Please contact Wesley Morris if you are interested in joining us for this important action. Folks will be travelling to Winston-Salem on Thursday morning leaving from the Beloved Community Center.
Wesley Morris
Youth Coordinator and Community Organizer
Beloved Community Center
(336) 230-0001
www.belovedcommunitycenter.org
May Day 2012
Come to the May Day rally in downtown Greensboro, today at 5pm. There will be a play about May Day history, a potluck, a march, and a rally with speakers about the issues that connect all of us. Our General Assembly this evening will be held in Governmental Plaza, following the rally.
What: May Day in Greensboro: An Injury to One is an Injury to All (March/Rally/Potluck)
When: Tuesday, May 1st, 5pm
Where: Governmental Plaza in Downtown Greensboro, West February 1 Place
Sponsoring Organizations include: Farm Labor Organizing Committee, International Socialist Organization, NC Defend Education Coalition, Occupy Greensboro
Details: We are currently on the defensive; from attacks on workers’ rights, to the criminalization of people of color, to the persecution of undocumented immigrants, to draconian proposals such as Amendment One. They originate as part of the same system that seeks to divide and conquer, to oppress, disenfranchise, and abuse the working class. We say enough is enough, we need to unite our various movements and work together, in solidarity, to create a new, a better world.
Una injusticia contra uno es una injusticia contr todos! Actualmente estamos a la defensiva, de los ataques a los derechos de los trabajadores, a la criminalización de las personas de color, a la persecución de los inmigrantes indocumentados, a las propuestas draconianas como la Enmienda Uno. Todos estos se originan en el marco del mismo sistema que busca dividir y conquistar, oprimir, marginalisar, y abusar de la clase obrera. Es tiempo que digamos que ya basta, tenemos que unir nuestros diversos movimientos y trabajar juntos, en solidaridad, para crear un mundo nueve, un mundo mejor.
Ven Habla, escucha, marcha, baila, come y celebra la solidaridad entre todos los pueblos!!
Come talk, listen, march, dance, eat, and celebrate the solidarity among all!
Last night Occupy Greensboro’s Foreclosure Working Group was featured along with Guilford County Registrar of Deeds Jeff Thigpen on MSNBC’s the Rachel Maddow Show. Guilford County is facing a crisis of fraudulent foreclosures and we are working to save people’s homes and our communities.
See the video below:
Occupy Greensboro Statement of Solidarity with All of Us NC
This statement was consented to by the Occupy Greensboro General Assembly and communicated to All of Us NC on the occason of their organizer training session held in Greensboro.
Occupy Greensboro would like to welcome those of you from around the state to Greensboro and express our solidarity with All of US NC. We are inspired by the work you have done and are preparing to do in the coming months to defeat the Family Discrimination Amendment against LGBTQ families. Thank you for your activism! As you are building your relational organizing skills, we are marching and rallying for jobs and a new economy here in Greensboro. Many of our own Occupy Greensboro participants are attending your training, while other LGBTQ folks are attending the march. We believe that the work you are doing today is very much connected and is important to our organizing for economic justice and increased employment.
As the recent Declaration of the Occupation of DC pointed out, we “face different forms of oppression and [are] impacted by economic exploitation to differing degrees, but [we are] united by a shared vision of equality for the common good.” LGBTQ people are a part of the 99%, and to build a liberatory model of economic justice, we must challenge homophobia and transphobia. Like all oppressions they are interlocking and mutually reinforce each other. According to the Williams Institute, 27% of LGB respondents faced discrimination in their workplace over a five-year period. 38% of those LGB surveyed people who are out at work have feared for their jobs. According to the same study, the rate of harassment and discrimination for transgender people is even higher at 78%. We stand with you not only because LGBTQ members of the 99% are facing particular hardships, but also because we know our movement has much to learn from the histories of LGBTQ movement building, and from how many LGBTQ people build community, create chosen family and care for one-another in ways that challenge the isolation and
individualism that impact all of our lives.
To take from your coalition’s name, we must fight for all of us, for all of who we are, for all of our families. We know that so many families are under attack, including poor families, LGBTQ families, families of color and migrant families. In supporting each other, we build power to vote down this amendment and build an economy that promotes justice for us all. Thank you for the work you are doing today.
Solidarity Statement for Occupy Greensboro
This statement was communicated to Occupy Greensboro by All of Us NC during the OGSO Unemployed and Underemployed Workers March.
As All of Us North Carolina–an alliance of North Carolinians working to fight the Family Discrimination Amendment on the ballot this coming May–we are in fierce solidarity with you standing out in the cold today: the unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid. We recognize that the political is personal and that we will only succeed if we stand up for one another when any of us has our humanity questioned. The Family Discrimination Amendment would add a clause to the NC Constitution claiming that a union between 1 man and 1 woman is the only type recognized by the state. While it is a direct attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, we know it is part of a pattern of attacks– all attempting to disenfranchise us. If NC legislators are so concerned about “protecting” families, why aren’t they doing more to create sustainable jobs to support us and the people we love?
We’re going to win this fight because we refuse to be divided and conquered. The mainstream media would have us believe that LGBTQ communities are being discriminated against by ‘those rural people’, ‘those blue collar workers, ‘those immigrant communities’, or ‘those Black churches’. We know better than all that, because we know each other. We know that there is no ‘those people’: we ARE lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning as truly as we are rural, working class, immigrant, Black, brown, indigenous, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and much much more. ‘Them’ is ‘us’ and we too demand the
right to fulfilling, well-paid work!
