From Alex Pio of the Occutour

Occunauts brokedown on the side of the road in Utah on their way to Chicago, after visiting amazing encampment at Occupy Salt Lake City.

Hey folks,

Occutour needs help! I occutoured until Friday when I had to leave, and on Sunday the transmission fell out of the van, they’re now stranded in green river, Utah.

Anyways, I’m putting this out into the occupy universe for it to work its magic, I know several things that could help them now:

- another car
- money to repair the transmission (Send them some funds HERE)
- a ride to Chicago
- world peace

If any of you can help with any of the above, or know someone who can, please email info@occutour.org

Alex

About the Occutour:

Our country is at an impasse. Its education, healthcare, and justice systems are dysfunctional. Wealth inequality is at unprecedented levels, corporations have hijacked the government, and climate change is under way.  Consumption – rather than community – has long been touted as the key to happiness. People are suffering.

The Occupy movement exploded last fall, bringing this national discontent to the forefront – igniting conversation, protest, and action across the nation.  What happens next?

The OccuTour provides organizing, learning and action support for communities to turn discontent into change by:

1. Providing a selection of workshops, panels, discussions, and activities customizable to the needs of specific communities to spark conversation, inform, and build capacity for social change advocacy.

2. Offering our skills and motivation to help build and grow local organizing projects.

3. Documenting the state of activism, alternative livelihoods, and the changing face of civic involvement in communities across the United States.

If you don’t know  where you’ve been, how will you ever figure out where you’re going?

http://geekportland.com/show_event.php?id=625&o=2&c=1&m=05&a=10&y=2012&w=1

Venue/Location: 5th Avenue Cinema, 510 SW Hall St, Phone: 503-725-3551
Date: Friday, May 11, 2012 – 7:00 PM

Kick Ass Oregon History: The Seventh Day

Admission: $5.00 suggested donation

Kick Ass Oregon History is quite pleased to partner with 5th Avenue Cinema to present the film The Seventh Day.

At the film screening, orhistory.com‘s Resident Historian, Doug Kenck-Crispin, will provide the context for this cinematic gem. PSU History Professor David Horowitz, a witness to the riot in 1970, will be our featured speaker. Our Kick Ass Melissa The Intern will be doing some serious set magic to the theater, and just to make sure you cats keep it all mellow, man, Josh Feinberg will provide live sitar music, cause we don’t want anyone to have a heavy trip.

Labeled by some in our current era as “The FIRST Occupy Portland,” The Seventh Day was made by Portland State University students, with the help and guidance of the university’s Center for the Moving Image, during the student strikes that erupted on college campuses across the nation in May of 1970. PSU’s campus became the site of a violent confrontation between the Portland police and protesters that sent over 30 to area hospitals.

The events leading up to, and the melee itself are all chronicled in this important film. The Oregonian film review of June 5th, 1970 called The Seventh Day “an excellent film about a truly historic event in the history of our community.” 42 years later, this statement is even more true.

Many have seen this film on a VHS transfer, but for this night only, due to the generosity of the Portland State University Library’s Special Collections, a virgin 16mm copy of The Seventh Day will be projected for your Portland Film/History Geek Pleasure! That’s right – it’s like it’s 1970 all over again, brothers and sisters!

We are writing you today to officially invite any and all who may be interested in, not only joining us for this event, but to also be featured as speakers before the after party with a no-host bar and LIVE MUSIC!

We plan to meet in the Civic Circle at 5:30pm for an unpermitted rally with speakers, then to venture into the Monticello Hotel at 7:00pm for the after party/social.

The experiences we have all been through since last December with being involved with the unions and labor, would not have been the same without the solidarity of Oakland, Portland, and others. So, at this event, come celebrate the unity of both labor and Occupy, aka the community, aka the 99%.

Come stand with us, dance with us, share your testimonies with us, and celebrate with us!

Please let us know if you need any further information. Our contact info is below.

Here is the Event Page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/396663287032178/

Peace, Love, Respect & Solidarity,

Communications/Media Committee

Lenny Fisher, Amanda* Nipper, Paul Nipper

503-412-9219

Occupy Cowlitz County / Occupy Longview (Longview, WA)

Please follow the link below to ‘like’ our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyLongview#!/OccupyLongview

This event has been endorsed by the Occupy Portland General Assembly

Saturday, May 12th, 12:00 pm to Monday, May 14th, 3:00 pm
Did you know Mother’s Day began as an activist’s call for peace during the Civil War? Let’s continue this spirit of civic engagement this Mother’s Day and speak out against the privatization of public water here in Oregon!

Picnic with Bark on Saturday May 12th at Mt Tabor Park. We will celebrate Bull Run drinking water, create Mother’s Day themed cards for Governor Kitzhaber, and film your video testimonials letting him know mother’s and others think Nestlé is bad for our children’s future.

Then join us Monday, May 14th to hand deliver our artwork and messages to the Governor’s office in Salem and tell Kitzhaber “Water belongs to future generations, NOT transnational corporations.”

Picnic at Mt Tabor:

When: Saturday May 12th, 12-2pm

Where: Mt Tabor Park, Portland. We will be next to Reservoir 5, (follow SE Salmon St past 60th Ave, into the park and up the hill-you will see the reservoir and our signs)

Special Delivery in Salem:

When: Monday, May 14th
Where: Meet at the Sierra Club office, 1821 SE Ankeny St, Portland @10:30am to carpool to the Governor’s office in Salem

Call 503-331-0374 or email meredith@bark-out.org to RSVP or for more information.

