“What About Peace?” by Christina Scheblein

Global Exchange has been a part of the What About Peace? youth art contest for six years, but this is the first year we’re offering notecards featuring some of the artwork. We’re quite excited about this, and hope you are too!

For this first run, we’re offering a collection of three beautiful designs, all past “Honorable Mention” winners.

The cards are available now for your holiday and New Year’s greetings!

The card designs reflect the urgent, dignified and playful call for peace envisioned by three talented young What About Peace? contestants.

A  set of 9 cards (3 of each design) is yours for a $10 donation to the project. The 4” by 5 ½” cards are blank inside with plenty of room for your personal holiday greeting (or any greeting for that matter, since peace is embraceable year-round.)

“Peace Comes From Within” by Allie Witham

• Christina Schebleim of New York has created a colorful watercolor grid of peace signs subtly including the words change and possibility in the pattern.
• Alayna Miller from Michigan calls on us to “Take Time to Converse About Peace” with a playful circle of sneakers spelling out the word “Peace”.
• Allie Whitham of Oregon’s peace dove, “Peace Comes from Within” is constructed of hundreds of black and white peace doves with a simple olive branch in its beak.

“Time to Converse about Peace” by Alayna Miller

• Support the contest designed to give creative voice to youth who want to engage in the dialogue for peace: Order your Peace cards today!
• What About Contest Seeking 2013 Entries Now! Do you know any 14 – 20 year olds? Send them this link to the contest guidelines. – The deadline is February 15. More than $2500 in prizes are offered to winners and their sponsors.
• Keep up with the What About Peace? contest: “Like” What About Peace? on Facebook.

Here’s where you can find us (or just follow our live tweets @ElectDemocracy):

In Tampa:

• Monday, August 27: March on the RNC!
  Global Exchange will be tabling at the rally 10-11am before joining the March on the RNC. Stop by and say hello! We’ll be handing out stickers, infosheets, and flyers for our upcoming workshops.
• Tuesday, August 28: Romneyville Workshop: “How Wall Street is Burning Democracy“
  Co-facilitated with Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and others. We’ll be tracing Wall Street’s greed and it’s anti-democratic political manifestations, and discussing inspiring action people are taking around the country to stand up for true democracy. RVSP on Facebook, and let us know if your group would like to present. See flyer below.
• Wednesday, August 29: Cafe Hey! Workshop: “How Wall Street is Burning Democracy“
  Co-facilitated with Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and others. Once again, we’ll be tracing Wall Street’s greed and it’s anti-democratic political manifestations, and discussing inspiring action people are taking around the country to stand up for true democracy, this time indoors. RVSP on Facebook, and let us know if your group would like to present. See flyer below.

In Charlotte:

• Saturday, September 1: Workshop at FESTIVALIBERACION: “How Wall Street is Burning Democracy: Let’s Put Out the Fire!”
  Co-presenters include Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, CODEPINK, Rainforest Action Network, and other organizations (pending confirmation) that are resisting foreclosure, fighting predatory student debt, and many more. Please join us, connect the dots across issues, and learn about what strategies for reclaiming democracy are working that you can perhaps bring back to your community. RVSP on Facebook, and let us know if your organization would like to present!
• Sunday, September 2: March on Wall Street South!
  Join Global Exchange as we make some noise marching on Wall Street South and call for an end to Wall Street’s money in politics. No more corporate favoritism from politicians bought out by the 1%! We will be joining other organizations on the march to expose how much money Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and other Wall Street outposts along the march route have invested in undue political influence in order to profit at the expense of the 99%.

Why We Are Going to Charlotte and Tampa:
Wall Street has too damn much political influence. We are tired of paying for the greed of the 1%. It’s time to Elect Democracy and create just, sustainable economic policies that enforce accountability and are fair, reliable realities for all of us. Global Exchange is bringing our message, our research, our resources, and our energy to help build people power outside the conventions. We believe the connections and solidarity we create during the marches, rallies, and workshops have more power and significance in the long run than trying to convince the politicians inside to stop taking orders from their Wall Streets sugar daddies. See you in the streets!

TAKE ACTION:
Stay up on all the events on Twitter @ElectDemocracy and on our Facebook pages (Elect Democracy) and (Global Exchange). Also, keep up with #ResistRNC #MOWSS. And of course, join the thousands of people who will be commenting on #RNC2012 and #DNC2012. Share your thoughts!

