Tags
#OccupyVermont, #occupyWallStreet, Banksters, Burlington, Enviromental Movement, Event, Fletcher Allen, General Assembly, Labor, Music, Occupy City Hall Park !, Protest, UVM, Vermont, Vermont Workers Center, Wall Street Greed
#OccupyVermont is proud to announce:
On October 28th, The Occupation of Burlington City Hall Park begins.
We will begin setting up camp at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.
Bring tarps, tents, sleeping bags, food, water, games and music!
Please bring the Whole Family and all your friends as we celebrate our right to
peaceably assemble, and exercise our right to free speech!
#OccupyVermont – Burlington meeting with City officials regarding #OccupyCityHallPark update
Poll: Should #OccupyVermont set up a encampment in Solidarity with #OccupyWallStreet ?
Please leave your opinion in the comments section below!
#OccupyVermont 
With all due respect I would like everyone to pause, take a breath and seriously reconsider this action. Why are you doing this? What is the goal and purpose of this action? If it is just to show solidarity with the OWS group then I feel that is not enough. I did not block this action at the last General Assemble and thus am complicit with it, and wish to do what I can now to have you reconsider. I have concern that we are starting down a confrontational path that will be hard to step back from. What is your strategy if you are asked to leave? Will it become violent? Will you go to jail, and then what? At 11pm the park legally closes so the “right to peaceable assemble and exercise our right to free speech” is not valid. Have you considered getting a park permit to stay there? Or look for some private property to “occupy” Even if you are turned down, at least you tried and it puts more of the burden for accountable action on the city. Also, this will probably bring more heat down on the homeless that are in the park and is that what we want; to cause more problems for those in the most need? What is the rush? You can always take this action in the future when you have thought it though more.
Of course it’s going to be confrontational*. That’s kind of… the entire point? I’m pretty sure that civil disobedience is intrinsic to this movement.
I don’t know how smaller occupations work or if any have had any luck. If we can start an occupation in Burlington, it will show people than every town in the country should have its own occupation. (Well, Bennington showed US that.) I think this movement is all about ubiquitous visibility. Make people pay attention. Change the conversations. When there is an occupation in every town in the country things will change.
By “bring the heat down on the homeless”, do you mean that the police will start enforcing an 11pm curfew that they haven’t been?
Hello Abbie, Thanks for your reply.
I have never considered confrontation to be the point of this movement. It may be a means to an end, a tool to use but not an end in itself. So what is it that you are willing to be confrontational about? Down with Wall Street, tax the rich, stop the banks, have big corporations pay more tax, stop the wars, etc. etc. etc. these just cheap buzz words that mean nothing because all of these things are only the symptoms of the root problem! Until that root issue is confronted not much will change. You have to ask yourself what can we actually change? Will Wall Street change because we are in the streets yelling at them, or the banks, or big corporations paying their fair share, or Wars stop. I think not! Even if all the US cities had an occupation, it would mean nothing if there is not a unifying root issue that everyone can rally around to make meaningful changes. So ask yourself, what is the core issue that all of the symptoms come from? Most of what Wall Street and the Banks did was legal. Corporations have tax loop holes. Wars only continue when they are funded. Who does all of this? OUR Dysfunction Corrupt Congress does! If you want to confront something confront them. That is the one issue that everyone can agree on! If you want to Occupy the park do so with the intent of drawing attention to that issue, and you will have national support and attention. It is time to stop yelling about the symptoms we can do nothing about and go to the root cause that everyone can relate to and have the ability do something about! The 99 Percent Deceleration from OWS working group is a good start. It can be found on the right hand column of this page. Sorry for the length of this post, but I do get carried away at times. Best of luck and blessing to you .
We are the 99% – small town governments should all support this movement they are the ones that suffer when the Corporate Neo-Feudalist State being run out of Wall Street demands austerity to pay for their bail out and the future bail outs being prepared for right now!
In my opinion Wall Street is not the hub of our problems, but our corrupt dysfunctional Congress. Our Congress passed the laws to bail out wall street and the big banks, (not Wall Street) our Congress gutted the Glass-Steagall Act that deregulated wall street and banks,and allowed them to go over the edge(not wall street) and it is our congress demanding austerity and will pass future bail outs, not wall street. You are correct that small town gov. should be supporting this movement but they will not do so until they see how this movement will help them, and that has not been made clear to them or the rest of the country yet. .
Congress gutted Glass-Steagall beccause Wall St was insisting upon it and using its money to throw its weight around. Wall St. funds these folks elections. I’m not saying most of them are great but you have it backward. It is Wall ST. and the banks pulling the governments strings not the other way round.
I agree with you that Wall Street and the big banks are corrupting congress and pulling its strings. The question is, what can actually be done about it. Wall street and big banks are not going to stop bribing congress and screwing the majority of this country just because we are in the streets yelling at them. They can just say we are within the law. We have 0 control or influence over them. We do have some control and influence over congress if we could just organize ourselves to do so. If 1/2 of the energy of this movement was directed toward our corrupt Congress we might have a chance at changing some things. Once again we are talking about the same issue. What we need now in this movement is for all of us to ask ourselves how best to change it and then go forward with a united front that the entire country can understand and get behind. I feel focusing on Congress is our best chance, but I am open to other ideas. How would you go about changing it?
