Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website.Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Markin comment December 7,2011:
And as always-everybody, young or old, needs to stand by this slogan - An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers Everywhere! Hands Off Occupy Boston!
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Judge rules against Occupy Boston protesters, clearing way for eviction; Mayor Menino urges them to leave
By Martin Finucane, Travis Andersen and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
A Suffolk Superior Court judge today ruled against the group of Occupy Boston protesters who have set up a tent city in a downtown square for more than two months, denying their motion for a preliminary injunction that would protect them from eviction from the site.
In the wake of Judge Frances McIntyre’s decision, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino encouraged the protesters to “remove their tents and refrain from camping in that area.”
Menino said in a statement that conditions in the area had deteriorated and posed “very real health and safety risks,” and he warned that “the city will act appropriately to fulfill our duty to preserve the public’s peace and safety.”
The ruling in the case left the future unclear for the encampment, which was part of a series of Occupy protests nationwide. The protests have brought attention to issues of social and economic inequality, but they have ended with police evicting protesters in other major cities.
One lawyer representing the group of protesters who brought the case immediately vowed an appeal.
“We certainly hope that the city does not take any precipitous action until all of the legal avenues … have been fully followed,” said Jeffrey Feuer.
The judge wrote in her 25-page decision that protesters had no right to seize Dewey Square, which they have occupied since Sept. 30.
She reasoned that “while Occupy Boston protesters may be exercising their expressive rights during their protest, they have no privilege under the First Amendment to seize and hold the land on which they sit.”
Drawing a distinction between the “occupation” of the land and the “living activities” on the land, McIntyre wrote, “The act of occupation, this court has determined as a matter of law, is not speech. Nor is it immune from criminal prosecution for trespass or other crimes.”
The living activities, on the other hand -- such as erecting tents, sleeping, and setting up a self-governing community on the site -- are “expressive conduct and symbolic,” she found.
“Nevertheless, it is subject to City and Park regulations and restrictions,” she said.
The judge went on to say that the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy’s ban on sleeping overnight and other restrictions on Dewey Square are “valid, and applicable to Occupy Boston.”
Dewey Square is part of the Greenway, a new park made possible by the Big Dig project that winds through the city’s downtown, replacing an ugly elevated highway. The Conservancy leases the park from the state and is required under the lease to set rules and regulations for the park. In doing so, it is “effectively acting as a governmental agency,” McIntyre said.
Ariel Oshinsky, an Occupy Boston media volunteer, said in a brief phone interview that the ruling was “a disappointment. But I don’t think it’s [a decision] that we weren’t prepared for.”
She declined further comment because she had not yet read the ruling.
Urszula Masny-Latos, executive director of the state chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which also represented protesters, said, “Right now we don’t know what will happen and how the Boston police and the mayor’s office will allow the movement to go forward.”
McIntyre had issued a temporary restraining order on Nov. 16 barring the city from evicting protesters unless there was a fire, medical, emergency, or “outbreak of violence.”
On Dec. 1, McIntyre said she would extend the temporary restraining order until she decided whether to issue the preliminary injunction that would permanently protect the encampment. She set a Dec. 15 deadline for herself to rule on the preliminary injunction, issuing the ruling today, a week early. McIntyre's ruling also vacated the temporary restraining order as of 3 p.m. today.
The judge said her decision “clears the way but does not order the plaintiffs and other protesters to vacate the site and request permission to set up tents or other equipment for expressive purposes.”
She noted, however, that under Greenway Conservancy guidelines, overnight sleeping and living at Dewey Square are “not options.”
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