Early Tuesday morning, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg cleared the Occupy Wall Street protestors out of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. He may have been following the example of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who cleared Grant Park of Occupy demonstrators in a wee hours sweep.
Bloomberg and Emanuel are natural enemies of the Occupy movement, because they embody one of its chief complaints: the super-wealthy’s excessive influence in politics. If millionaire Emanuel is Mayor 1%, billionaire Bloomberg is Mayor 0.1%.
More than a dozen Occupy members squatted outside Emanuel’s City Hall office until 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, protesting the city’s plan to eliminate six of its 12 mental health center. The mayor’s budget is expected to be approved in a near-unanimous vote at this morning's City Council meeting.
On Thursday, Occupy Chicago will continue its protest against budget cuts by participating in a National Day of Action, along with 30 other Occupy movements. It was originally planned to commemorate the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, but will now serve as a “solidarity action” against the raid on Zuccotti Park.
Here is the schedule:
3:30 pm: Occupy Chicago joins StandUp! Chicago to “demand jobs, not cuts, from our government!” Rally at the Thompson Center (100 W. Randolph St), followed by a march.
5:30 pm: Occupy Chicago engages in a mass action at Jackson and LaSalle featuring large-scale street theater with a sizeable number of participants, including individuals dressed as the 1%. Immediately following, a march with individuals from many labor unions “visiting” corporations who did not pay their fair share of taxes last year, followed by the daily General Assembly at Congress and Michigan.
“We stand in complete solidarity with Occupy Wall Street,” said Megan Groves, an Occupy Chicago committee volunteer. “We are going to tell the world that you can raid a camp, but you can’t destroy a movement. We aren’t going anywhere, we’re going everywhere!”
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