"New York Hearts Boston" projection by The Illuminator. Image via imgur.com.

The Boston Marathon tragedy has been met with unbelievable acts of kindness. From Buzzfeed, these Bostonians will restore your faith in humanity.

In the wake of Monday's awful tragedy in Boston, you may be wondering what you can do to help, so...How You Can Help:

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino have formed The One Fund Boston, Inc. to help the people most affected by the Boston Marathon tragedy. Find out how you can get involved here.

Cell phone service has been shut down in the city. If you're looking for information on someone who was running the Marathon, Google has set up a People Finder -- you can also use it to submit information about a person. Families of victims can also use the Mayor's Hotline for information: 617-635-4500. Or use the Red Cross site, see below.

The American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts has opened a disaster operation center and is asking locals to notify loved ones of their whereabouts on the organization’s website.

The Red Cross says the best way to help right now is to get in touch with loved ones through its Safe And Well Listings. The organization is not asking for blood donations at this time thanks to many donations from people seeking to help. But check their website often in case this changes.

The Salvation Army has deployed four mobile feeding kitchens and more than 30 volunteers to dispense food, drinks and emotional support in Boston. One canteen is stationed at the Family Assistance Center at the Park Plaza Castle where survivors and first responders are congregating. Find out how you can get involved here.

Some marathon runners are stranded in Boston and in need of places to stay. Boston.com reports that they'll be setting up a Google doc where runners who need a place to stay can find lodging, and those who have lodging available can post details. Check back on their site for more information soon. Update: The Google doc is now live. Find out how you can offer housing here.

Boston Police are looking for tips, anyone with info about the incident can call 617-635-4500 or 1-800-494-TIPS.

Our thoughts are with everyone in Boston right now, stay safe. Cheers to the first responders who did an amazing job of responding to the call to duty.

Most businesses will be open in the area, although the JFK Library will be closed Tuesday, April 16.

What began as a temporary first aid tent along the Occupy Eugene movement in October 2011, morphed into the Occupy Medical clinic in February 2012. It's there that every Sunday from noon to 4p.m., volunteers gather at their mobile clinic to make a difference by offering free healthcare in downtown Eugene, Oregon.

Sue Sieralupe, a certified herbalist, was one of the founders of Occupy Medical. She has been the clinic manager since it started.

“What we are trying to do is show Oregonians what it looks like to have single-payer,” she says, a system in which the government pays for all health care costs. “It doesn't matter how much money you have, how much insurance you have, what your background is, if you need help - you get help. That's it .”

With around 30 volunteers, including ten nurses, three doctors, three people on the herbal supplement team, four people in the mental health committee and two people on the pharmacy team, Occupy Medical provides 100 percent free treatment. If the volunteers can't offer the service needed, they also go “behind the scenes” in other organizations to help people through it.

As the clinic manager, Sieralupe solicits funds, donations and supplies. She looks at the volunteers’ background to put them in the right job. She is also the spokesperson for Occupy Medical. She attends panels with other healthcare advocates, and gives classes at OSU on how to open your own clinic.

Continue reading »

The Occupy Sandy website, http://occupysandy.net, has been revamped to help us all better engage in mutual aid with the survivors of the SuperStorm.

In whatever manner you have taken part, it’s important to recognize and remember that the crisis isn't over. Not by a long shot.

Areas hit by Sandy still need volunteers. Please join us.

-- from the ‘Your Inbox: Occupied’ team

Occupy in the News

The Revolution Will Be Augmented: OWS Should Embrace Google Glass

Silicon Angle

Already Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and other protesters have visited the idea of activism and citizen journalism on the front lines of large scale protests by using smartphones and live streaming–but it’s nothing compared to the surveillance capabilities of law enforcement agencies. (ht OWS News Coverage blast: subscribe here).

Free Health Care & Spirited Activism Transform NYC Public Spaces Saturday

Washington Square Public Blog

Occupy Town Square, Strike Debt, and other Occupy Wall Street groups, gathered together Saturday, March 23rd for “Medical Emergency: Life or Debt” with Washington Square Park as the hub.

Cyprus: What Every Occupier Needs to Know

OccupyWallStreet.net

Nicholas Levis from the Alternative Banking Working Group weighs in on the crisis in Cyprus after they rejected a proposed 10 billion European Union bank bailout. Cyprus constitutes “an experiment in total exercise of class power, to see how far a people can be pushed and what might be learned for future cases.”

Mortgage Protesters Occupy Bank in Barcelona

NBC News Photoblog

Members of Mortgage Victims' Platform (PAH), occupy a bank branch during a protest to support neighbors who are facing evictions processes in Barcelona, Spain, on March 19.