Thank you for coming out in May 2012 to vote against the family discrimination amendment and for staying in the struggle beyond the election to build a better North Carolina for all of us.
A crowd of us marched today from the Greensboro Public Library on Church Street, to Governmental Plaza to raise awareness about unemployment in Greensboro and to start the conversation about how we can build a better economy. Once at Governmental Plaza, we heard from several speakers, including Christine Chaplik, who had prepared a speech which she agreed to publish here.
We are here today to shine a light on the fact that, at minimum, 14 million Americans are unemployed and at least 26 million are un or under employed, Many people’s jobs have been out sourced to other countries.
And now, some Americans are outsourcing themselves to other countries in order to be able to work.
Big business has no intention of helping us, their only concern is the bottom line, not the lives of the people who have been destroyed by these corporate policies of greed, bad business decisions and pollution. Congress won’t help us, they have another master, and it’s not we the people. They blame the dismal economic situation regarding lack of jobs on lazy people who want to live off the system. They bail out their buddies and refuse to help citizens who are losing every thing they have worked for all their lives due to illegal foreclosure practices. There is just no end to their greed. Unemployment insurance is a vital important lifeline and if millions lose unemployment benefits, it will only compound the human suffering that is sweeping through our cities, our suburbs,and our rural areas as a result of the Great Recession.
They teach us of the vital importance of other lifelines – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are even more important during hard times.
They want us to beg for crumbs, those of us that are working are experiencing stagnant wages or decreased earning potential. Decreased benefits, or no benefits. In the mean time, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, CEOs in 2010 received pay at a ratio of $375 to $1 and yet refuse to pay anymore in taxes instead trying to shift the burden to the middle class, the poor, disabled and retired. Anyone but them!
These corporations are receiving billions in taxpayer subsidies using it to pollute our air and soil and contaminate our water extracting fossil fuels through mining, drilling or hydraulic fracturing and refuse to accept any responsibility for poisoning our planet and all who live on it. Congress refuses to cut these subsidies but will not vote to extend unemployment benefits for millions out of work through no fault of their own.
So, we can’t depend on corporations or the government to dig us out of this hole. Who can we depend on? We have to approach it from a solution point of reference. Stop feeding the machine.
We can depend on ourselves, occupy our lives.
How do we do this? How do we occupy our lives? By bypassing corporations and their polluting services. Our food supply is approximately 80% genetically modified frankenfood. Grow your own or buy locally from those that do. Save rain water, water is going to be a serious issue in the near future, learn now to conserve. In Southern Florida they used cisterns on the top of their houses to collect rain water. For those that can, open your own environmental friendly businesses, supplying your communities with needed products and services. Support those businesses. If you are knowledgeable about running a business, help someone else. Use credit unions or small banks to obtain financing or other banking needs, Fire the big banks!
Duke Power is requesting an 18% rate increase for residential services, less for businesses. People are out of work, struggling with diminished wages if they are working, and they want to increase our rates, while making millions in profits every quarter? Their reason for requesting this rate increase to build more coal plants to continue to pollute our environment. So they want us to pay them more money to kill us. In this case we need to occupy our energy. Fire Duke Energy!
Recently I saw a video about a school in India called the Barefoot College. It is a place where uneducated, illiterate woman, some who don’t even speak the language, go to learn to become solar engineers. They are taught by watching and doing. It is a six month course and when they complete it they return to their communities and install solar power giving their communities, in some cases, their first experience with electricity. If they can do it, we can do it.
They also are advocates of rain water harvesting, finding it the best solution to areas that experience droughts routinely. Mahatma Gandhi’s central belief was that the knowledge, skills and wisdom found in villages should be used for development before getting skills from outside. He also believed that sophisticated technology should be used in rural India, but it should be in the hands and in control of the poor communities so that they are not dependent or exploited as it leads to replacement.
Sounds to me like he was telling the people to occupy their resources. We need to occupy our food, our jobs our energy and resources. It might not be tomorrow, but we can work our way toward making corporations and big banks obsolete.
When I first moved to Greensboro, there was a sign painted on a building in my neighborhood. If left such an impression on me I never forgot it. It said: You are fodder for the factory and battlefield, choose to be free!
We are the 99%, choose to occupy your lives, your freedom.
VOTE TODAY!
Your vote does make a difference today! Get out to the polls and register your opposition to Amendment One. It will do serious harm to families across our state and enshrine discrimination in the NC Constitution.
Click here to find your polling place!
The OGSO General Assembly endorsed the work of All Of Us NC in a solidarity statement released on December 15, 2011. This statement also served as an endorsement of efforts across North Carolina to oppose Amendment One.
Please visit the organizations below to get involved in work to defeat this discriminatory amendment.
All Of Us NC - Build a better future for all of us.
"Let's Lose Our House" is a smart and funny look at the often misunderstood roots of the housing crash. It premiered on March 14, 2012 at the Carolina Theatre and was featured on the Rachel Maddow Show. If you are interested in hosting a screening of it in your area, contact OGSO's Foreclosure Working group here.