Global Exchange’s Elect Democracy campaign knows that local grassroots power is what will eventually halt Wall Street’s destructive greed. We also know that every penny counts in our communities, so we want to help support *your* local organizing efforts by offering you (and 24 other groups) a $60 mini-grant for you to organize an event (with some good food) that brings people together to eat, talk, and build relationships of support and understanding.

Every BBQ will be different, but the goal is to support local communities around the country in building relationships with one another and to find common links in their struggle against Wall Street’s greed.

Whether your group has been challenging Wall Street’s undue influence in our political system for days, months, years, or you’re ready to start now, please check out our short online form and apply to be one of the 25 groups around the country to receive a $60 mini-grant to help you do what you do best: organize!

We hope this grant will be a small boost for groups impacted by (or organizing in solidarity with) local communities impacted by foreclosure, student debt, and limited social services. It may only help for one meeting, but the connections we create are important and lasting.

Deadline to apply for a mini-grant: September 15th, 2012. 5pm PST.

FAQ:

• When should the “Don’t Burn Democracy” BBQ‘s take place?

Anytime between Oct. 1-7.

• What if it is too cold for a BBQ in October where I live?

Any kind of gathering with food, inside or outside, is totally fine. Do what works for you and your groups’ needs and preferences.

• Who should we invite to our BBQ?

If your group is against Wall Street’s corporate greed, try to think of other groups who share this view, who have had enough, or who may be able to help you (or vice versa). Invite the people you want to build relationships with.

• Why is Global Exchange doing this?

Because we agree with the strategy, “Choose the place where corporations are weak and people are strong: organize there.” -Vandana Shiva
People power is strong where it is local, where it is nourished, and where people feel safe and comfortable. We hope to contribute to local groups being able to create this space to learn from one another, and potentially to find ways to collaborate.

• What tools will I receive to help with my BBQ?

In mid-September, Global Exchange will send BBQ hosts packets that include sample schedules, planning tips, stories of how other groups are challenging Wall Street’s greed in their communities, and information that Elect Democracy has compiled about Wall Street’s interference with our democracy. Use what’s useful for your local event!

• What do you want in return?

A) Follow through- please do make it happen. We will have conference calls and lots of resources to help out, every step of the way.
B) Report backs- let us know how it goes! If your group comes up with new action ideas, friendships, or photos, share these with other participants and supporters around the country.

So, are you ready to host a “Don’t Burn Democracy BBQ”? Apply today!

———–

From dropping a “Bust Up the Bank” banner off the office rooftop and making F.I.R.E. flame graphics highlighting the cozy relationship between money and politics in campaign financing, to doing media outreach for the United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit and conducting video interviews with staff and interns about what Rights of Nature means to them, my summer has been full of rewarding work that has opened my mind to new ideas and worldviews.

Interns hold up canvas flames and water drops that target the F.I.R.E. sector’s campaign finance spending

Learning the ins and outs of Global Exchange and the movement for Community & Nature’s Rights

During my first week, I dove straight into the theory and history of rights-based organizing. While I had a basic understanding of community organizing and social change, I didn’t come to grips with these concepts until college — not surprising since our public education system doesn’t teach us much about the impact corporate power has on our democracy.

But that’s not the case at Global Exchange. Together, interns collaborated on a summer project that directly confronted corporate influence in U.S. politics. Based on findings from Elect Democracy’s ‘Meet the F.I.R.E. Sector’ report, we researched the amount of money that certain interest groups contributed to political campaigns, and how these donations could’ve alternatively benefited public services. For example, Health Lobbyists spent $635.3 million from 2011-2012. This money could’ve provided 542,991 children’s vaccinations. Our finished products were flame visuals made for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions that “illuminate” the facts and water droplets that call on citizens to put the F.I.R.E. out and reclaim democracy!

I began unpacking the concepts of “democracy,” “law” and “rights” while learning about the movement for community and nature’s rights. As of today, 140 communities in the U.S. have organized not only to collectively elevate their rights above corporate interests, but also to recognize the inherent rights of nature to exist and thrive. By passing local laws that assert their right to self-governance and ban unwanted corporate activity, these communities are changing the rules of the system. Working alongside my supervisors this summer, this emerging movement quickly expanded my surface understanding of our current structure of law and the limits of regulatory environmental protections. No sooner did I also recognize that our society’s definitions of words like ‘democracy’ are skewed.

The summer intern team at the farewell party

I now understand these terms as a product of our culture, political and legal systems. We have allowed our government to craft a system of law that grants rights — as if they weren’t inherent — to corporations whose financial influence weakens the democratic power of citizens, who really should be the only ones making decisions about the activities that affect their communities — like hydraulic fracturing (fracking), water withdrawal or factory farming.

