PRESS RELEASE: Occupy Eugene Begins New Occupation…

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: reid-at-rbkdesign.com, Reid Kimball (415) 632-9982
occupyeugenemedia.org, @OccupyEugene

Occupy Eugene Begins New Occupation by Cleaning Up Bank of America’s Mess
Occupy Eugene’s next occupation will be a little closer to home. The Occupy Housing and Foreclosures Action Committee (OH-FAC!) will clean up trash that is piling up on the steps of a vacant foreclosed home in downtown Eugene, this Friday at 3:30 p.m. All media are invited to attend to witness the event and interview participants.

Later in the evening OH-FAC! will join the Fed Up Committee to occupy the lawn of the property to protect it from further vandalism. Occupiers will stay with the property for as long as it takes to solve the deteriorating situation.

The home was foreclosed on, most likely illegally, according to documents found by activists in the Lane County Deeds and Records office. According to neighbors, it has been vacant for nearly two years, and they have called police on squatters who vandalized the inside and outside of the property over the years.

Occupy Eugene activists worked with the neighbors to clean up the mess several weeks ago, but, since then, more trash and excrement has begun to pile up again.

“Enough is enough. We will present compelling evidence of forged mortgage documents making this foreclosure illegal. This home serves as an example of why we need a moratorium to allow foreclosure victims to stay in their homes at all costs. We can’t allow Wall Street banks to illegally foreclose on us and blight neighborhoods throughout Eugene,” says activist Reid Kimball.

Reid continued, “In addition to cleaning up the property, Occupy Eugene has support of the neighbors for a small number of people to occupy the lawn of this vacant property to engage the community on the housing and foreclosure crisis.”

This press release is from the Communications Committee of Occupy Eugene that has been empowered to speak on behalf of the larger Occupy Eugene body.

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Occupy The Trees (The Mother Earth Tree Convention)

EARTH DEFENSE WEEK: Occupy the Trees
www.occupythetrees.org

Occupy Eugene and Cascadia Forest Defenders, in Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, have put an “Occupy the Trees” call-out to activists around the world to protest the destruction of our Earth for the week of April 22-27.

Here in Eugene on Sunday the 22nd (formerly known as Earth Day), there will be an Earth Defense Day celebration at the park blocks in downtown Eugene, with speakers, music, teach-ins, and food.

Activities are planned in Eugene throughout the week: Monday is Public Lands Day, Tuesday is World Day for Animals, Wednesday is Kids Need Forests Day, Thursday is Eco-feminism Day, Friday is Global Climate Change Awareness Day. There will be speakers, musical performances, marches and rallies throughout the week. Tree occupations are planned as well.

See a full schedule here:

https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=occupythetrees%40gmail.com&ctz=Asia/Kabul

 

Our Call to Action includes 3 main points:

1. Immediate attention and reversal to Global Climate Change which threatens all llife on Earth.

2. Disruption of the Earth-destroying profit machines led by the richest 1% of the world and their government lackies.

3. Ending all Commercial Extraction from Public Lands in all nations of the Earth.

 

Contacts:
Moon, Occupy Eugene
Jim Flynn, Cascadia Forest Defenders

Annual LCC Peace Symposium featuring Occupy Movement! and Occupy Chautauqua OE Film Festival

This annual community event will feature keynote speakers and workshops on various topics including a workshop/speaker track about the Occupy Movement. National author and activist David Barsamiam will present on the economic issues that the Occupy Movement has spotlighted. Symposium details…

Following the Friday/Saturday conference at LCC, there will be a sister event on Sunday, April 22. Occupy Eugene’s Zinn Chomsky Library will host a day long film festival at Occupy V featuring everything from OE member-created videos to full length films. The film festival will end with a potluck dinner and discussion hour.

When: April 20-21 (conference) & the 22nd (film fest)

Where: LCC & OE V

Contact person: Jennifer Frenzer-Knowlton,  kokomojo0664@msn.com

Bank of America Protest

Protest against Bank of America’s corruption and blatant disregard for the people of America. They are economic terrorists and criminals. They need to be broken up, if not allowed to fail completely.

These are weekly protests, each Friday from 4:30 to 5:30 to attract the evening traffic BofA customers.

