Occupy Detroit

[johnkuhnphoto]

Occupy Detroit Encampment in Grand Circus Park on Oct. 24, 2011.

Detroit movement http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199722403430135

Lansing movement http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=196360057103242

occupytogether.org

[Chub]

Could you give even a slight explanation of what we these links are that you posted?

[Scottathew]

What are they protesting? The will of Michigan voters? This is what folks wanted. Change. Financial responsibility. Welfare reform. A more business friendly tax structure.

Good luck, but the best way they can change things to be the way they want them is to get people to vote their way.

Elected officials are doing their jobs in all regards except for NITC [[which special interests are slowing).

[tetsua]

I'm guessing it's like the Occupy Wall st movement.

[animatedmartian]

Nice. A protest in front of an vacant skyscraper own by Detroit's wealthiest businessman.

The Occupy Wall Street thing from what I've guess is supposed to be the 99% of America that feels the other 1% [[wealthy people making over 1 million a year) deserve higher taxes in order to help balance the budget. Of course depending on which news channel you watch, that would be phrased differently.

The movement itself though is starting to turn into a typical "people against the police-government" type thing and it's a real distraction from the whole reason people started protesting in the first place. Not like the DPD would be spending all their energy to arrest a bunch of protesters anyway since they've got their hands full as it is.

[Jimaz]

occupytogether.org

Lansing movement - october 15 - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=196360057103242

Detroit movement - october 21 - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199722403430135

Thanks. I wouldn't have known about the Detroit event if you hadn't posted that because the webpage at http://www.occupytogether.org/events/midwest/michigan/occupy-lansing/ hasn't been updated yet,

[johnkuhnphoto]

Join us on Oct. 21 at the old Train Station in Detroit. We are planning a PEACEFUL, NONVIOLENT OCCUPATION to promote Need over Greed! We stand in Solidarity with #OccupyWallStreet in NYC!

There is a discussion/General Assembly group: <https://www.facebook.com/groups/183722655036723/> Please join in!

WE WILL BE HAVING DAILY ACTIONS DOWNTOWN WHICH WILL BE DECIDED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
BRING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTION TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT THE TRAIN STATION.
We are not protesting at the Train Station, but DOWNTOWN on a DAILY BASIS.

WE WILL BE HAVING DAILY ACTIONS DOWNTOWN WHICH WILL BE DECIDED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
BRING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTION TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT THE TRAIN STATION.
We are not protesting at the Train Station, but DOWNTOWN on a DAILY BASIS.

WE WILL BE HAVING DAILY ACTIONS DOWNTOWN WHICH WILL BE DECIDED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
BRING SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTION TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT THE TRAIN STATION.
We are not protesting at the Train Station, but DOWNTOWN on a DAILY BASIS.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RULES OF ORDER-PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE INVITATION!

Group Consensus has been reached. The times and dates have been set. Many are asking questions that have already previously discussed. If you have a specific area of concern please examine the "minutes" and scroll down to see if the issue has been previously addressed.

We are doing our best to be inclusive. Sometimes ideas fall flat. This is not the fault of the administrators or folks in the group. Sometimes it is just a judgement call. We ask for you kindness in this matter. Sometimes it happenstance or fate. We ask that all endeavor to be objective and get along.

Rude, aggressive, or violence shall not be tolerated in this forum. We're sorry that management of the event has become impossible through Facebook do to the intense volume of posts. Volunteer efforts must be coordinated through email occupymichigan@gmail.com

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!

EVERYONE IS WELCOME! Everyone who has suffered from financial injustice is Welcome! We especially Welcome the good people of Detroit, who have been hit especially hard in this Depression. If you feel you've had no Voice, please join us in this Peaceful Occupation! Together, we will be heard!

There will be General Assemblies each day to choose locations for daily marches and actions in the city. Roosevelt Park will be Base Camp!

If you are coming to Occupy, prepare for camping! If you cannot Occupy, please join us in our Daily Actions! These Actions and Marches will be posted online as soon as possible after each GA.

On the night of Oct. 21st, there will be a candlelight vigil for Troy Davis for those who would like to participate.

We Thank Everyone who was involved in the intense discussions on the Group Page! Thank You ALL! Many places, including Campus Martius and Hart Plaza WERE discussed and researched. It was decided in the group that the Train Station/Roosevelt Park would be the best place for Base Camp.

VOLUNTEER at email: occupymichigan@yahoo.com

Join the Group Occupy Michigan in Lansing and Detroit/Wayne County at <https://www.facebook.com/groups/223056964417186/>


Everyone is welcome to come to the Lansing Rally.
<https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=196360057103242>

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!

PLEASE BE AWARE: We are planning a PEACEFUL, NONVIOLENT action. Whether it is one day or 4 weeks! What we are planning to do is going to push the rules. Some of us could be arrested. Some of us could be detained. IF THIS HAPPENS, please go quietly and peacefully with the officers. We can only control ourselves, let's hope the police can control themselves. But DO NOT fight them!
Charges in civil disobedience situations are often dropped, if you are even charged with anything. These charges rarely cause problems with your record over time. Resisting Arrest will only add more charges! Remember, however, you cannot bail yourself out of jail!! Have a good lawyer or friend's number written on your arm!
Most of the people arrested in NYC last week were out of custody within hours. We sincerely hope that the Detroit Police Department understands that we are fighting FOR them, too!

