Issue #3 , January 2012

occupy-madison.org @occupymadison99 FB: Occupy Madison

Welcome to the 3rd edition of the Occupied Wisconsin State Journal, with news, opinions and updates related to the Occupy Movement! OWSJ is produced by Occupy Madison but not written solely by Madison Occupiers. WE ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS. Please e-mail them to:

DIRECT ACTION AT OCCUPY MADISON!

The Occupy Movement is not just about occupying space! Our aim is to bring attention to all of the issues affecting the 99% through education and direct action. With that in mind, the Occupy Madison Direct Action Committee has kicked into gear with several actions over the past few weeks.

Solidarity with the Revolutionaries of Egypt occupiedwisconsinstatejournal@ On December 30th, occupiers took to the State St. & Johnson corner with gmail.com signs to express solidarity with the revolution in Egypt, which has been If you like our paper, come to our facing extreme repression, and decrying the targeting of female General Assemblies! The GA revolutionaries in order to shame them into staying home. After schedule is as follows: displaying their messages to passing motorists, the occupiers made a Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 6 pm video reading the Occupy Madison Solidarity Statement with Egypt aloud. Both the statement and the video were received with appreciation at the Occupy Madison site, 800 block of East Washington Ave on the by many, including Muhammad Nusair, the young revolutionary who in former Don Miller lot February of 2011 famously published a photo of himself holding a sign in Tahrir Square with a message of solidarity for Wisconsin workers. Sundays at 6 pm in the Wil-Mar
Center, 953 Jenifer St. Sundays are reserved for political discussion. In this issue: Report on Egypt solidarity and Guantanamo actions A committee fighting homelessness Facts about the EVIL MINING BILL and how you can fight it. Protests to attend! Opinions on the postrecall scene, the environment, and Greece Martin Luther King Jr vs Scott Walker And more!

Photo by Alice Ogden-Nussbaum

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Direct Action, Continued

Committee on Homelessness and Foreclosures

Occupy Madison has an active core group of people who make up the Committee on Homelessness and Foreclosures(COHAF). We are one of several working groups of Occupy Madison who are grassroots organizers. A current project is to obtain a more liberal bus pass policy for the homeless from the City of Madison so they may more easily meet their daily needs and improve their chances of changing their homeless situation. We want the most economically disadvantaged of the 99% to be housed. We believe that housing is a human right. What we offer are referrals to other services, brainstorming on next steps on how to keep your home, direct action to deter eviction, advocacy with your loan agency or bank, and media coverage and political pressure to put pressure on banks, law enforcement agencies, etc. who are trying to evict the homeowner. We periodically hold training sessions to train new people to identify homeowners at risk of foreclosure and then to help the homeowners prevent foreclosure. If you are interested in becoming a part of this effort contact Allen

National Day of Action Against Guantanamo January 11th was the 10th unfortunate anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. Most of the 171 men still indefinitely detained at Guantanamo are innocent of any wrongdoing. In light of this, and of the nefarious 2012 NDAA allowing indefinite detentions which had very recently been passed in Congress and signed by Obama, Occupy Madison held a vigil at the intersection of Williamson St. and John Nolen Dr. The response from passing motorists was very positive, some inquisitive about Guantanamo and its current status, although one man reported he thought indefinite detention was a good thing and another yelled WALKER RULES without regard for the fact that the demonstration was not Scott Walker-related at all.

Photo by Anne Lyttle

Why Should You Pay Attention to Greece?

Worldwide, the 1% has done its best to make the 99% pay for a crisis caused by their own excess. In few places has this been more acutely felt than in Greece. In order to fulfill the demands of Euro leaders, appease the banks, and insulate the Greek ruling class, the government has unleashed harsh austerity. Homelessness has skyrocketed, workers will go months without pay, and hospitals cannot afford to treat the ill. Meanwhile, the global mainstream news media strives justify these measures by portraying the Greek people as greedy and lazy (sound familiar?). However, resistance is constantly growing and evolving. Although the famous occupation of Syntagma Square was brutally dispersed in June, the people of Greece have made their power felt in various ways. Strikes have become broader and longer, electrical workers have physically stopped power being cut off to families who could not pay an emergency tax, and no Greek politician can venture outside without facing the wrath of their betrayed constituents. Greece is a major front in the global struggle of the 99% against attacks by the 1%. Their fight is ours. As we move forward, let's keep Greece on our radar.