Let Me Ascertain You: The Civilians Podcast

By the Civilians

Let Me Ascertain You, from award-winning investigative theater company The Civilians, is a weekly podcast series of performances crafted from interviews with real people about current and controversial topics, including Occupy Wall Street, Atlantic Yards, the adult entertainment industry, Evangelical Christianity, and more. Last week they aired their finale from a 5 part Occupy #S17 series.

Occupy Wall Street and Strike Debt Stand in Solidarity With the Community of East Flatbush and the Family of Kimani Gray

OccupyWallSt.org

“Predatory debt, public austerity, emergency restructuring, climate crisis: the disasters of Wall Street hit black and brown people the hardest”. Prior to a solidarity march this Sunday, the following was published - providing details on the rationale of so many occupiers who are supporting the #BrooklynProtest, in a manner that will help provide mutual understanding for solidarity with this neighborhood-led local effort.

Featured Occu-Project of the Week

For over a year now, Occu-Evolve has been holding weekly assemblies and actions focused on "race, class, gender, identity, cultural and structural and direction of the movement.” It was formed out of an ardent commitment to providing outreach to the 99%, particularly people of color, the working class and neighborhood assemblies.

Occu-Evolve’s efforts at this time couldn’t be more timely in light of the tragedy of Kimani Gray and the #BrooklynProtest it has inspired. Check out their Occupy For Kimani (and all victims of police injustice) page for details on “positive, clear, organized and coordinated actions, communication and planning for Justice for Kimani Gray, as well as other victims of unjust and deadly police actions and encounters.”

Continue reading »

In the days following Superstorm Sandy the Occupy Wall Street movement quickly mobilized their network bringing thousands of volunteers, donations, hot meals, and medical aide to the hardest hit areas. Working under the name 'Occupy Sandy' the group is comprised of both activists and new members who are simply looking to volunteer their time for a good cause. While the Occupy movement is excited to be playing a more direct role in community engagement, they are not losing sight of their political agenda.

The New York Daily News has a great feature article this morning about Occupy Wall Street, and the Sandy relief efforts, you can read it here.

This webcast is an amazing thing to witness. @OccupySandy teaming up with a biker club to clean up homes in New York's Staten Island ravaged by the hurricane. Doing what FEMA can't, or won't. The Occupy Sandy movement has been fascinating to watch in action, many of the volunteers are experienced in just this sort of effort after aiding recovery efforts in NOLA after Katrina, and in Haiti after the earthquake. After being declared "dead" and "without purpose" by the media, this leaderless volunteer movement showed the world what community activism really means, and what the ability to mobilize at a moment's notice can accomplish.

In the video below, brief interviews with a few Occupy Sandy volunteers. This is Jacobi Church in Sunset Park where the volunteers are gathering and organizing the donations.

Occupy Sandy Relief from Dwayne Henry on Vimeo.

Occupy Sandy in action: Church full of volunteers preparing meals, sorting donations to distribute throughout NYC.

The New Yorker's News Desk:

At the St. Francis de Sales church on B-129th Street, the church hall has been taken over by Occupy Sandy—an offshoot of the still-active networks of Occupy Wall Street. Supplies have been driven here from all over Brooklyn: back there are piles of blankets; on the tables here are diapers, baby food, and cleaning supplies; over there, clothes (grownup, child, baby); more than a hundred pairs of shoes lined up neatly on the bleachers. Residents of the neighborhood wander around the hall, filling bags. In the front entranceway Occupy volunteers are unloading cases of bottled water from a truck, handing the heavy cases one to the next, a bucket brigade to the back of the church. The volunteers move fast but the job lasts more than half an hour—it’s a big truck. In front of the church, long tables have been set up on the sidewalk, where volunteers are serving hot food and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

The Red Cross doesn’t accept individual donations of household goods—these things, it says, need to be cleaned, sorted, and repackaged, and all that takes up more time than they’re worth. It asks for financial donations only. New York Cares requires its volunteers to go through orientation sessions, all of which are full till late November. But Occupy, as you would expect, has a different style.

Be sure to read the entire article at the New Yorker, and not just because it portrays the occupy movement in a positive light, it's because this is what occupy is doing when they aren't protesting in the streets. They're holding educational sessions, planning and organizing sessions...and when there is a need in the community -- as there is most certainly after the devastation left by Sandy (Mayor Bloomberg says as many as 40k NYers may need to relocate!) -- occupiers are able to step up and get the ball rolling with amazing speed.

If you missed the opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday evening, here's a glimpse. This was seriously mind blowing, a country where the people pay higher taxes for nationalized health care, and they celebrate it. The mere mention of it in the U.S. makes the right-wing recoil in horror and hiss all at once.

"It’s something that is very dear to people's hearts. If you live here, you will end up there, it does not matter how rich or powerful you are. ... We got hundreds of volunteers from the National Health Service. All the
volunteers made a special sacrifice to be with us and to be rehearsed, but these guys are extraordinary.”