So how do we begin to create the cultural and legal shift that is necessary to restore democratic power to the people, enabling them to assert their rights above corporations?

It begins with a reframing of how we view the issues that threaten our communities and ecosystems — which must be about rights. Unwanted corporate activities (be they fracking, weather manipulation, mountain top removal or groundwater pollution) are merely symptoms of a larger problem: currently, communities don’t have the right in the eyes of the law to say ‘No’ to any of these corporate (and state) decisions.

Global Exchange staff and interns enjoying Greek frozen yogurt with Ben & Jerry’s ‘Get the Dough Out of Politics’ team.

If we look back upon history, slaves and women were once considered property. They weren’t rights-holders under the eyes of the law. But overtime, people’s movements like the suffragists and civil rights, helped to change this. The question we often forget to ask ourselves is weren’t they always rights-holders from the get-go despite unjust law? Today we are watching the same story unfold for our communities and the environment.

Rights of Nature: A new tool for protecting the environment

For centuries, western society has viewed nature as property: as something we own and can commoditize to drive the transnational capitalist market. As a result, we’ve normalized the greedy “nature” of our human relationship with the earth. It has become legal justification for the war we’re waging on the planet: resource extraction, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, climate change and deforestation. And as long as we operate within our current system of law, which treats ecosystems as property and puts a price tag on it, we will fail to truly protect nature.

Fortunately, I’ve learned over the course of my internship that we — citizens, activists and communities — have the collective power to restore earth justice by organizing to change our current laws, which fail to recognize the Rights of Nature.

Rights of Nature (RON) defines legal rights for ecosystems “to exist, flourish and regenerate their natural capacities.” It’s part of a growing global movement and has become a new organizing tool that communities across the U.S. are using to pass local ordinances that protect their surrounding environment. Ecuador was the first country to incorporate Rights of Nature into its constitution in 2006 and Indigenous groups there have used the law to file suit against oil companies like Chevron, demanding full restoration for the damages that have been done to the Amazon rainforest as a result of drilling activities.

To ensure a sustainable future for both people and the planet, we must change our independent relationship with nature to one that is interdependent. While Rights of Nature might be new language in the western hemisphere, this idea isn’t new to many Indigenous groups. To them, the Earth is an entity whose very existence allows for human survival; its health and wellbeing are paramount to destructive human interests like profit and the desire to live more instead of simply living well. Unfortunately, our western frame of reference has all too easily dismissed this Indigenous perspective.

GX staff and interns at the Greenpeace warehouse for a non-violent direct action training

As Global Exchange’s Co-Founder Kevin Danaher pointed out to me, we live in a society where the money cycle is placed higher than our life values. Not surprisingly, this encourages exploitative behavior that is depleting the earth’s resources at a rate outpacing human survival. What else is climate change other than an indicator that we’ve exceeded nature’s capacity? It’s a clear signal that we as a species must change our behaviors and begin to live in harmony — not at odds — with nature.

Moving forward

An important takeaway from my internship with the Community Rights Program is that the environmental crises of our day are not just ecological issues, they’re also issues of rights.

We must view them through a rights-based lens in order to transform our organizing and provide effective tools for protecting our communities and the environment. It’s the key to driving the cultural and legal paradigm shift that allows for citizens around the world to assert the rights of communities and ecosystems in order to say ‘No’ to unwanted corporate harm and environmental destruction.

When we achieve this, we begin to create the kind of world WE want to live in and pass onto future generations — without corporate influence and wealth weakening our democratic power.

———-

Megan Devlin is the summer intern for the Community Rights Program at Global Exchange. She is a Communications Management and Design major at Ithaca College where she actively contributes to her campus media publications and is involved with the human rights, Colleges Against Cancer and student-worker solidarity groups. She is excited to continue fighting for environmental justice by collaborating with students, faculty and community members around the issues of fracking and food sovereignty in Ithaca.

Donated veggies awaiting Global Exchange staff

Summer Lovin, Had Me a Raddish

It’s going to a be a tasty, healthy summer here at Global Exchange thanks to local farmer Jamie Lee who came up with the idea to generously donate fresh veggies from his farm to Global Exchangers each week during his 22 weeks of harvest. (The sign says 27, but the sign was wrong:)

How awesome is that?!

Jamie’s farm is up in Mendocino, CA but he travels to Marin and Berkeley every weekend, so each week a Global Exchange staff person passes a large bag off to the next volunteer to meet up with Jamie and make the pickup. Each week we receive a different crop, most familiar veggies, with a few mysterious ones mixed in.