Brian Willson, author of the book Blood on the Tracks, speaks at the St Francis dining hall for this Occupy Portland event.   Willson is a member of Veterans for Peace who lost both legs while trying to block a munitions train in 1987 that was bringing weapons to El Salvador to be used against peasants, villagers, union organizers, nurses, and whoever stood in the way of elite power under the protection of US imperialism.  Willson is also widely known as a hunger striker in Washington DC, a peace activist in Nicaragua and elsewhere.  He is a passionate and effective speaker on issues of the war economy under which we are all suffering, and he has experience and knowledge about the movement for a more sustainable, ecological, and sane way of life.

Brian Willson will give a presentation and answer audience questions.  His book will be available too.

Where:  Dining hall, St. Francis.

When:  May 9th, 7 PM

 Because understanding NATO is first and foremost, please visit here: natoprotest.org to learn all about this incredibly corrupt alliance that continues to “intervene” in poor parts of the world only to take their resources, kill or depose leaders with integrity and replace them with corrupt leaders.

THIS INFORMATION IS FROM 99Solidarity.net -

99Solidarity has begun sending email updates to occupiers signing up for the Chicago Bus Trips. Please be sure to add info@99solidarity.net to your address book to ensure the updates do not get filed as spam.

99% solidarity is excited to participate in nonviolent direct actions in Chicago from May 18 to 22, 2012. We have secured buses to bring people to these actions from several U.S cities.

We are currently working on the travel schedule, agenda and other important details of this trip. We will be contacting you with updated information shortly. For now here are a few updates:

• The Bus trip is free
• 50 people from each city must sign up and board the bus for the trip take place. If a city has less then 50 sign ups, then we may have to cancel the bus for that city.
• Meals will be provided on board the bus to and from Chicago
• We are working on housing and meals while in Chicago

There are several direct actions and events that we will participate in while in Chicago including:

• May 18 – The People’s Summit
• May 19 – the 99% Solidarity People’s Convention
• May 20 – CANG8 rally and march.

Please visit 99solidarity.net often to get the most up to date information and be sure to invite your friends and fellow occupiers to join you on this exciting, historic trip.

In addition, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter: @99solidarity

Currently, a bus (or more) will be leaving from Portland in time to arrive in Chicago on May 17.

They’re also leaving from these cities:

• New York City
• Washington DC
• Boston, MA
• Providence, RI
• Burlington, VT
• Salem, NH
• Philadelphia, PA
• Atlanta, GA
• Oakland CA
• Los Angeles, CA
• San Francisco, CA

__________________________________________________

So tell your friends and get on the bus!

They do have a voluntary pledge of Non-violence and Mutual Respect and a voluntary Action Agreement. A word of warning, if you go to register for the bus, the action agreement loses its “voluntary-ness”.

There’s also the Chicago Principles which everyone in the movement should familiarize themselves with.

The Chicago Principals

• Our solidarity will be based on respect for a political diversity within the struggle for social, economic and environmental justice. As individuals and groups, we may choose to engage in a diversity of tactics and plans of action but are committed to treating each other with respect and working towards a common goal of peace and justice.
• As we plan our actions and tactics, we will take care to maintain appropriate separations of time and space between divergent tactics.
• We oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption, limiting our action to “free speech zones,” and violence, or attempts to divide our movement through the conscious creation of divisions regarding tactics, organization, strategies, and alliances.
• Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events.

Because one or two people may show aggressive verbiage at a Portland Police Officer, it is ridiculous to characterize and entire movement as changing its tone, especially when Occupy Portland has been committed to peaceful marches, events and occupations from day one. And Occupy has successfully demonstrated our commitment to peaceful protest.

The only time there have been any incidents of violence at an Occupy event is when the police show up and instigate the violence. People only get hurt when the police hurt them. The outliers of this fact have been few and far between.

I have spoken to this fact in City Hall, and Mayor Adams didn’t have a word to say in response. There was a blank face and barely an acknowledgment of my words.

We have seen an incoherent and inconsistent strategy by the PPB in regards to how they approach and deal with Occupy and affinity groups and we are seeing an ever present sense of more malice and aggression.

After yesterday, it is clear to us that the tone and tenor of the Portland Police has become decidedly violent and aggressive and they are clearly not upholding their civic duty to promote the peace and safety of Portland citizens exercising their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly.

There’s no explaining the amount of violence and tactics deployed during the May 1 events, but we’re going to demand an explanation regardless. People were pulled off their bikes for no reason. People were slammed into pavement and hit with police bikes. Where in the Police manual is it legitimate to slam a bike into a person from behind for stepping off a sidewalk to help someone that has fallen down? This happened to someone very close to me.

When did it become policy for a Police officer to repeatedly punch a restrained person who is on the street and not resisting? Take a look at this video at around the 19 minute mark.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22273409

The next video shows two police brutally wrestling a person to the street, restraining him and then throwing down a woman on top of him and trying to drag the woman by her hair.

The woman was clearly pulled into the situation, and when by PPB policy is it appropriate to pull someone to one side by their hair?

Another great example is the takedown of this peaceful woman. Please explain this series of photos.

What the hell is going on with your department? Where is the leadership and training?

Mayor Adams, Chief Reese, Lt King, Commander Day, Captain Westbrook and others: If you think it’s acceptable to use violence on people that step off a sidewalk, hold people zip-tied for more than 4 hours for a misdemeanor violation and punch a 15-year-old kid, then you need to explain all of this to the citizens of Portland.

We are collecting and documenting these events.

Whether its New York City, Seattle, Oakland,  Portland or anywhere; Police violence is unacceptable . Nothing that happened during the May day events warranted the brutal response from the Portland Police.

It is no wonder that the US Department of Justice has an open investigation on the use of force and brutality in the Portland Police Bureau.

We expect and demand better. And we will hold each of you accountable.

Expect Us.

Kip Silverman
Portland Oregon

The Occupy Portland Spokes Council stands in solidarity with this letter.