Posts tagged Protest

Last week, in conjunction with the National Day of Student Action, approximately 150 students associated with Occupy DC from American University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, MICA and the University of Maryland marched on the Department of Education. The march was organized around education reform, for which the students, presented a list of grievances and demands regarding education. The main focus of the demands was that education is a right and must be accessible to all. The student’s document stated:

“We the students hold these truths to be self-evident: that education is a fundamental right; that education is intrinsically valuable; that all persons must have equal access to high-quality education; that education is a core component of a healthy society; that students, parents, and faculty must have authority over the direction of the education system; that education must be a democratic space; and that education as a system is currently broken in that it does not meet these criteria.”

First, the students marched on Sallie Mae. The protestors told their personal stories of being crushed by debt. One student said that he was already $50,000 in debt, saying that it was due to the government believing that his family would be capable of paying out of pocket.

After their stop at Sallie Mae, the energetic crowd took back to the street and headed to the Department of Education. They arrived at the DoE chanting, “No cuts! No fees! Education should be free!”  The students then read their declaration of demands and grievances.After the mic checks, a representative of the Secretary of Education, Tim Tuton, responded to the protestor’s concerns. He said that the Secretary would respond to their demands by March 9th.

Unlike much of the Occupy movement, the students’ demands were not without policy suggestions. They suggested that the government democratize education, improve students’ access to higher education and citizenship, de-privatize the student loan industry, remove corporate influence from schools, and improve funding. The students demands can be read more in depth by clicking HERE. 

Article by Ben S. Johnson

Photographs by Sophia Miyoshi

Editing and Additional Writing by Evan Gray

A team of eight expert Greenpeace activists and riggers managed to get onto the roof of the National Gallery off Trafalgar Square in the early evening of 21st Feb 2012 and spent the next two hours rigging a large banner across the famous colonnaded front elevation of the building, which bore the slogan “It’s no oil painting. #SaveTheArctic”, referring to Royal Dutch Shell’s exploration for oil in the pristine Arctic environment which, campaigners say, will inevitably destroy or seriously degrade it, killing wildlife and causing large-scale pollution which will have global consequences for this and future generations.

Of special ire to the activists was the National Gallery’s hosting of a Shell-sponsored event which, they believe, is disingenuously giving the oil giant an entirely undeserved veneer of respectability, especially in light of serial-polluter Shell’s environmental crimes in Turkey, Barbados and Nigeria (just to name a few).

Watched by many police officers, ambulance crews and very annoyed National Gallery staff and officials - all of them powerless to intervene - the unfolding event drew a large curious crowd below as the Greenpeace campaigners hung their rope rigging across the front of the building, prompting the police to initially cordon off most of the upper terrace. Later on the cordon was greatly reduced when it finally dawned on the police that Greenpeace’s publicity stunt wasn’t going to make the entire National Gallery fall over!

The activists were joined later on by special guest, Paula Bear, who shambled along on the Upper Terrace accompanied by a large crowd of people who, despite understanding that the bear wasn’t real, couldn’t resist stroking and patting it (just like you would a real polar bear, about five seconds before you had your face ripped off).

There were no arrests made after the banner was hung, which is probably the result of a deal which I reckon the National Gallery made with Greenpeace, who were obviously the most qualified people to take down the banner later on in the evening.

Photos and Article by Pete Riches

Edited by Evan Gray

The Huffington Post:

“WASHINGTON — A group of Occupy protesters interrupted Sarah Palin’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, only to be drowned out quickly by the crowd chanting “USA! USA!”

“See, you just won. You see how easy that is?” Palin told the crowd after joining their chant.”

One youtube commenter retorted, “Yeah. By drowning out the only sane people in the room…”

Leo Zausen is one of those sane people. He’s a member of American University’s branch of Occupy DC, and led the “mic check” at CPAC. Yesterday, we chatted about Saturday’s event, and the Occupy movement as a whole.

uPolitic: The encampment at McPherson was shut down this week, along with Freedom Plaza. Do you feel that this hurt the Occupy movement, or that it pushed it into a new strategy, changing up Occupy’s plan of attack?

L.Z.: The question of whether the Occupy movement will continue, or if it will cease to exist isn’t the issue. The issue here is that Occupy has already accomplished many of its goals. It’s changed the national conversation, including a narrative of the marginalized, and has shifted ideologies in a way that not many movements have done in the past. Sure, the eviction that took place a couple Saturdays ago was terrible, but Occupy is already moving towards the community level, which was always where it needed to be in order to create actual change.

uPolitic: Did McPherson’s closing prompt Occupy’s actions at CPAC, or had the “mic check” been planned long before?

L.Z.: The former. Personally, after the week where there were two cases of police brutality (The unwarranted tazing of Ryan Lash and during the eviction of McPherson Square) I became radicalized in a sense that I never felt before. There was energy in the aftermath of these police actions that create such an conceptual opposition to this “police state” which definitely influenced the actions of Occupy AU as well as other DC university occupations that were in attendance for the eviction a two weeks ago.

uPolitic: What was the goal of the mic check? Many people may think the Occupy movement is “dead” now that most of the larger encampments have been shut down. Was this an attempt to remind people that Occupy is still alive?

L.Z.: Not necessarily, the idea of the “mic check” is nothing innovative (it’s an Occupy Wall Street tactic that works around legal implications of amplified sound). The goal was to educate the racist, classist, demagogues [the tea partiers] by reading the Occupy DC declaration. The Occupy movement is anything but dead, and ideas and values will continue on after our lifetimes; Occupy just put this message on the national level.

uPolitic: Why Sarah Palin? Why not another CPAC speaker?

L.Z.: It’s Sarah Palin, the embodiment of the Conservative party. She is strongly against most of the main issues that we strive for. And realistically, most of the people at CPAC were uneducated right-wing bloggers that couldn’t differentiate fascism from democracy, so why target some no-names when you can target the final speaker at the biggest conservative rally of the year? It’s exciting.

uPolitic: Where do you see Occupy headed into the future?

L.Z.: As stated before, I see Occupy transitioning towards the community level. People leaving encampments and actually creating communities out of these values… It’s something that’s happening right now. Neighborhoods in New York which were heavily affected by the foreclosure crisis are now being “occupied” by homeless individuals that are cleaning up neighborhoods and increasing the overall worth of these communities. The attempts of Occupy Oakland should go down in history as something that potentially could have shaken the entire nation. Occupying buildings, creating a tangible revolution is something that will follow this mindset shift. Taking back what the people deserve from corrupt politicians and corporations. Demanding rights and freedoms that have become so marginalized. The next step is for concrete change, but for now, I’ll take any step towards progress.

Article and interview by Evan Gray

Occupy AU can be found HERE.