With last night’s surprise NYPD clearing of Liberty Plaza, the epicenter of the Occupy movement, this Thursday’s already-planned International Day of Action to mark the two-month anniversary of the Occupation of Zuccotti Park will grow far larger and more resonant than it would have been otherwise.
In New York City:
Starting early, at 7 am, demonstrators will attempt to “Shut Down Wall Street” by telling stories of people on the frontlines of economic injustice. The idea is to peacefully but firmly “exchange stories rather than stocks” and, at the very least, change the covnersation for the day.
At 3 pm, activists will gather at sixteen central subway hubs and take their own stories to the trains, using the “people’s mic.” This is not an effort to disrupt or delay the subways, rather an attempt to better explain the movement to busy people getting to and from their jobs. Find a subway station in one of the four boroughs near you and explain why you support Occupy.
In the evening, at 5 pm, tens of thousands of people are expected to gather at Foley Square, across from City Hall, in a permitted rally in solidarity with workers demanding jobs to rebuild this country’s infrastructure and economy. A gospel choir and a marching band will also perform; a nighttime march to the Brooklyn Bridge (sans permit) will commence after the rally.
At the same time, Occupy Colleges will stage campus solidarity rallies coast to coast. There are currently twenty-seven schools signed up with many more likely to come. If you don’t see your school represented, find a friend and organize something yourself. In New York City, the Student Assembly has called a student strike for the day and actions are planned throughout in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx, including at New York University, The New School, Columbia University and most CUNY campuses.
Meanwhile, Occupy supporters around the globe will stage a series of coordinated actions.
In Spain, a general strike of university students has been called in Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, Tarragona, Palma, Sevilla, Santiago de Compostela, Murcia, Madrid, Valencia, Castello, Alicante and Zaragoza.
In Germany, student strikes, flash mobs, rallies and other actions are expected in dozens of cities across the country.
In Belgium, activists are mobilizing for sit-ins at universities and schools to discuss the ongoing protests around the world and, specifically, how they can resist the increasing commercialization of education in their country.
In Greece, thousands of students and workers will take part in an annual November 17 march marking the anti-junta student uprising in 1973, threatening Lucas Papademos’s political honeymoon as Greece’s new prime minister. Shops will shut down and traffic will to come to a halt as the march wends its way to the US embassy—which is blamed for supporting the junta forty years ago.
Please use the comments field below to let me know about other November 17 Occupy actions.
