Occupy the NRA is launching a long ­term social action campaign to hold Wall Street firms accountable for their investments in gun manufacturers.

Join us for an Occupy the NRA hedge fund divestment action this Monday.

At 12pm on Monday, March 18th, Occupy the NRA will take action against Blackstone, Cerberus & Owl Creek Asset Management. These firms were chosen either because they own millions of dollars of holdings in gun manufacturers’ stock or bought stock as a direct result of the Sandy Hook massacre.

Take action to hit these blood­soaked companies where it hurts most: their bottom line.

-- from the ‘Your Inbox: Occupied’ team

p.s. Not a fan of Facebook? Find this Occupy the NRA event on NYCGA.net.

#LifeOrDebt Week of Action Update

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”.

A large amount of medical debt has been bought and abolished, and announcements in that regard are forthcoming. Yet although this will provide real relief to thousands of people who need it, it is only crumbs in light of the 70 million who still owe money on medical bills.

There are a host of #LifeOrDebt actions planned in New York City. Full event entries are organized by date below in this newsletter, including actions like: You Are Not a Loan Music Video Filming, Strike Private Health Insurance, Life or Debt: A Day of Free Healthcare and Education, Occupy Town Square: Life or Debt, Hospital Closings Protest.

Debt like these are literally killing patients, students, providers and communities.

Join us to strike these debts down.

Occupy in the News

Subscribe to the OWS News Coverage blast here.

Strike Debt Declares Healthcare Emergency: 'It's a Matter of 'Life or Debt''
The Nation
Strike Debt, one of the offshoot groups of Occupy Wall Street, has planned a week of action March 16–23 in response to what it calls a “healthcare emergency.” A majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are linked to medical bills, with 75 percent of people declaring bankruptcy even though they have health insurance.

Continue reading »

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.

The events in this video happened December 17th, 2011, as protesters, including clergy members, attempted to Occupy the unused, fenced off section of Duarte Square on the corner of Canal Street and 6th Avenue in New York City on the three-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street.

Activist and community organizer Michael Premo was found not guilty on all charges on Thursday in the first jury trial stemming from an Occupy Wall Street protest. Video evidence presented in Premo's defense contradicted claims by police and prosecutors.

Premo, who more recently has been an important figure in Occupy Sandy efforts, was arrested on December 17, 2011 during a protest in lower Manhattan when Occupy protesters attempted to start a new occupation in an empty lot on Duarte Square.

Village Voice:

In the police version of events, Premo charged the police like a linebacker, taking out a lieutenant and resisting arrest so forcefully that he fractured an officer's bone. That's the story prosecutors told in Premo's trial, and it's the general story his arresting officer testified to under oath as well.

But Premo, facing felony charges of assaulting an officer, maintained his innocence. His lawyers, Meghan Maurus and Rebecca Heinegg, set out to find video evidence to contradict it. Prosecutors told them that police TARU units, who filmed virtually every moment of Occupy street protests, didn't have any footage of the entire incident. But Maurus knew from video evidence she had received while representing another defendant arrested that day that there was at least one TARU officer with relevant footage. Reviewing video shot by a citizen-journalist livestreamer during Premo's arrest, she learned that a Democracy Now cameraman was right in the middle of the fray, and when she tracked him down, he showed her a video that so perfectly suited her needs it brought a tear to her eye.

For one thing, the video prominently shows a TARU cop named Bosco, holding up his camera, which is on, and pointing at the action around the kettle. When Premo's lawyers subpoenaed Bosco, they were told he was on a secret mission at "an undisclosed location," and couldn't respond to the subpoena. Judge Robert Mandelbaum didn't accept that, and Bosco ultimately had to testify, though he claimed, straining credibility, that though the camera is clearly on and he can be seen in the video pointing it as though to frame a shot, he didn't actually shoot any video that evening.

Even more importantly, the Democracy Now video also flipped the police version of events on its head. Far from showing Premo tackling a police officer, it shows cops tackling him as he attempted to get back on his feet.

After watching the video, the jury deliberated for several hours before returning a verdict of not guilty on all counts.

One of Premo's lawyers, Meghan Maurus, said after the trial that his case highlighted the importance of having the press, livestreamers and professional video journalists present during demonstrations, and that "without that evidence, this would have been a very different case."

"The biggest thing for me coming out of this," Premo told the Voice, "is not being discouraged by the attempts of New York City to quell dissent and prevent us from expressing our constitutional rights."