Raleigh, NC - Over 1000 people gathered on the State Capitol grounds today, Oct. 15, as part of the Occupy Raleigh demonstration. The rally lasted four hours, as speaker after speaker stood to denounce the budget cuts and austerity measures being forced upon working people of North Carolina.
At 1:00 p.m., 500 people left the State Capitol to march through downtown Raleigh. As protesters passed Bank of America, a roar rose up through crowd as hundreds chanted in unison, "The banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" and "Hey hey, ho ho! Bank of America has got to go!" Passers-by waved and signaled support to protesters as they chanted, "We are the 99%!" and "How to fix the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich!" The marchers went past Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other banks and corporations before returning the main rally at the State Capitol.
Citing deregulation of corporations, union-busting and political corruption, Sarah Appel, a teacher at Duke University, said she was motivated to attend the protest to be part of a movement waking up to organize for change in the face of "the complete bankruptcy of the bi-partisan political system."
Seth Keel, a youth organizer with NC HEAT (Heroes Emerging Among Teens), told the hundreds assembled at the State Capitol, "We are the 99%, but the 1% owns us all and it's time to break down that system.” Keel emphasized, “The youth are here, and our futures are at stake."
As people cheered, Keel continued, "This system is buying out students’ futures. Our tuition is going up and up as the corporate-bought politicians cut budgets, lay off teachers and cut teachers' salaries. Resources are taken out of classroom and students are falling behind because of these budget cuts. The Koch brothers and Art Pope continue to use their monetary influence to put people in office who want to privatize our education."
Another march left the Capitol grounds at 2:30 p.m. and gathered support from passers-by in downtown Raleigh. As the permit for the protest expired, a general assembly of 300 people convened on the capitol grounds and protesters discussed next steps for the movement. Dozens of Raleigh police and State Capitol police encircled the assembly, watching and listening.
By nightfall, about 70 people had remained. 20 people had decided to defend their rights to assembly and speech and refuse to leave the capitol grounds. Raleigh police moved in to arrest these 20 at 7:00 p.m.
Fight Back! spoke with Eddy Samara, one of the people arrested at Occupy Raleigh, shortly after Samara posted bail. Samara said, “We'll be back. I felt strongly enough to stay because we have to stand in solidarity with all of the peoples' movements – from Wall Street to Madrid to right here in Raleigh. We have to assert our right to assemble and put forward a people's agenda instead of a 1% agenda."
Occupy Raleigh organizers plan to convene the next general assembly at noon on Sunday, Oct. 16. All who participated in the day's protests were inspired to continue fighting for justice and solidarity against the economic and political policies of the richest 1%.
Read more Fight Back! coverage of Occupy Wall street and follow @fightbacknews for live updates from #OccupyWallStreet protests around the country.
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More about Art Pope - Something for You to Do
There's a petition you can sign against Art Pope's politics of greed and the corporate corruption of NC politics at http://www.democracy-nc.org. Signing will also sign you up to get future alerts about actions related to the Pope empire. He wants to privatize elections and education - the two greatest equalizers in a democracy.
Art Pope bought the NC government - see the Oct. 10 New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer
In "State for Sale," in the current issue, Jane Mayer lays out how Art Pope, one of N.C.'s richest old-money Republicans, allied with national GOP operatives to literally take over the state House and Senate in 2010 for the Republicans. He targeted 22 state legislature races, saturated them with money ($2.2 million in all) and untruthful attack ads and smear mailings against the Democratic contenders, and won 18 of those races -- the first time since 1870 that both houses went Republican.Two-thirds of the "independent" organization spending in that race came directly from Art Pope through his organizations, the misleadingly named Civitas Action and Real Jobs NC, and his donations to GOP candidates. The national GOP had created a strategy to target states with congressional redistricting coming up, and make them go Republican so as to get more GOP congressional districts. In NC, Art Pope threw his money behind that strategy and delivered the state lock, stock and barrel. Now, the NC legislature is pushing bills to make it much harder for traditional Democrats (students, the elderly, immigrants) to vote, and to ban gay marraige, and of course it slashed the state budget, crippling our public schools and poverty support programs. Plus it passed a new congressional district map for NC that is expected to result in the GOP taking over at least four currently Democratic seats. Pope, whose wealthy and powerful father was allied with Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms, also was the money man behind the 2009 Wake County School Board campaigns that turned that former bastion of integration into a Tea Party-esque body that literally resegregated the schools in Wake County. He wages war on UNC and NC State, campaigning to slash their funding, then offers showers of money if they'll institute "Western culture" and capitalist-type teachings. Find out much more when you read the story.
"We are the 99%!"
Southern Hello, to all that supported this event today in downtown Raleigh http://www.silentlanguagephoto.com/occupy-raleigh/
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