Never forget that DISSENT is a Right, it is Free Speech. We have the right to disagree and make that disagreement visible!


http://maps.google.com/maps?rlz=1C1R...en&sa=N&tab=wl

[Huggybear]

Say hi to BAMN while you're there.

[Jimaz]

Let's make some of those links clickable:

There is a discussion/General Assembly group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/183722655036723/

Join the Group Occupy Michigan in Lansing and Detroit/Wayne County at https://www.facebook.com/groups/223056964417186

Everyone is welcome to come to the Lansing Rally.
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=196360057103242

[English]

I support the Wall Street movement 100%, but I'm confused by how this would work here. I mean, they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. This city is too darn big and too darn empty... if folks camp out in Roosevelt Park, I could see myself driving right by on Michigan and thinking "oh wow... what are the hipsters doing this time?" without ever knowing the message.

[Melocoton]

What are they protesting? The will of Michigan voters? This is what folks wanted. Change. Financial responsibility. Welfare reform. A more business friendly tax structure.

Good luck, but the best way they can change things to be the way they want them is to get people to vote their way.

Says Henry David Thoreau on this line of reasoning [['the people voted for the governor, so we should obey the governor"):

"...a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but consicience? -- in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterwards." [["On Civil Disobedience")

[j to the jeremy]

http://www.dangerousminds.net/commen...reet_movement/

First official statement from the NYC protesters.

[bailey]

I support the Wall Street movement 100%, but I'm confused by how this would work here. I mean, they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. This city is too darn big and too darn empty... if folks camp out in Roosevelt Park, I could see myself driving right by on Michigan and thinking "oh wow... what are the hipsters doing this time?" without ever knowing the message.

exactly. also, did I miss the day Matty Maroun got a bail out? Is this now just protesting "greed" in general? will we be doing all the 7 deadly sins now? Who exactly is this protest supposed to be seen by? the people grabbing a bit at Slows before heading to the tigers game?

I mean if you want to occupy somewhere to protest greed....why not downtown Birmingham? Or, how about you take over the Apple store at Somerset. Or, how about chaining yourselves across any access road to the Ambassador bridge?

Nah...those would actually get you arrested. Camping out in a park in detroit wont

[kryptonite]

Really. to protest against the Catholic church hierarchy one would not exactly picket the headquarters of one of the Orthodox Jewish bodies.

Sounds like this is the left wing of the Tea Party - just a group of unfocused upset people without a common agenda other than to complain about the multitude of things that piss them off.

[Melocoton]

It's funny when people on DetroitYes, a forum devoted to complaining about the multitude of things that piss people off, complain about other people complaining too much about the things that piss them off [[bring it on, I say, there's a hell of a lot worth complaining about in America today).

So consider this my post in which I complain about people complaining too much about other people complaining too much.

[bartock]

Reminds me of The Simpsons:


Homer Simpson: Hi Marge. We're freaking out squares.
Marge Simpson: Oh, Lord...
Homer Simpson: What's in your brand-new bag, momma?
Marge Simpson: Oh, it's that pair of Dockers you wanted. Forty-eight waist with the balloon seat, right?
Homer Simpson: Marge, not in front of the hippies!

[Wesley Mouch]

I'm a libertarian who doesn't like government in my business much, and thinks the left is mostly delusional about the realities of the world, but I'm all for people knocking Wall Street down a few pegs. Bank presidents needed to lose THEIR money in the crash, not take salaries in the millions while their account holders suffered serious losses on their watch.

This is my disappointment with Obama. I always thought he was a loser of the right skin tone for the moment, and I could almost tolerate some left-leaning ideology in action if it included reigning in the megalomaniacs of lower Manhattan. But he can't find it in himself to do something courageous on the single most obvious important issue out there. The banks needed to pay on this one.

Keep this on message. its about Wall Street. Not the time to address your 6,000 other delusional issues about government, unions, humming noises, police state, urban development, etc. Keep on message, and godspeed to ya all.

[Det_ard]

http://www.dangerousminds.net/commen...reet_movement/

First official statement from the NYC protesters.

OK, there's a few things I thought I might read on their list that I might agree with, namely eliminating "too big to fail" banks, and the attendant moral hazard and bailout risks, and the acquisition by the largest finanical institutions of extremely low cost capital from the Fed which is used to fund trading positions rather than loaned, prudently, to companies large and small.

Instead, the group claiming to represent the "other 99%" puts out their official list of grievances against corporations [[large?, small?, all?, my little LLC?) including:

• They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
• They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
• They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
• They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
• They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
• They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
• They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
• They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
• They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
• They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
• They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
• They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
• They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
• They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
• They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
• They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
• They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
• They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
• They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
• They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
• They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
• They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
• They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

OK, pretty good start on a laundry list of some people's beef about corporations, but there's no way I'm throwing in with all that. This was unanimously approved by the NYC folks, so it gives me a pretty clear understanding of where their heads are at. No thanks. I'll sit this one out with the rest of my "1%" I guess.

