Global civil society is being threatened by a system based on power and not on human values. Day after day it represses basic freedoms and consistently favors the greed of the few over the needs of the many. This power finances wars, food and pharmaceutical monopolies, it sponsors dictatorial regimes across the globe, destroying environments, manipulating and censoring information flow and transparency.

This Saturday, December 10, people all around the world will stand up together to demand the rights we were promised in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed and approved by most of the world’s governments and the basis for many of our constitutions.

The struggle for our rights as human beings underlies everything we have demanded in every square and every demonstration in this historic year of global change. From East to West, North to South: on the 10th of December we will take to the streets and squares together to demand the fundamental principles that were promised and are inherent to Human Beings.

Visit 10december.net for more information on the global movement. Search for or submit a report for #10D actions in your area.

ACTIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD 

Occupy Brazil is holding Rally & March of Candles. Details on this Facebook event.

Occupy Tuscaloosa is holding a march for human rights on the national Day of Action for the Occupy movement and the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Occupy London‘s lunchtime GA will provide space for London lovers, neighbours and visitors to discuss plans for occupations, teach outs and other actions specific to the local areas of London. More info here.
Also, live streaming of protests and show of cross-culture solidarity at the St. Paul Cathedral with guest speaker Professor Charles Tripp. Info here.

Madrid TomaLaPlaza is holding a week of action that starts on the 10th of December (International Human Rights Day) and culminates on the 18th of December (the global action day against racism and for the rights of migrants, refugees and displaced people) including performances, a Forum of Human Rights at Puerta del Sol, music show with various choirs, etc. Find more details here.

Occupy Montreal
After their eviction and the disrespect of their rights, Occupy Montreal will march to and occupy the SPVM HQ (Montreal Police Head Quarters) on this day of human rights and liberty. Complete schedule of events found here.

Occupy Nanamio will be taking part in Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign.

Occupy Nashville has planned a Global Human Rights Day March

Occupy Omaha will be holding a symbolic cross-town march uniting traditionally segregated areas of the city. Demonstrators will start from North Omaha and South Omaha and converge at the encampment.

Occupons La Defense (Paris)
As part of the global day of mobilization for the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the indignation of Paris are calling for a mobilization.

Occupy Sydney is holding a Global Human Rights Day Festival with info stalls, Free School, music, food and more!

Find more actions here.

As retailers compete to see who can open their doors the earliest without offending the sensibilities of the public, Americans have been questioning the very tradition of over-consumption. Occupy Black Friday, OccupyXMass and Buy Nothing Day actions are being held throughout the country and world as a way to stand up against blatant corporate greed.

If you are opting-out this year, we’ve whipped up this little gift exemption card for you to print out give to your friends and family over Thanksgiving right before the chaos of corporate holiday spending ensues. Or, send this image as an eCard for those you won’t be spending the day with.

NATIONAL HAPPENINGS

#BuyNothingDay
Historically, Buy Nothing Day has been about fasting from hyper consumerism – a break from the cash register and reflecting on how dependent we really are on conspicuous consumption. This 20th anniversary of Buy Nothing Day will be married with the message of #Occupy. Occupy the minds of Xmas shoppers with these posters. Organize a whirly mart, santa sit-in or Jesus walk.
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The  success of October 15th has triggered an unprecedented momentum for  global action. Humanity has united across boundaries in a struggle for real democracy and individual rights. Essential to this struggle is the respect for human life and living conditions, including environments

Global civil society is being threatened by a system based on power and not on human values. Day after day it represses basic freedoms and consistently favors the greed of the few over the needs of the many. This power finances wars, food and pharmaceutical monopolies, it sponsors dictatorial regimes across the globe, destroying environments, manipulating and censoring information flow and transparency.

Despite our different cultural backgrounds and social contexts, we all suffer the same threats. Our freedom and dignity are under attack as a result of market dynamics and corrupt government institutions that are turning our local and global societies into increasingly unjust places. The governments of this planet must work for the people, not against them. The time has come to stand up for our rights together and to demand the rights we were promised  in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed and approved by most of the world’s governments and the basis for many of our constitutions.

The struggle for our rights as human beings underlies everything we have demanded in every square and every demonstration in this historic year of global change. There is no better culmination to this year of protest than a global day of action to defend our inalienable human equity from those trying to take it away from us. From East to West, North to South: on the 10th of December we will take to the streets and squares together to demand the fundamental principles that were promised and are inherent to the Human Beings.

