Live Coverage: Occupy Worldwide, July 1

• The seed planted on September 17th in New York City has grown into a national and international movement. Occupy Wall Street has branched out with hundreds of groups organizing Occupy protests in their own communities. Reader Supported News highlights some of the more significant actions from around the country here. Share this page with your friends and associates and check back often for the latest developments.
• 9 new items including:
  • An Open Letter to Every Occupy Supporter
  • National Occupy Guitarmy 99 Mile March
  • Occupy Activists Map D.C’s Campaign ‘Bundles’
  • We Demand Real Healthcare for the 99%
  • Louisiana: Permit Fees for Free Speech?
  • A Statement From the Occupy Student Debt Campaign
  • California Statewide Moratorium on Home Foreclosures Rally and March
  • Liberation Requires Disobedience
  • Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA

Reader Supported News
 

Highlights Week of July 1
 

An Open Letter to Every Occupy Supporter, OccupyWallSt.org

• Imagine being trapped in a cage twenty-four hours a day. You have to eat food better fit for a garbage can than a human. Surrounded by guards who hate you, push you around, call you a terrorist.
• This is happening right now to our friends who are in jail on trumped-up charges of domestic terrorism, even though we all know what their real crime was—standing up against the NATO warmongers. Free speech is under attack, and the NATO 5 are victims of this attack.
• But you can make a difference in their lives and the lives of all those who speak truth to power.

National Occupy Guitarmy 99 Mile March, July 5-11 2012, OccupyWallSt.org

• A call for support from Occupiers, Friends, and Musicians from Philadelphia to New York City
• The Occupy Guitarmy is spearheading #99MileMarch from Philadelphia to New York City from July 5 to July 11, 2012 in honor of Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday (July 14, 2012) and in celebration of the National Gathering of Occupy movement.

Occupy Activists Map D.C’s Campaign ‘Bundles’, Mike DeBonis, Washington (DC) Post
Talk of reforming the District’s campaign finance laws was rekindled this week thanks to a D.C. Council hearing on a number of reform proposals. A lot of changes are on the table — restrictions on donations from city contractors, cracking down on “bundling” and a flat ban on corporate contributions to local candidates.
But there are some reforms that don’t require the law to change. In fact, some don’t require the District government to do anything at all.

We Demand Real Healthcare for the 99%, OccupyWallSt.org
On Thursday, June 28th, between 10am and 11am, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision to uphold or strike down all or parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka “Obamacare.”

The same day from 11:30am to 1:30pm, workers and the community will rally against layoffs, healthcare cuts, and hospital closings at Downstate Hospital, a state hospital in Central Brooklyn that handled 75,000 ER visits last year and plays a vital role in the community.

Full story...

Louisiana: Permit Fees for Free Speech?, OccupyWallSt.org
The following speech was given by Justin Warren of Occupy The Stage. Justin is currently behind bars for making this speech on the steps of the Louisiana state capitol without purchasing a permit.

A Statement From the Occupy Student Debt Campaign, OccupyWallSt.org
Everybody is now talking about the student debt crisis, but nothing is being done about it. Thanks in large part to the great public amplifier of the Occupy movement, this year's presidential contenders have been forced to embrace student loan reform as a talking point in their respective campaigns. But the debt relief being pushed by the Obama administration is a token gesture, aimed at getting some traction on the youth vote - especially the more disillusioned or alienated student constituencies. Recent bills introduced in Congress - Student Loan Forgiveness Act (H.R. 4170) and the Private Student Bankruptcy Fairness Act (H.R. 2028) - have zero chance of passing in anything like their current form. Practically speaking, no reform program of any substance is on the legislative horizon, least of all one that would regulate the predatory lending practices of Wall Street banks.

California Statewide Moratorium on Home Foreclosures Rally and March, OccupyWallSt.org
Thousands will be marching on the California State Capitol in in Sacramento on June 25th to ask the Legislature and governor to impose an immediate three-year foreclosure moratorium for California. Family Friendly - children encouraged to participate! We encourage everyone to make signs and banners that tell how foreclosure has affected you.

Full story...

Related:

Liberation Requires Disobedience, S. Brian Willson
We are complicit with our own repression. Our own stubborn allegiance to modernity that outsources all the pain and suffering to other peoples and the planet is a kind of mental illness of pathological narcissism and delusions of grandeur. It is a kind of suicide/ecocide.

Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA, Bill Quigley, Catholic Worker Commentary

• “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.”  --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  1967
• "If those in government and those in power do not help the people do what is right, people seeking change must together exercise our human rights and bring about these changes directly." --Bill Quigley