“News to Make You Furious” is usually about the appalling things going on around us that no one pays any attention to; things that should rightly run and scurry for the dark when light is shined on them. However this month’s Furious is, in a way, grimly hopeful. If you’re Furious, there’s finally something to do about it.
On September 17, a growing group of people under the name “Occupy Wall Street” began occupying Zuccoti Park in New York’s Wall Street district. Similar to many of the “Arab Spring” demonstrations, there’s no leader and no list of demands. It’s a group of people who are angry, and are ready to talk about it. Look beyond the pot-and-patchouli-smelling-but-still-non-violent protestors and you’ll see a much broader slice of America that’s had enough. We, as Americans, are facing futures with no jobs, no healtcare, no homes, in a security-and-torture state, while the smug theives who plundered our society tell us it’s our fault.
In the (roughly) three weeks since Occupy Wall Street started, the movement has exploded. As of Monday, October 3, “Occupy” actions have sprung up in 132 US cities and 28 other cities around the world. Of course, Portland is one of those 132 US cities.
The NON-VIOLENT Occupation of Portland begins Thursday, October 6, at the north end of Tom McCall Waterfront Park. If you’re looking for a way to help, there is a list of needs of the Occupiers but even more than the food, shelter, water, and communication, they need people. More specifically YOU. Please consider coming out for the protest and showing your support, or even planning to stay for a while if you can.
We live in a society that is increasingly non-responsive to the needs of the people, or at least the 99% that don’t own Congressmen. It’s getting worse, not better, so if we don’t make our voices heard NOW they won’t be any louder later. This may not be the event that makes the change we need, but it’s lining up to be the loudest shout so far. Click any of the banners below for more information, and please, consider taking part!
Columnist Chris Hedges puts it much better than we could…
“There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave…” (read more)