We would like to propose the week starting on the 10th of December (10/12 – 17/12) as a time for alternative forms of protest which will be found after a debate between all of us. The idea is to participate in proposing new forms of action with a creative spirit: we can organize public forums and workshops, flash-mobs, we can promote the movement in local schools and neighborhoods or get in contact with humanitarian organizations working with the same goals. 

VISIT 10DECEMBER.NET FOR MORE INFO

ADD YOUR PROPOSALS FOR AN ALTERNATIVE ACTION OR VIEW AND COMMENT ON IDEAS HERE

OWS is calling upon you to participate in a national day of direct action on November 17 in celebration of the the two month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Occupy Wall St
7:00 Shut Down Wall Street
3:00 Occupy the Subways
5:00 Take the Square

This information and more at: occupywallst.org/action/november-17th

Occupy Colleges
Students across the country will gather together on November 17 to protest the rising costs of college education, and the diminishing quality in that education from universities. Students will strike by gathering in central locations throughout each school, or in solidarity at Occupy Wall Street.

More information at: occupycolleges.org

Portland
Occupying steelbridge in morning
Rally afterwards
Subsequently occupying banks

www.n17pdx.org
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=104127476368742

Los Angeles
1,000+ people to take over the street of Downtown, Los Angeles. Activists will meet at Bank of America Plaza at 333 S Hope St. and march to the corner of Figueroa and 4th St., where we will shut down the intersection.

www.occupylosangeles.org/?q=node%2F1970

Boston
Mass Uniting’s Jobs Not Cuts March & Rally at Dewey Square

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185521434866267

Prior to March @ FSU: Martin Luther King Jr, Stokely Carmichael, American Democracy, and the Search for Economic Justice: From the Civil Rights Movement to the Occupy Movement

Minneapolis
3:00pm Student Rally @ Northrop Plaza
4:00pm March onto the 10th Ave Bridge
5:30pm Rally on the Peoples’ Plaza (Government Plaza)

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189395914476438

Lexington
5:30 Solidarity March

http://t.co/5AZrXKdV

Chicago

5:30 Mass Action at Jackson and LaSalle

occupychi.org/2011/11/15/thursday-occupy-chicago-participates-national-day-action-november-17

INTERNATIONAL
Spain
A general strike of university students will be taking place in the following cities: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, Tarragona, Palma, Sevilla, Santiago de Compostela, Murcia, Madrid, Valencia, Castello, Alicante, Zaragoza

17:00: Demonstration in Madrid

Place: From Nuevos Ministerios to Puerta del Sol Square
Call: Assembly UAM-CSIC / 15M

tomalafacultad.net
madrid.tomalaplaza.net/2011/11/08/17n-manifestacion-estatal-por-los-servicios-publicos

Belgium
Activists are mobilising for sit-ins at universities and schools to discuss the ongoing protests around the world, resist the increasing commercialisation of education and connect to the struggle on the global level.

ism-global.net/ghent_occupy_nov17

Germany
Massive student strikes, flash mobs, rallies, and other actions will be taking place in dozens of cities

ism-global.net/germany_education_strike_nov17

Hey there wonderful citizens of the web. We need some help/insight from someone who has a better understanding of WordPress than us. We found it odd that we hadn’t had any recent comments coming through, so one of us got smart and tried submitting a test comment. Turns out ALL of our comments are being caught by the spam filter.

A week or so ago we started getting hundreds of comments that looked like this:

Submitted on 2011/11/03 at 8:05 am
glzidpddvqzuphfuifs, Porn, http://www.freesex-tgp.com/ , UzfZtIj.

Since these were clearly spam, and there spilling in by the hundreds, we started flagging them for the spam filter in order to prevent a complete invasion of these spammy comments.

Also recently, we’ve opened up user registration for users to be able to submit articles. Unfortunately, the function is competley pointless outside of the submission page becase we have a caching add-on that prevents Worpress from recognizing a signed-in user.

Somehow, one or a combination of these two things has made it so the spam filter is automatically spamming EVERY comment have recieved for the last several days.

Is there a way to reset our spam filter? Prevent the spammy messages we were getting? Any help/insight is very appreciated.

Also, our sincerest apologies to all who have recently commented. We’ll be going through the thousands of “spam” comments to be “unflagging” all comments throughout the day.

