Pinal County Greens Join 2009 Green Party Candidate for New York City Mayor and Community Groups to Protest Bank of America's Foreclosure Policies

New York, Nov. 25 -

Pinal County Greens today joined 2009 Green Party candidate for New York City mayor Reverend Billy Talen and community groups for the takeover of a Bank of America ATM branch in Manhattan to protest the bank's foreclosure policies. Here is a report and photos by Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair.

Early this afternoon -- Black Friday to some, Buy Nothing Day to others -- we joined with the New York City community groups Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir and Picture the Homeless for a protest action at the Bank of America branch at the corner of Houston and Lafayette Streets.

On this day when so many around us were shopping, we occupied the bank in the heart of chic, fashionable SoHo (okay, technically just over the border of NoHo) to sing and pray and have a dinner, courtesy of the kitchen of Occupy Wall Street, in honor of Kendall Jackman, who just two years ago was living an ordinary life renting a brownstone in Brooklyn but who today is homeless, the victim of one of millions of home foreclosures across the country.

We walked over from our organizing point at the corner of Crosby and Jersey Street, across from the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, around 1 p.m. with chairs, a table, dishware, silverware, the delicious dinners, and two nice paintings donated by the late Kurt Vonnegut and Reverend Billy Talen to make Kendall feel at home in the bank which foreclosed on her landlord and forced her to leave the still-unoccupied building that BofA foreclosed upon.

For us, the most moving part of the creative protest was when Reverend Billy & The Choir sang their beautiful song "We are the 99%" (as we gather together)."

Afterwards the group returned to Zuccotti Park, where a group from Occupy Wall Street remain to fight the good fight. We learned a lot about organizing public demonstrations during the preparations for today's action and were impressed with the dedication and shrewdness of Billy Talen and his New York City community group. We hope to take what we've learned in New York during #OWS actions back to Arizona with us for action in the coming year.

The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County.

Pinal County Greens Still at Zuccotti Park, Vow to Continue to Support Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Movement in Arizona

New York, Nov. 20 -

Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson reported that few protesters from Occupy Wall Street were left at a heavily guarded, heavily barricaded Zuccotti Park this morning in Manhattan's Financial District.

"The Occupy movement will go on," Grayson said, "in New York and Phoenix and Tucson and all over America. The 99% will continue their campaign to address the issues of income inequality and the unfair influence of money on the political system."

The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County.

As David Carr wrote in the New York Times:

Occupy Wall Street is animated by a central, galvanizing idea — that the distribution of wealth is unfair. That struck a very live nerve, grabbing something that was in the air and turning it into simple math: 1 percent should not live at the expense of the other 99 percent.

Still, Occupy Wall Street left many all revved up with no place to go. In addition to the 5 W’s — who, what, when, where and why — the media are obsessed with a sixth: what’s next? Occupy Wall Street, for all its appeal as a story, is very hard to roll forward.

But if Occupy Wall Street seems inchoate and short on answers, it has plenty of company. The president has primed the pump over and over with borrowed federal largess and still jobs refuse to flow. The myriad Republican debates have become a kind of random gaffe generator with little in the way of serious public proposals.

And by the way, there’s another term for a gathering of politically committed people who make a lot of speeches and argue endlessly over process without producing much in the way of solutions: Congress.

Witness the Congressional supercommittee charged with reducing the nation’s debt, which has spun its wheels to little end as it confronts a partisan divide so wide it would have daunted Evel Knievel.

The country has reached the point where things feel so fundamentally wrong that every suggested remedy seems like a media exercise, a kind of nationwide spin cycle.

Occupy Wall Street may not have the answers, but we all are coming to realize that no one else does either.

Pinal County Greens Pass Resolution Decrying Police Brutality at University of California, Calling for Resignation of UC-Davis Chancellor Katehi

Apache Junction, Ariz., Nov. 19, 2011 -

The Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, today passed a resolution condemning campus police brutality against Occupy protesters at the University of California and calling on UC-Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to resign following the shocking pepper-spray assault against students and faculty.

"Outrageous police brutality at the University of California, including the beating and pepper-spraying of peaceful protesters like faculty member and former poet laureate Robert Haas, his wife and others brings shame on what was once a great institution of higher education," said Richard Grayson, co-chair of the Pinal County Greens. "Following the open letter of UC-Davis English Prof. Nathan Brown, the Pinal County Greens call for the immediate resignation of Chancellor Katehi, who is responsible for this most un-American of barbaric actions."

Pinal County Greens Join Occupy Wall Street Day of Action in New York City

New York, Nov. 17 -

The Pinal County Greens were represented at Occupy Wall Street's November 17th Day of Action demonstrations in New York City on the two-month anniversary of the protest that has galvanized progressives across the country. Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson took these photos at this afternoon's student strike rally at Union Square.

Pinal County Greens March With #Occupy Wall Street

(Photos by Richard Grayson)
New York, Oct. 14 -

The Pinal County Greens today participated in a march with Occupy Wall Street, whose protest the group supports wholeheartedly. Here is a brief report from Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson:

At 7:20 a.m., we came out of the 5 train at Wall Street to join the march of Occupy Wall Street protestors through the Financial District. An hour earlier, the city postponed the cleanup of Zuccotti Park and so averted a a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts to evict them from their encampment.

The crowd chanted various slogans, including "The Whole World Is Watching."



It was pretty peaceful and mostly celebratory, given that there would be no eviction from Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Square by #OWS) today.







However, we did see people arrested as we wound our way through the streets of the Financial District. One man, wrestled to the ground by police, had a bloody gash on his face and others were piled into a paddy wagon at Maiden Lane and Water Street.



Eventually we all returned to Zuccotti Park.



We ran into our friends, Brooklyn City Council members Jumaane Williams and Letitia James, who were instrumental, along with other elected officials, in convincing Brookfield Properties to postpone today's cleanup and avoid any real serious confrontation.






We're learning a lot from other people here at Occupy Wall Street.




The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, the nation's second-fastest-growing county.