Barkoff
[email protected] phone 608.231.3015.

at
or

top ten reasons to BURY THE BILL

AB426 on mining
1.AB426 violates Anishinaabe Treaty Rights that require the state of Wisconsin to consult with the tribes on issues that affect their land. The EPA confirms their right to regulate water and air quality on ceded land that affects their reservation.

8.AB426 eliminates accountability and scientific decisions for permitting a mine and requires DNR to issue a permit for a mines water withdrawals even if a company cant protect the public, waterfront owners and the environment from damage, as long as the DNR determines that the public benefits of a mine exceed any injury to public rights.

Wisconsin State Capitol. IT WILL BE LIVESTREAMED! Walker's State of the State Address will be taking place at 7 PM

BURY THE MINING BILL PROTEST RALLY:

Wed, Jan 25th, 5:00pm - 7:00pm at Lady Forward, top of State Street / Capitol Square, Madison, WI: Protest AB-426 aka "The Mining Bill," and Wetlands Deregulation Bill AB463.

9.AB426 will allow GTAC to destroy wild rice beds, pollute fish 2.AB426 was written by members with mercury poisoning, and of ALEC, the American Legislative permanently destroy miles of Exchange Council, and designed world-class trout streams that can for the sole benefit of GTAC never be replaced. mining. 3.AB426 silences the voice of the public by removing contested case hearings and limits public hearings to one as opposed to three in current law. 10.AB426 changes definitions in the current mining moratorium to make sure that law would not apply to mining even if sulfidecontaining materials are found.

THUR, JAN 26TH: PEOPLE'S TRIBUNAL OF AB-426

4.AB426 allows TELL THEM: BURY THE BILL!!!!! corporations to dump toxic mine waste into sensitive wetlands and floodplains and contaminate the Opportunities to Take groundwater of neighboring Action This Week: properties.

North Hearing Room, 2nd CALL YOUR LEGISLATOR AND Floor, 10am - 6pm mining

The Peoples Tribunal will be an open Citizens Mining Hearing taking citizen petitions and testimony on AB-426 and providing legislative organizing NOTICE OF HEARING : 5.AB426 would allow the Gogebic Wisconsin Assembly Committee skills, training and actions suggestions to citizens and Taconite mining project to use as on Jobs, Economy and Small providing an opportunity for much as 41 million gallons of water Business Executive Session those to speak on the Mining each day, more than the daily water Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Bill as now proposed. If you or use of the entire city of Madison. 10:00 AM, 412 East State an organization would like to Capitol in Madison, Assembly provide support, endorse the 6.AB426 violates the historic Great Bill 426 - relating to regulation event or testify at the peoples Lakes Compact by allowing of ferrous metallic mining and hearing please contact Carl at groundwater pumping that will waiving many current laws and [email protected] cause environmental harm. regulations

7.AB426 would allow the Gogebic ON WED, JAN 25TH Taconite mine to produce massive DISCUSS THE REAL amounts of waste that would be placed directly into waterways, and STATE OF THE STATE! relaxes the information a company must give to DNR for their mining Open testimony, 10 AM 5 PM plans.
North Hearing Room,

GOING FORWARD
As we file the petitions here in Wisconsin to recall Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch and four GOP Senators, we are reminded that nothing of this proportion has ever taken place in the history of our State. It is also a reminder that this is only the beginning. The events leading up to this are not isolated Wisconsin problems; they are national in their scope. As a former mortgage loan officer I saw the housing crisis coming. Fact is, I retired early because I was not in the mood to make mortgage loans to people who were in no position to purchase a home. My awareness began when the jobs started moving overseas during the George W Bush administration. Unemployment rose. Seeing a Notice of Foreclosure in the local newspaper used to be a rare occurrence. As America continued to lose jobs, the numbers of these notices in our immediate area increased, occupying three to four full pages in the newspaper. During this same period of the Bush administration we were inundated with radio, television and print advertisements that everyone should own a home. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loosened their standards in terms of loan to value ratio and credit scores and the mortgage insurance companies followed suit. Appraisers continued to follow lenders' instructions in a "business as usual mode" using comparable sales that were no more than six months old, with latitude given if there were no sales in the immediate area during that time frame. The high level of foreclosures continued to be ignored and the banks