[corktownyuppie]

I support the Wall Street movement 100%, but I'm confused by how this would work here. I mean, they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. This city is too darn big and too darn empty... if folks camp out in Roosevelt Park, I could see myself driving right by on Michigan and thinking "oh wow... what are the hipsters doing this time?" without ever knowing the message.

Yeah. I'm in finance, and even I am pissed about the issues on Wall Street. But the populist us vs. the rich thing isn't really that relevant in Detroit. Hell, even the Big 3 execs are blaming Wall Street for running them into bankruptcy. So, you know, for what it's worth. I think this energy could be better spent teaching the 40% of people who can't read so that they can get jobs with all these new companies that are desperate to find qualified help.

Frustrated Entrepreneurs

Begal, founder of Begal Enterprises Inc., is among a half dozen entrepreneurs who said during interviews that they are having a hard time landing new employees in the Washington, D.C. area, which has an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent, the second- lowest for a large U.S. metro area after Oklahoma City.
Some candidates lack the “right set of skills”; others fail to meet the “most basic of qualifications,” such as proper spelling on their applications, the business owners said. So even though the pool of potential employees “has gotten deeper,” the “top talent searches remain as challenging as they were before the recent market conditions,” said Julie Rakes, a spokeswoman for bank and credit-card issuer Capital One Financial Corp. [[COF) in McLean, Virginia.

Long-Term Challenge

Over time, his industry faces the challenge of not having enough skilled workers because vocational education has been “decimated” in many parts of the U.S. and young people aren’t interested in manufacturing jobs, Paul added.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker by sales, has lobbied Congress for years to boost the number of H-1B visas available to employ foreign workers in the U.S., even as the company cut jobs there.

The U.S. is “falling short” on education, creating a situation where “jobs move in search of the right people” rather than the other way around, the company’s General Counsel Brad Smith said in testimony to a Senate subcommittee on immigration last month.

“We will not bring unemployment down to the extent desired until we ‘skill up’ the population to attract the jobs that otherwise will be located elsewhere,” Smith said.

Microsoft had 4,551 openings as of May and has taken an average of 65 days to fill core U.S. technology positions with experienced candidates this year, he said.

[Detroitnerd]

Should be interesting. It's a big open, visible space. Don't forget, you don't necessarily have to be in front of Wall Street to host teach-ins, discussion groups, democratic General Assembly-type decisionmaking. I like autonomous spaces, when people just start deciding they're going to pick up trash or trade responsibilities. Always an interesting laboratory for dissent and democracy.

[DetroitPole]

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. "

Oh, come on, seriously? When?

I fully support higher taxes for the rich - much higher. I support a moratorium on foreclosures because banks and Fannie/Freddie have continued to foreclose with impunity without working with the homeowner while taking taxpayer money. We need campaign finance reform.

However I know the type that this movement has sadly turned into. Young kids who live off their parents dime, quite often. Their parents are "the man" they are "protesting." I realize this isn't everyone involved.

This could have been a legitimate movement, but it always seems like good activism is hijacked by the anarchist types and thus becomes...another 1%.

Does anybody remember this JohnKuhnPhoto guy? He was the rich kid from the suburbs who went around vandalizing stuff that didn't belong to him in the city.
http://www.painting-detroit.com/Pain...Gallery.html#2
I rest my case. Disgusting.

As corktownyuppie said, there are things we can be doing instead. I contemplated driving out to NYC, but we have a lot of weekend projects in my neighborhood that I've been working on.

Camping in Roosevelt Park with all your friends is more fun though. Or vandalizing vacant structures that don't belong to you.

[gnome]

Good post Detroitpole, I almost had forgotten about that JohnKuhn blankity blank blank.

I'll have to tell my Russian friends about this.

[Downtown Lady]

A reasonable person doesn't confuse the messenger with the message. The protest is not about John Kuhn.

[Detroitnerd]

I'd like to chime in on this conflation of Occupy Wall Street with vandals and trust-fund "anarkids." Based on what coverage I've seen, the crowd is peaceful, self-governing and responsible. Despite this, there have reportedly been hundreds of arrests. That is a shame in a democratic society. And to try to use "hippie chic" to condemn these assembled for a redress of grievances is, at best, fatuous. Judge their peaceful actions, their organized conduct, their many complaints, but, please, don't let's start playing Joan Rivers on the Red Carpet...

[Malcove Magnesia]

The hundreds of arrests in NYC were for walking on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Yeah, I understand the Occupiers are protesting Wall Street, Afghanistan and Free Mumia [[among a dozen other issues), but messing with the commutes of law abiding, tax paying citizens really pisses people off and I applaud the police for cracking down on 'em.

We supposedly live in a democracy. If these hippies really wanted to make a difference, why don't they run for office or sponsor candidates [[ala what the Taxed Enough Already party did) so they can properly legislate the stuff they want to influence.