Carol appears happily shocked by the abundance of veggies

We are already two weeks into it, and Global Exchange staff reaction has been pretty awesome.

Check out the pics on our Facebook page.

This Occupy Mendo Food Project
 article described farmer Jamie as “a former stock broker and hedge fund manager who says he reached an epiphany about the ethically banal nature of his profession several years ago, prompting him to jettison his former job.”

Jamie, your epiphany is our reward. Thank you!

Tea Time Too?

Jessica using Vanna hands to showcase our new tea selection

As though a cornucopia of free veggies wasn’t great enough, Global Exchange Executive Director Carleen Pickard recently visited Numi Tea for a tour of its operations and the folks there sent her away with an abundance of Fair Trade, Organic tea to share with staff. When it rains it pours!

How Bay Area Folks Can Get in on Free Farm Samples

This Saturday June 23rd from 11 – 2pm  Frog Hollow will be at our San Francisco Fair Trade Store sampling its delicious seasonal fruit. So stop on by if you’re in the area.

Global Exchange is one of the many drop off sites for Frog Hollow’s weekly Happy Child CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. Frog Hollow Farm is a thriving 133-acre organic farm located in Brentwood, California and home to hundreds of trees which produce peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots, olives, persimmons, apples and more!

Global Exchange currently serves as a drop off site for three local CSA farms.

Want in on the Action But Not in the Bay Area?

Also happening this weekend at all of our stores…a special Global Exchange membership only event you won’t want to miss.

In appreciation of your commitment to Global Exchange and creating positive alternatives through conscious consumption, we invite you for one weekend only to join us at our San Francisco, CA; Berkeley, CA; Washington DC; or Arlington; VA locations for a members only FREE gift and double discount!

Saturday June 23 AND Sunday June 24 enjoy a FREE bar of delicious Fair Trade chocolate and a cup of Fair Trade coffee on us! This weekend only, your everyday 10% members discount is doubled to 20% OFF storewide!

If you are not yet a member of Global Exchange join us today to join in on the fun this weekend. 

When you become a Global Exchange member you join the global family of activists working together to build a positive and sustainable future. You will receive our newsletter and action alerts, priority consideration for our Reality Tours, discounts at our Fair Trade Stores, free entrance to the Green Festivals and invitations to our events.

Your support gives Global Exchange the independence and flexibility needed to tackle some of the most compelling issues of our time.

We hope to see you and your friends and families this weekend at the Global Exchange Fair Trade Stores!

Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like

In the past six months, the ideas of Occupy and the 99% have revolutionized the social dialogue of the U.S. in a way that has enthralled, enraged, and emboldened. Massive marches, rallies, and protests have acted as giant mirrors in which we catch a glimpse at just how many of us are completely fed up with the corrupt exploitative politics of ‘business as usual.’

Occupy and the 99% has offered a refreshed language and analysis for how we understand power politics. We have focused on creating shared space both on and offline in which we can trace and resist a vast constellation of impacts suffered by the 99% due to corporate greed. While this movement continues to evolve strategy, tactics, consensus practices, and creative outreach, its’ impact is already clear.

Though it many not be possible to all agree on everything all the time, most of us agree that the interests of the 99% are not being effectively represented in Congress, the White House, or in the Supreme Court. This crippling problem is not divided along party lines, either. It is a deeper fissure between a) the entrenched corporate interests who have manipulated the political system for their profit, and b) the rest of us.

When we follow the money on the Congressional campaign trail, it’s easy to see a glaring example of how corporate money is drowning out the needs and interests of the 99%. The largest campaign contributions to Congressional candidates of both parties consistently come from the finance, insurance, and real estate industry (the F.I.R.E. sector, including big banks). Once in office, these bought-and-sold legislators support and approve corporate-drafted policies that whittle away at our country’s safety nets and vital programs and instead fund bailouts that end up in big boss bonuses. What public services do you think of when you justify paying your taxes each year? Which of those services has been slashed lately?

Photo: memegenerator.net

So, is voting for the lesser of two evils really going to fix this problem? I think not. As stated by Occupy activist Max Berger in today’s Huffington Post, “We won’t just win by getting new players — we need to change the game. The system is fundamentally incapable of healing itself.”