continued to profit by charging unqualified buyers up to 20 points (a point is 1% of the loan amount) and inflating the sale price to have this amount paid by the seller. In the end the buyers were screwed. The taxpayers were screwed. The banks made out like the bandits they are. The HAMP and HARP programs were a dismal failure because they were administered by the same crooks that perpetrated the problem in the first place, with the result that the taxpayer was screwed again, and deserving homeowners who were barely hanging on were denied any type of redress. If I saw this coming, the highly compensated CEOs and CFOs of the banks certainly did. I put the corporations who moved, and continue to move, jobs out of America in the same status. There is a lot of blame to go around, but the domino that ultimately was pulled out of the pyramid, and was the proximate cause of the collapse, was jobs. Without income, homeowners could no longer afford their payments and the jig was up. January 21, 2012 marks the second anniversary of Citizen's United. Unless and until this concept that corporations are people is overturned by a US Constitutional Amendment, we have seen the end of democracy as we knew it in this country. Occupy Foreclosures has the potential to be a large part of bringing awareness to the public as to how corporations with their corruption and greed almost managed to take this country to its knees. In the coming months we will elect new candidates for office. An

important question for each will be "do you support a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizen's United" decision?" The sad fact is that corporate America decided that buying the majority of the seven seats on the Wisconsin Supreme Court (and other similar state supreme courts) was key to their agenda. They had the majority of the nine US Supreme Court justices and sealed the deal by going after the individual State Supreme Courts. Without our elected representatives at all levels of government united on this issue, there can be no real change. In Solidarity, Betsy Wilcox

SECURITY CULTURE WORKSHOP

Tue, February 7th at 7pm Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative's Infoshop Annex, 426 W. Gilman The Madison Infoshop Collective will be hosting a workshop and discussion on Security Culture and it's role in progressive and radical movements. The workshop will include discussion on security culture's role in more recent Midwest activist history, and a discussion of ways in which above-ground movements can minimize security breaches while working effectively toward their goals. The workshop is open and free to the public.

There is no Planet B.
The fate of this planet is the fifty gigaton gorilla in the room, and the issue which both encompasses and transcends all others. If we can't breathe the air or drink the water, nothing else really matters, does it? Many persons seem to believe that environmental issues are somehow separate from those of economic and social justice, but they are inextricably entwined. The profit system, which exploits our labor for the benefit of the few, is the villain of this story, as well. Its addiction to avarice at all costs has had profoundly disastrous impacts on the earth's ecosystem, creating climate change which threatens, if not dealt with now, to destroy our and many other species' ability to survive. But even were that not the case, the pollution spewed into our air and water would ultimately doom us. Whatever actions we can and should take in our own lives to reduce the damage pales before the necessity to end the global ecological destruction wrought by a system designed to rapaciously consume natural resources, not conserve them. Perhaps because of the enormity of the challenge we face, many working for a better world have not been able to come to grips with this reality, and have consigned the issue to a secondary status. Of course, those in power have conspired to keep that reality from the public, to deny the science that makes irrefutably clear that time is running out, if in fact the clock hasn't struck midnight. Our struggle for justice is inseparably bound with our struggle for survival. We confront the same enemy in both, and our obligation and determination to care for each other is the immutable principle of both.

OCCUPY APPLETON!!
Upcoming Events: Monday 1/23, 5:30-7:30 pm, Teach-In at the Appleton Public Library. This week, David Dodd will be showing and leading a discussion on Part 1 of the BBC documentary, "The Party's Over," a look at how the US and UK ended up in debt to China. PLEASE NOTE -- the teach-in is at a new time. This will be the regular time for the teach-in in the future. Tuesday, 1/24, 5:30-6:30 pm, General Assembly in the Conference Room of Harmony Cafe.

Gov. Scott Walker uses a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy as a photo op. Meanwhile, the people who have spent the past year working to combat Walker's attacks on the poor and working class turn their backs to him in protest. We wonder which act of commemoration King would have appreciated more. Photo by Leslie Peterson

The 99% Film & Discussion Forum will screen and discuss certain characteristics of the 1% with a screening of Lewis Lapham's "The American Ruling Class" (2005, 100 min). Tuesday January 31st, 7pm in the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center Mendota Room at 953 Jenifer St on the near east side. Free, for more info call 442-8399. Voluntary donations will be accepted to cover room rental and other costs.