A few months ago, Occupy Wall Street offshoot Strike Debt made international headlines through its Rolling Jubilee initiative that raised more than $500,000 to purchase and abolish debt.

Strike Debt will soon be making a big announcement about a large amount of medical debt they have abolished, and is calling for a week of education and organizing culminating in a day of action in New York City on March 23.

Join us for a week of action to declare a healthcare emergency.

The attention this buy will generate can be utilized to highlight the profound inhumanity and inequality of our medical payment system and create a vision of a world where healthcare is truly treated as a right.

Strike Debt is demanding the cancellation of all medical debts and a radically transformed healthcare system based on everybody's need for wellness and not the 1%'s desire for wealth.

Take action March 16 – March 23 for this matter of "Life or Debt".

Save the date, and stay tuned for updates about #M23.

-- from the 'Your Inbox: Occupied' team

Occupy in the News

Michael Premo, OWS activist, was found innocent of all charges stemming from the Duarte Square protest at which he was said to have resisted arrest. A Democracy Now cameraman caught the whole thing on tape and Premo was exonerated. As Premo's lawyer said: "the case highlight[s] the significance of having the press, livestreamers and professional video journalists present during demonstrations." So keep your cameras rolling!

For insight into Occupy in the U.K. and internationally read Tim Gee's post at the Guardian blog. This insightful post takes stock of the difficulties facing the movement as it goes up against the rapacity of global capitalism, gives credit to the development of Strike Debt, and offers some suggestions of tactics for moving forward.

Food for thought:

At occupywallstreet.net, Toby Cumberbatch of the Electrical Engineering Department at Cooper Union challenges the school to rethink its mission and to reclaim the ideals of its founder, Peter Cooper, with a series of radical proposals. This fight goes "beyond the boundaries of Astor Place and NYC." As he puts it, "the concept of education that is as free as air and water is critically important for the survival of humankind."

Featured Occu-Project

"OWS Radio," which has been airing weeknights at 6:30 PM EST on WBAI 99.5 FM New York since October 2011, is a show by and for the Occupy movement, covering Occupy news, Occupy theory, and Occupy tactics.

Regrettably, WBAI is facing a struggle for their survival in the wake of the impact from Superstorm Sandy, so please consider a donation to support this Pacifica station which was both the birthplace of "Democracy Now!" as well as one of the earliest major media outlets to give voice to Occupy Wall Street!

Occupy These Actions & Events

Sunday, March 10th, 2pm

Unorganized Workers Assembly
Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South

Join the Occupy Your Workplace group for a discussion of strategy and tactics of workplace organizing. We'll have several folks present who have experience as workplace "salts" - workers who get jobs with the aim of organizing. Workers who are curious about organizing, experienced organizers and activists, union members, and all other workers and non workers welcome. RSVP for the event on Facebook.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Defend Education Day
Campuses Nationwide
SDS/Occupy Colleges is hosting a National Day of Action against Tuition and Fee Hikes. Join to get updates on flyers, coordination calls and other distribution materials. Message Occupy Colleges and we will help promote your campus/ organizations demonstration.

Tuesday, March 19th, 5:30pm

Screening of "Earthlings" and Occupy for All Species: Social Justice in the Age of Climate Change (a talk by Mickey Z.)
Hunter College 695 Park Avenue
"Earthlings" is a movie that intends to free us from a dark cave, into seeing what is hidden from most of us...the shadows of happy circus elephants by whom we are "entertained"; the "fashionable" clothes we wear; the cosmetics we wear in search of "aesthetics", or the happy farm animals we see on children's books. Oscar Award winner Joaquin Phoenix narrates.
Come view "Earthlings" at Hunter College on March 13 and then follow-up with discussion there, less than a week later.

March 16-23

Tar Sands Week of Action
Our grassroots movement to stop the tar sands is growing! For TransCanada "business as usual" means death and destruction for our communities. Together we can stop this multinational corporate bully and their toxic profiteers. Sign up to host an action/event in your community as part of the Week of Action to Stop Tar Sands Profiteers, March 16-23. Show up at their offices, public events, and extraction sites to demonstrate that we won't stop until they do. Find a TransCanada or investor's office in your community: http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/local_action kxlblockade@riseup.net.

Monday, March 18th, 12pm

Occupy the NRA's Hedge Fund Divestment Campaign Event
Owl Creek Asset Management 640 5th Ave #20
Occupy the NRA (ONRA) is launching a long ­term social action campaign to hold Wall Street firms accountable for their investments in gun manufacturers. We will push these firms to divest their stocks in these blood­soaked companies, hitting them where it hurts most, namely, their bottom line. On March 18th, 2013, we will use direct actions in the Occupy tradition against Blackstone, Cerberus & Owl Creek Asset Management (OCAM). We chose these firms because they either own millions of dollars of holdings in gun manufacturers' stock or bought stock as a direct result of the Sandy Hook massacre.

March 22-24

Organizing New York March 22-24
United Federation of Teachers building, 52 Broadway
Join hundreds of leaders, organizers, techies and activists to share our wisdom, skills, and talents. We will have workshops, discussions, consulting and networking opportunities, visionary speakers and a provocative debate around strategy and practices.
Over three days right by Wall Street, we will bring together a thousand people to learn from each other, share stories and strategies and build our skills, organizations and movements.
This is an event that occupy organizers will be participating in to build and share their skills. It will assuredly build upon the success of last year's OWS unconference that was held in collaboration with Organizing 2.0.

From Press TV: This episode of the show reports on the Anaheim solidarity marches across the U.S., Frack attack rallies in D.C., Stand Up Chicago and raise the minimum wage rallies, the Obama fundraiser in Portland as well as the AIDS awareness rallies.