Occupy struck a chord perhaps specifically because it identified a more fundamental problem than what can be voted in or out in 4 years, and we should continue this much-needed critique. Many have made the case for Occupy becoming a “left wing tea party” but Occupy doesn’t need to be a left wing Tea Party in order to impact the election. The sheer magnitude of a cultural mic check from the far-ish left has turned heads of both voters and politicians.

Historically, large social movements inevitably enable reform simply by being what they are: a mass movement responding to the injustices of the status quo. But the 99% can’t and won’t stop there.

We need to immediately Occupy Our Elections in order to approach having the real ability to Elect Democracy. We should engage with and impact elections by providing systemic analysis and exposing the impact of corporate campaign contributions, big budget corporate lobbying, and general ALEC-type corruption and collusion. Meanwhile, we can also simultaneously be creating new methods of meeting the needs of the 99% that can help make this broken system obsolete (so plant a garden, start a community health clinic, or meet your neighbors, to start). But let’s check in with the reality that building a new system is um, going to take a while, so in the meantime, register your discontent and go vote about it.

If there was ever a time to flex our power, it’s now. For all the fire and fury, for all the marches and mic checks, we have not yet “won.” Corporations still write policy, bank executives still get bonuses, and the rest of us are still fighting to keep our homes, pay off debt, find a job, get citizenship, make our own choices, and keep our families safe and healthy. Many of us are struggling to stay afloat.

Some of us in the 99% have taken outrage and protest directly to banks and big business and we’ve have had some wins. Corporate campaigning is indeed effective, and we should keep doing what works. Meanwhile, we also must address our deflated government and stop it from enabling ever-worse forms of corporate exploitation to take hold- not only here in the U.S., but abroad.

While we have every right to be disillusioned and skeptical, we have to take responsibility for the fact that the U.S. is driving war and destruction around the world through military romps, oil addiction, and deranged obsession with free trade at all costs. It’s time to show the 1% what democracy really looks like.

How do we create a system where it actually matters who you vote for? 

There is a reason that around the world, people have fought and even died for the right to vote. If voting didn’t matter, there wouldn’t be ongoing U.S. voter suppression issues that continue to this very day. We should trust our great grandmothers that fought so hard for this right, and honor those around the world who are still fighting.

So, let’s go for it. Occupy Our Elections. Let’s mic check media-laden debates with some real talk when talking heads are speaking for corporate funders and not for the 99%. Let’s tell politicians to spend their time in office making good policies, not fundraising for their campaigns! It’s time to go all out to fumigate corruption, pull away the smoke screens of the F.I.R.E. sector, demand accountability, utilize  transparency, and seed new, practical, short and long-term solutions.

We’ll help. Global Exchange is working on creating a toolkit where anyone anywhere can easily look up the Congressional politicians and candidates in their district and also trace their voting records on key issues. We’re researching to create a report on the Foul Five (five candidates who are the poster children for the corruption of corporate campaign contributions) and also profiling the Fair Five who are working on accountability to their constituents by not accepting finance sector contributions. We’ll be bringing the heat to bank-backed candidates on the campaign trail, and we would love for you to join us.

What else do you think we can do to Elect Democracy this year?

Man Grieves the loss of family members, Photo Credit: Outlook Afghanistan

In 2002, inspired by the NYTimes portraits of individuals killed in the World Trade Center disaster, Global Exchange published a report called “Afghan Portraits of Grief,” which profiled the innocent victims of war, to expand the picture of the cost of our response to 9/11. Making the people’s stories come alive was so important to understanding the complexities and the suffering of war.

For the past two weeks as we’ve grappled with the horror of the massacre in the Kandahar province, I’ve been dismayed at the focus of the mainstream press. The press seems to be focusing almost entirely on the mind-set of Sergeant Bales and the effect of the massacre on US/Afghan relations without much mention of the actual victims who were all Afghan citizens, including nine children.

I set out to do a short piece about who the victims were — names, ages and any other details to humanize them so that we can feel and understand the real tragedy of this war…

AND I COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING!

We know that three homes were attacked in the villages of Balandi and Alkozai, which is in the Panjway District of Kandahar, 35 km west of the city of Kandahar. Rolling those names around on my tongue, though I’ve never been there I wondered what it looks like and who the people are who live there.

It’s an area in the southern part of Afghanistan, steep mountain views, but a mild climate where farmers are famous for their delicious grapes and pomegranates – where there is major trade in sheep’s wool, cotton, silk and dried fruit. They grow wheat and mulberries for silk worms, serve dried fruit and tea to their guests.

