Wow, I must be pretty amazing. I made it thru school on my own with only $1500 in student debt….. oh wait, I HAD A JOB. If you can’t afford PSU go to PCC or just wonder around yelling at people. Your problem not anyone else.
Occupy PSU: Please ignore those who argue about personal responsibility when it comes to the issues you are addressing. You seem to already realize the larger, structural issues at play. Keep it up and good luck!
A supporter,
MCS
Thanks for the great livestream coverage. Some food for thought..
Several (more than 3) times the livestream person stated the police were using “tear gas” and this was even repeated anecdotally to a bystander.
My experience with tear gas is it’s a canister lobbed into a crowd emiting vast quantities of tear gas “smoke” if you will, causing immediate and vigorously obvious distress.
Did not see anything even remotely resembling this, so I conclude there was no tear gas and these statements are inaccurate and dangerous.
Journalistic integrity please. Take a lesson from Mr. Pool at livestream NYC/we are the 99%. (if you are going to provide and broadcast/create a narrative, keep it clean)