These are issues that many of the Occupations are taking into account. I am part of Occupation Harrisburg in Pennsylvania and we are currently looking into permits, open spaces and so on. Please, keep in mind that this is an Occupation, not a picnic. We are peaceful (though, admittedly, every group has their hotheads). Honestly, if you’ve been following the different Occupations, most of your questions would be answered. Yes, some have gotten thrown in jail. That’s why we love the lawyers in our groups and why networking with others to find out how they handle situations is so very important.
Yes, the PTB will suddenly decide to start enforcing laws and regulations that they normally don’t bother with. Yes, you will find yourself on the watch list of at least one governmental alphabet agency (if you’re not on one already). Yes, you may be jailed, tasered, beanbagged, gassed… THIS IS A GOOD THING. It means that the PTB are finally taking the movement seriously.
One of the reasons that there isn’t a single, unifying demand is so that we can not be pigeonholed by the owned media and the PTB. The “issue” has so many facets, it can not be summed up in a neat bullet-pointed presentation.
Do what you can, as legally as you can, for as long as you can. The situation WILL devolve – things are going to get ugly.
Each person must ask themselves: how important is this to me? to my children’s/niece’s/nephew’s/parents’/friends’ futures? do i think something needs to change? Most importantly: How far am I willing to go to take back my country?
You make some interesting points and the most intriguing one being your case for no single issue for the movement to focus on and thus presenting no single target. This works in the beginning but eventually you have to settle on a single unifying issue or topic for everyone to rally around. So far we have a lot of “symptoms” of our problems being spoken of but none of these “symptoms” truly unifies “the 99 percent”. However, we have a unique situation in this country now where most of the country is already in agreement with a single problem issue, it is the basic root of most of our country’s problems and very hard to argue against. I speak of our dysfunctional corrupt Congress. It is congress that did not regulate Wall Street and the banks, and then bailed them out with our money! It is congress that funds the ongoing wars, It is congress that has put this country in debt by uncontrolled short sighted pork barrel spending to get elected, all the while leaving our healthcare, infrastructure and the educational systems in shambles. (etc. etc. etc.) We no longer have a functional democracy when congress is bought off by a minority of big money corporations and special interest groups to pass laws or block them only for their interest and leaves the majority of the country screwed. All of the issues and grievances that the OWS movements are stating can be traced back to congress. So why not go to the source, go to the root of the problem. Our dysfunctional corrupt congress is not only the one issue everyone can agree on, but ALREADY DO, (look at their national approval rating of 13%) and the system is already in place to make changes. We could open a national dialog on what this country needs and where it is going while addressing ways to reform congress and in that discussion all of the symptoms would be addressed! By making this our focus we start to represent if not 99% at least 87% (what other single issue has that kind of national support), we dispel most of our critics, and it sets up a meaningful dialog to make lasting changes on key issues effecting our country. This movement will find its way or not. All I can do is to offer my nonviolent thoughtful opinion and respect others as they do the same.
Occupy wall street makes sense because wall st is the root of all evil. So does occupy DC for obvious reasons. Burlington, being the most progressive, fair minded place I can think of doesn’t seem like it needs to be occupied. I know that it is to support OWS but maybe it could have a decidedly peaceful tone, suitable to this city. Requesting permission or at least giving the police and city hall a heads up can’t hurt.
I’m a Vermonter, currently attending school in NY. I spent about five days sleeping and working as a medic in Zuccotti park a while back. Just wanted to say that I’m glad Vermont is joining in, and I’ll be coming to visit the occupiers come thanksgiving break.
In solidary! http://occupypalmbeachcounty.org
As you can see from the latest news article in our local paper, we get comments from people who don’t understand the movement, or just don’t care. And their comments always seem to be mean spirited or hate filled. We have had several people stop by who see our signs, and actually want to learn more about the movements. These people are open minded and begin to understand that they are the 99%. Keep up the good work.
Article: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/occupy-palm-beach-still-holding-ground-downtown-west-1932331.html
The root of the problem is the legal fiction created when we were born. We were born slaves to the British via our birth certificate. Our legal fiction is our name in all capital letters. Look at all your legal documents, credit cards, debit cards, all bills. They are addressed to you in your legal fiction. A bond was created when you were born by the United States Corporation. This bond is traded on the NYSE. The cussip number (the number that is tied to this bond) is in red on your original birth certificate. The United States Corporation was lent money by the british. We are pre-paid Slaves. You are the authorized signatory to this legal fiction. Look at the line where you sign your check book. It is not a line at all. Get a magnifying glass its says “authorized signatory”! This has been hidded from us our whole lives. The US President is president of the United States Corporation.