One Kandahar massacre victim was Abdul Samad*, a 60 year old farmer and village elder with a long white beard and turban. He and his teenage son had been visiting a nearby town when Sergeant Bales, disguised in local clothing – a Shalwar Kameez – climbed the fence at the base wearing night vision goggles, walked about 1 mile, and went house by house looking for an unlocked door.

Mr Samad’s family had recently returned to the area after fleeing during The Surge when his home had been destroyed. He moved into a neighbor’s house near the US army base because he thought it would be safer.

But that night – March 11th, eleven members of Abdul Samad’s family were killed:  His wife, four daughters between the ages of 2 and 6, four sons between the ages of 8 and 11, and two other relatives. Three were shot point blank and then set on fire.

Further down the road in the village of Najiban, Mohammad Dawoud, age 55 was killed. His wife and children escaped.

In Alkozi, at the home of 45 year old laborer Hajii Sayed, who had fled Kandahar three times during the years of fighting, four more people were killed: Alkozi’s wife, nephew, grandson and brother.

In total, sixteen people were killed, including nine children, four men, and three women. Five others were injured.

And for two weeks, I couldn’t even find their names! That is, until just as I got ready to post this, I find the names on Al Jazeera in a wonderful blog piece by Quais Azimy, “No one asked their names.”

Why did it take so long for the press to release the names of the victims? Until we can relate to the people hurt by our military we will continue to have innocent victims of war.

Mr. Samad who lost nine members of his family said the lesson was clear to him: “The Americans should leave.”

So *here are the names of the victims of the Kandahar massacre – with dignity and respect for lives cut too short:

Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah
Khudaydad son of Mohamed JumaNazar Mohamed
Payendo
Robeena
Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali

The wounded:
Haji Mohamed Naim son of Haji Sakhawat
Mohamed Sediq son of Mohamed Naim
Parween
Rafiullah
Zardana
Zulheja

*It is interesting that the one name I got from the New York Times. Abdul Samad is not here and instead is listed as Mohamed Wazir.

—

After 23 years at Global Exchange, our co-founder Kevin Danaher has taken on a new role as the Outreach and Communications Program Manager with the San Francisco Department of the Environment.

We have an online card set up for Kevin on our website, which you can get to by click here, so folks who want to wish him well can add their name and personalized message easily. We will be collecting all of the messages into one place and presenting them to Kevin in a few weeks. We’ll be sure to share his reaction right here on our People to People blog.

Help us wish Kevin well and thank him for his years of leadership with Global Exchange as he blazes new trails! Sign Kevin’s card and leave a note for him by clicking right  here on our website.

The Plaza itself is full of #occupy tents, there are info tents, tents for food, shelter and support. There is lots of singing and lots of beautiful art.

Folks from the Great Tortilla Conspiracy are screening amazing, celebratory prints and sharing with all.

Marches return to the main square and are greeted with roars, cheers and excitement. People come up to the stage and report back on where they went. Someone on the 1PM march on the banks reported that a living room was set up inside the downtown Oakland Chase branch to represent all those that have had their homes foreclosed. Bank of America was next – successfully closed down.

Poster by Great Tortilla Conspiracy

I just returned knowing that there is still a whole lot going on this afternoon. As I was handing out I AM 99% stickers, people talked about what a great day they were having and how important it was that everyone was together on the streets.

We’ll keep posting updates and photos, in the meantime, the Global Exchange twitter feed has been following everything happening.

We’ll be using our website, blog, twitter account and facebook as a hub of information and live updates, so check in throughout the day. The good folks at Movement Generation have a great list of events posted here.

The crowd was full of labor folks: nurses, teachers, SEIU workers, carpenters and even iron workers representing their unions marching side by side with students, babies in strollers and retired folks who kept saying, “I never thought I’d see this day”. After the frightening night when the police attacked the Occupy Oakland encampment, with the severe injuries to an Iraq Vet Against the War, Scott —people were adamant that the streets belong to the people and that we will not let fear and intimidation diminish our hopes for a different kind of world.

As soon as Tex remarked that there was no police presence we saw a BART police officer and I went over and asked him how he thought it was going. “Oh, I’m not authorized to make a comment”, he said with a smile, “but we are here”.

In the sunny early part of the day there was a lot of optimism, as the chants and brass band belted out the rhythmic chants:

Rise Up
Shut it Down
Oakland is a People’s Town.

The system has got to die
Hella, hella occupy

We are the 99%
United in our dissent.

WATCH A video from the streets here.

We’ll be using our website, blog, twitter account and facebook as a hub of information and live updates, so check in throughout the day. The good folks at Movement Generation have a great list of events posted here.