(05/23/12) Statement of Solidarity with Chicago NATO demonstrators.

 

Since its inception on September 17, 2011, Occupy Wall Street and the many nationwide Occupations it spawned have continuously faced brutal repression at the hands of the state’s heavily-militarized police departments.

 

Despite this repression, these past months have seen The People from San Diego to Oakland, all the way to Chicago and New York, coming together to exercise our 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech and to hold public assemblies. We have used these rights, guaranteed under the U.S. constitution, to collectively express feelings of mass injustice. The People have taken to the streets and raised their voices all the way to the steps of Congress in Washington itself, and, more recently, in Chicago during the G8 and NATO Summit. Yet the repression continues and has intensified.

The current administration’s failure to acknowledge and condemn these vicious violations of our civil rights comes as no surprise. It has embarked on a campaign to ignore us, hoping we would fade to oblivion; to discredit us by disseminating misinformation through the tools of the mainstream media; and by pushing legislation which directly attacks our civil liberties. This past New Years Eve, Barack Obama signed into law the NDAA, the National Defense Authorisation Act, granting the president the power to indefinitely imprison any citizen anywhere in the world, including inside the U.S., without charge or trial. He also signed into law HR 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act (aka the Anti-Protest Act) which restricts the practice of free speech by criminalizing public protest near any Federal building and/or Federal Agent. With these laws, the governement aims to further oppress, silence, and strike fear among its own citizens, continuously pushing the U.S. into a fascist state.

The General Assembly of Occupy San Diego stands in solidarity with our sisters and brothers who showed resilience and courage in Chicago during the anti-NATO demonstrations, an organization that disguises its imperialistic agenda as humanitarian help. We denounce the heavy militarized tactics employed by the Chicago Police Department to repress people’s right to assemble. We denounce the sensationalist mainstream corporate-media as a tool which the 1% employs to shamefully manipulate their biased coverage of events. We declare the NDAA and HR 347 as direct violations of our constitutional, civil, and human rights.

To the various Occupations, the Students in Quebec, the Protesters of Frankfurt, and all the People Worldwide Resisting Injustices: Occupy San Diego stands with you.

To the Chicago Police Department, the mainstream media, and the Obama administration: The whole world is watching!

 

05/23/2012