– Danny Boyle on celebration of the U.K.'s NHS during London Olympics

More on Danny Boyle and the UK's 2012 Olympics opening ceremony here.

H/T Michael Moore

CBS Atlanta 46

Tocco Collins knew there were problems with the Atlanta home she rented for herself and her children, but the company that she paid her rent to, the Real Estate Connection, promised that they would take care of everything.

Via:

The single mother of 12 said she waited seven months, but nothing was repaired. Collins said shortly thereafter, disaster struck.

"My biggest nightmare came of August 2011 when my light box caught on fire. Georgia Power disconnected my service because it was too dangerous," Collins said.

Collins and her family have been using a generator for the last 10 months. She said she stopped paying rent when her supposed landlord refused to make repairs. They took Collins to court in an attempt to get her evicted and that is when she said she discovered the shocking truth.

"No one could provide the deed to the house. The people renting me the house don't own it," Collins said.

Now the "fake" landlords have disappeared, Collins has no place to live and she said the state is trying to take her children.

Occupy Atlanta is now working with the family, and the group hopes that with the public's help, they can purchase a home for them. Volunteer plumbers, electricians, and carpenters will do renovations. Occupy Atlanta already has a good deal of experience working within their community, and helping families in need. I'll keep you posted on any updates.

Today only 7 families remain of the former 32 who made up the community of Riverdale Mobile Home Park, in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, after the land beneath them was sold to Aqua America, a water company dedicated to fracking.

On June 12, a blockade of residents, volunteers, and members of Occupy Cleveland made their last stand as private security contractors, and the Pennsylvania State Police were called in and arrest warnings issued. As you can see in the video above, Riverdale residents stepped in, fearing for the safety of those who had stood and fought with them for their homes, and asked volunteers to leave as the police ordered.

Also of note in the video, as the volunteers struggle to keep the blockade going, they try to communicate with the crew who are called in to install fencing. They try to tell one young man that he could get another job(that doesn't involve helping people lose their homes.) and he replies "Not where I come from." He says that he has a family, too, and that they were about to be evicted from their home as well.

Construction has been ongoing for over ten days now, as the remaining families negotiate with Aqua America for financial compensation. To keep any protesters from returning, "There are three private security guards at all times and floodlights on the place all night. They can't get their mail; the mailman isn't allowed in there. They can't get anyone to come help them move their things. It's like they're incarcerated."

Via:

But former Riverdale resident Eric Daniels, a truck driver in the natural gas industry, wants everyone in the country to know this: "We were a small group of people who stood up against this injustice."

And it looks like Riverdale won't be the last Pennsylvania community that gets fracked. Just yesterday, residents of nearby Bucknell View Mobile Home Park received notice that they would have to pay thousands of dollars to raise their trailers to higher ground—or get out by August 1. "The issues in our area are out of control," Daniels said.

Nor are community fights over fracking damages by any means isolated to the Susquehanna area. In upstate New York, five underserved counties are about to get fracked, and communities are split between their need for income and their fears of water contamination and other health risks. In California, 600 unregulated wells were fracked in 2011, and upset citizens have allied with national environmental nonprofits to coordinate protests.

"Fracking is always going to have to be fought largely at the local and state level because that's where the controlling government jurisdictions mostly are," said environmental activist and author Bill McKibben, whose organization 350.org used its clout to pass Riverdale's call to action on to its regional supporters via Twitter and email. "It makes it hard, but powerful."

You can learn more about fracking here.

Sheriff's deputies tried twice this week to evict Occupy Minnesota supporters from a foreclosed home they were defending.

On Wednesday, aggressive efforts of Occupy Minnesota foiled a 4:00 PM sheriff's raid on the foreclosed home of the Cruz family. The deputies retreated.

On Friday they returned again at 4:00 AM, armed with battering rams, jack hammers and massive bolt cutters. There were about a dozen occupy volunteers sleeping at the house. All but two were ordered outside - the two couldn't find their shoes. The five people secured to the building were forcibly removed and arrested, currently held until Tuesday morning.

Again the sheriff's crew was driven back by the occupy volunteers who came up the alley and entered the back of the house. The deputies retreated with their prisoners leaving the home in shambles.

A rally in front of City hall at noon on May 25, featured the broken door and speeches by supporters including three members of the Minneapolis City Council. The door was then delivered to Sheriff Stanek's Office in City Hall. The sheriff declined to meet with the demonstrators. The broken door was left at the front door of his office. A major source of frustration was that the bank was working with the Cruz family to clear up the situation and renew the mortgage. The sheriff's actions cut across this progress and was seen as unnecessary and punitive by those close to the situation.