Occupy Together

Also, you can comment on this post. We’ll still receive the comments we just have to “un-spam” them. If easier, please email us at info@occupytogether.org.

There has been some confusion over a recent ad campaign that was organized by a group of individual supporters of the Occupy Movement. A few weeks ago, David Sauvage independently produced a 30 second spot and posted it to YouTube. Sauvage and the others involved started a Loudsauce campaign on the same day in order to get funding for the ads to be aired nationally.

Loudsauce, similar to Kickstarter, is a crowd funding website where individual supporters can donate money to have ads they support aired on television. David reported on the Loudsauce site that his intentions were to “break through the media barrier and keep spreading the movement.” According to LoudSauce, when a campaign raises enough funds, they negotiate discounted media space with select partners who are interested in supporting their vision.

Occupy Together was emailed by David on October 10th with a link to a previous version of the video with OccupyWallSt.org at the end of the spot. Due to the large amount of emails we receive daily linking to videos, music, articles, etc. we were unable to respond to David’s question about our opinion to the linkage of the ad to OccupyTogether.org.

It was aired on Lawrence O’Donnell on October 14th which was the first time that we were made aware of the ad’s existence with the ad directing to our website at the end.

We have placed our name, identity, and the content of this website under a Creative Commons License, which allows others to share and remix these materials. While these ads did not use our logo, it did direct viewers to our site. We, the creators and volunteers at Occupy Together, had no input or affiliation prior to the airing of this spot.

Occupy Together is supportive of individuals stepping up and making contributions that support the movement. In fact, this is how Occupy Together began, by independently taking it upon ourselves to add whatever support we could which resulted in our small contribution to the movement. We believe in keeping our name and our materials open for public use because we feel that they belong to the movement and those people that support it.

The Loudsauce campaign for the TV spots recently reached its funding goal and negotiated ads to be aired over the weekend. We are in no position to tell ANYONE what to do with their money and if these individuals wanted to use their funds for these spots, that is their prerogative.

The confusion came when people began inquiring about “our” ads and questioning “our” funding and motives for these ads. To clarify, we never had anything to do with the production or funding of these ads, so the inquiries caught us off guard.

Occupy Together has no access to who contributed money for these ads or how much they cost to run because we were not involved in the organizing, production, or funding of this project in any way. Any questions regarding these spots should be directed towards the individuals who produced and promoted them or to Loudsauce. Again, we have no access to any of these records because we have not been involved in their creation.

Occupy Together has never solicited any donations or monetary contributions. Shortly after the launch of our site, we began experiencing massive amounts of traffic during the daytime hours which caused the servers to crash regularly due to inadequate bandwidth.  We had a private individual contribute towards our first $1000 of hosting in order to maintain a functional site to provide the information on the growing movement. We moved to MayFirst on a virtual dedicated server and pay a membership fee of $300 a month to belong to the co-operative hosting organization. Beyond this, our time and other expenses have been completely funded out of our own pockets.

While we believe in the importance of transparency, we also believe in an individual’s right to privacy and respect this individual’s request to stay anonymous. However, for the sake of transparency, here is a record of the transaction with the redaction of personal information.

(click to view at full size)

From the beginning, as a team of volunteers, we decided that the work that we were doing through this site was more important than any one of us. Therefore, the anonymity of the team was not just to protect our privacy but to prevent any single individual from overshadowing the movement or to appear to be in any kind of “leadership” role. Because of this, we decided to go only by our first names and rely on our actions to speak for our intentions.

Transparency is important in this movement. We also understand the importance of individual freedoms and rights as well as consensus among the group’s members. As it stands, the Occupy Together team has agreed to continue to go by our first names only. If at some point in time new information comes to light or the feelings of the members change, we will reconsider this position.

Inevitably, there are going to be those who are quick to react and accuse those they suspect of having “ill intentions,” even if those suspected are working in the greater good of the cause. A certain level of skepticism is healthy and needed to protect the movement from being co-opted. However, it reaches a dangerous level when accusations are not based in reason or factual information. There is nothing to protect anyone from such accusations or insinuations and in many circumstances, no amount of evidence would prove contrary to someone else’s beliefs or baseless distrust. We would rather put our efforts towards working for the movement than spend our time defending ourselves. Instead, our plan is to continue to show our intentions through our actions and to maintain this level of transparency as we move forward.