This episode also interviews many Occupy Wall Street protesters including the “Stand Up Chicago” policy analyst Elizabeth Parisian.

There's nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it -- it's strategic. It's more powerful than bombs. It's more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world. The story starts in the White House, where Monsanto often got its way by exerting disproportionate influence over policymakers via the "revolving door". One example is Michael Taylor, who worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. While at the FDA, the authority that deals with all US food approvals, Taylor made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops. Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company's vice president for public policy.

Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally, Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market. Monsanto's long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists, who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects. Other tactics the company uses to stifle concerns about their products include misleading advertising, bribery and concealing scientific evidence.

The "unofficially unemployed":

Last year there were 86 million people who didn't have a job and weren't consistently looking for one, according to Labor Department data.

Older people, ages 65 and over, account for more than a third. Young people between 16 and 24 make up another fifth. More than half don't have a college degree and more than two thirds are white.

Many of the teens and 20-somethings may be enrolled in either high school or college full-time. And many of the over 65 crowd are probably retired.

But what about the other 36 million folks who fall in between?

A senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Keith Hall, "suspects the number of "disengaged" Americans, like Everett, is higher than usual as a direct result of the recession."

With 115,000 new jobs created in April, and unemployment at 8.1 percent, Mitt Romney says that he would create 500,000 jobs per month and a standard unemployment of 4 percent. He also promised everyone pink unicorns with glitter.

Just before May Day, members of Occupy Wall Street launched court cases against the NYPD:

NEW YORK (April 30, 2012) – Today, Occupy-affiliated demonstrators who were illegally held for two hours against their will on November 30, 2011 inside a pen built of interlocking metal barricades filed a civil rights action in federal court. The group is represented by the law firms of Rankin & Taylor and Beldock Levine & Hoffman. In addition to damages, the group seeks an injunction on behalf of all demonstrators in New York City that would prohibit similar Police tactics.

Release from the attorneys here.

Federal Court Monitor Questions Oakland's Response to Occupy

The federal court monitor tracking reforms in the Oakland police force said Monday that the effort had met "outright stagnation," and raised questions about officers' use of beanbag shotguns and other weapons during what he called a "military-type" response to Occupy demonstrations.

NYPD, FBI Raid Occupy Activist's Homes Before May Day

In the first case: activist Zachary Dempster said that six NYPD officers broke down the door of his Bushwick, Brooklyn apartment at around 6:15am this morning. Dempster said they were armed with a warrant for the arrest of his roommate, musician Joe Crow Ryan, for a six-year-old open container violation. But Dempster believes this was an excuse to check in on him, as he'd been arrested in February at an Occupy Wall Street Party that was broken up by cops, and charged with assaulting a police office and inciting a riot.

Research Shows the US is a Low Wage Country

Tennessee Passes Abstinence-Based “Gateway Sexual Activity” Bill

This is the state that just made it possible to sue teachers who tell children how human reproduction works.

From Down with Tyranny:

A few weeks ago we talked about how our friends at Cuéntame were calling out corrupt hypocrite Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her scandalous role in the prison-for-profit system. Cuéntame wants to know why Wasserman Schultz, the head of the DNC is "siding with the Corrections Corporation of America and not her constituents in Southwest Ranches? 99% of her constituents DO NOT want a new for-profit immigrant detention center!" Although CCA "donates" their bribe money primarily to right-wing Republicans like Steve Womack (AR), Kevin McCarthy (CA), John Culberson (TX) and Marsha Blackburn (TN), Wasserman Schultz is one of the few Democrats taking payoffs from them as well.

Full report here.

The New York Tiimes recently published an article called "Terrorist Plots, Helped Along by the FBI." Undercover operations have become a mainstay in counterterrorism, targeting suspects because of speech or angry postings on the internet. And as in the case on May Day, the use of informants who are often convicted felons or agents posing as terrorists. Claims of entrapment most always fail, even in one case, when the judge, as she was sentencing one man to decades in prison admitted that the guy wouldn't be a "terrorist" if it weren't for the FBI:

"Only the government could have made a 'terrorist' out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope," said Judge Colleen McMahon, sentencing him to 25 years. She branded it a "fantasy terror operation" but called his attempt "beyond despicable" and rejected his claim of entrapment.

Full article here.

Michael Moore can sing! Who knew?

A blogger and member of Occupy San Francisco believes that police plants -- not Black Bloc -- were behind the spree of vandalism before the march on May Day.

Jamie Dimon acknowledges that Occupy Wall Street has "legitimate complaints"

Asked about the Occupy Wall Street movement against financial greed and economic inequality, Dimon acknowledged that the protesters have some “legitimate complaints.” He argued, however, that it’s unfair to paint all institutions with one brush: “It was everyone guilty. That’s another form of discrimination.”

He also added: "When things go wrong, finance gets blamed." Poor guy, think he may have been feelings pangs of what used to be his conscience?

From Jason Leopold at Truthout: Latest batch of Occupy Wall Street documents released by DHS show White House was approving talking points for DHS.

Voter registration down among hispanics, blacks.

Atrios explains how to stop the nation's spiraling debt:

Basically if you become that irresponsible government which prints money instead of collecting taxes in order to pay its bills, you can get high and rising inflation. But there's a simple solution. You print up a giant amount of money and then stop. You convince people you're no longer going to be irresponsible by having one last bender and then going cold turkey. The final bender gives you enough cash to pay your bills. You might lower the value of your currency, but it's a one time thing. Then it stops.

Read the entire post here.