Apache Junction, Ariz., Jan. 7 -
The Pinal County Greens today attended Occupy Phoenix's rally for public education in Arizona, Occupy Education. Here is a report from Pinal County Greens co-chair Richard Grayson, who also took the accompanying photos:Late this morning we took the light rail from Mesa to Central and Washington in downtown Phoenix to attend Occupy Phoenix's rally for public education in Arizona, Occupy Education, at Cesar Chavez Plaza.
It was the kickoff for Occupy Phoenix's January “Month of Education,” and as the press release stated,
Together with teachers, parents, and students, we will be discussing vouchers, merit pay, high-stakes testing, the rising cost of college tuition, and many more important topics.
Are you a parent who has seen cutbacks damage your children’s public school?
Are you a teacher struggling with low pay, large classes, and little support?
Are you a college student buried in debt? Join us on January 7th at noon and speak out!
Let’s send a message to our legislators that our children’s education is not for sale!
A good education is a right, NOT a privilege for just the wealthy few!
Bring your signs and friends of all ages!
Obviously, Cesar Chavez Plaza was not anything close to what we saw at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park in the fall, but on the other hand, we met people who've been here since the very beginning of Occupy Phoenix and we were impressed with how well everything seemed planned, without the loss of any spontaneity.
We spoke to a number of people who were highly informed, dedicated, energized and passionate about the concerns of the Occupy movement.
The human microphone wasn't really necessary as a bullhorn gave the speakers resonance over the whole plaza.
On the steps of Phoenix's Old City Hall, people from Occupy Phoenix discussed the issues regarding public education, from inadequate state funding and the corporatization of education to the problems of massive student loan debt and attacks on programs like ethnic studies.
The facilitators of the breakout groups announced what they'd be discussing and we met in these groups at various spots in Cesar Chavez Plaza.
We attended a terrific session, "Higher Education Secrets for the 99%," with college students and recent graduates, university and community college faculty and administrators, all providing interesting testimony and ideas about the crisis in higher education.
Chelsea Starr, Ph.D., the facilitator, gave us terrific handouts with charts showing the exponential rise in tuition over recent decades (we attended Brooklyn College for free from 1969 to 1973!), the net college costs as a percentage of median family income for all income quintiles, the sources of undergraduate aid, and more.
Another breakout group was titled "What Happens When Public School Becomes a Business?," in which Megan and Connie Leach, Ed.D., discussed the ways in which taxpayer money is taken from public education to support corporate profit, vouchers and tax credits, class size/student-to-teacher ratio, and other topics.
"What's Money Got to Do With It? How Income Affects Educational Opportunities" had Ana Ramos-Pell, Ed.D., leading a session on the status of the nation's public school system and dealing with questions like "Are schools really failing?" and "Does income affect our public schools and prevent students from attaining the American dream?"
Joya Scott led a breakout session on "Why the Arts Matter in Public Education," discussing the value of arts education in a high-stakes-testing-in-basic-skills system, why recent severe cuts to arts education are harming American children, and what parents and others can do about it.
There was also an open topic discussion breakout group led by Mike Royer.
Unfortunately, we had to get back to Apache Junction before the reconvening of the whole group when session participants read their calls to action and people made closing remarks.
Although we wish we could have stayed longer at Cesar Chavez Plaza, we were really glad we finally got to see Occupy Phoenix in action and look forward to returning for other events.
During the January "Month of Education," special guests will conduct teach-ins about nonviolence, sustainability, and the housing and foreclosure crisis here in the Phoenix metro area, and there will be regular teach-ins focusing on the History of politics and current events.
We're grateful to Occupy Phoenix for giving a voice to the 99% on numerous issues, including those surrounding public education. You can find a treasure trove of information and livestream at the Occupy Phoenix website.
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.
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.
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."