Educate the customers, encourage them to move their money to a credit union. Let Bank of America know what we think about their illegal foreclosures, discriminatory practices against minorities and that they are not respecting the laws that protect active duty service members. Let’s stop the bank that is too corrupt to survive!

Bring signs about foreclosures, robo-signing, MERS, excessive fees, free bailouts, corruption, greed, whatever you want!

Join us directly afterward at the Park Blocks, 8th & Oak, 6pm, for Occupy Eugene’s General Assembly and see what consensus democracy looks like!

When: Today, April 6, 4:30 – 5:30pm

Where: Bank of America, 11th & Pearl, Eugene.

This protest is planned by the Occupy Foreclosure Action Committee

Kesey Square Occu-Pie!

A Benefit for Occupy the Trees

Come one! Come all!
Be the first to pie an occupier!
Occupiers will be at Kesey Square on Friday waiting to see if your aim is good enough to give them a pie to the face!
Some of your favorite (or least favorite ;)) occupiers will be awating your arrival!
Pies of different sizes for different prices so you’re sure to get your fill!

Friday, 1 – 5pm

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyTheTrees

Reclaiming Kesey Square as a place for street artists, entertainers, friends and activists to gather as a community – one Friday at a time.

Join in every Friday, noonish to dusk-ish.

“You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.”
– Ken Kesey

Occupy Eugene – Kesey Square Action

Occupy Your Local Governments

City and County governments rely heavily on local Boards and Commissions for direction and public input. These boards and commissions are comprised of people like us, who volunteer their time. People who serve on them not only get to ask questions that will be answered, they also get to have a voice in policy decisions. It’s very powerful, individual direct action. Please consider getting involved in these advisory functions. Your participation is valuable!

There are currently several openings for both Lane County and the City of Eugene. Positions are filled by appointment; they do require ongoing commitment and participation. The application process is simple and easy. Go the the websites noted.

Lane County:

There is a current opening on the County Action Advisory Committee, which “Advises the Lane County Human Services Commission on budget planning, allocations and policy issues for state and federal anti-poverty programs, including housing and homeless programs; participates in program activities, project review, selection, and is involved in monitoring the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.”

http://www.lanecounty.org/Departments/BCC/AdvisoryCommittees/Pages/CommunityActionAdvisoryCommittee.aspx

Check the Lane County website regularly for more openings as they become available.

City of Eugene:

There are several current openings on Eugene’s Boards and Commissions. Any resident of Eugene may apply. The application process is open until March 30.

There are openings for the following positions:

• Budget Committee 3 vacancies
• Civilian Review Board 3 vacancies
• Human Rights Commission 3 vacancies
• Planning Commission 1 vacancy
• Police Commission 4 vacancies
• Sustainability Commission 5 vacancies
• Toxics Board 2 vacancies 1 advocacy, 1 industry
• Lane Regional Air Protection Agency 1 vacancy
• Library Board 2 vacancies 1 at-large, 1 youth
• Neighborhood Matching Grant Dept. Advisory Committee 1 vacancy
• Whilamut Citizen Planning Committee 6 vacancies

For more information, or to apply, go to:
http://www.eugene-or.gov/portal/server.pt?space=CommunityPage&control=SetCommunity&CommunityID=745&PageID=3860

The City of Springfield also has volunteer positions for residents of Springfield on boards and commissions. Their website does not note whether there are current openings. Contact the City Manager’s Office to inquire. 541-726-3700, or e-mail cmo@ci.springfield.or.us.

http://www.ci.springfield.or.us/menujobs.htm

Letter from Berkeley Veteran to Occupy Eugene

The following came via Facebook:
“Sue and I were out for a little run this morning, and we ran, as we usually do, down to the site. Most folks were asleep (trying to stay warm, we assumed) but we met a gentleman our age who said he was a veteran of Berkeley in the 60’s, and had come to give us this letter. It was typed, not word-processed, so I re-typed it in a document that I can send folks who want a copy. I also have the 3 typed copies he gave us–where should they go?”

I thought on this website would be a great place for the letter, it follows below.

Honorable and Intrepid Occupiers:

I am speaking to you across nearly three generations to advise you that you are doing exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.

We who have gone before, urge you to remain strong and committed to our common cause.

We who were at the Athens of the West back in the day (CA 1965-70) also had a lot on our plate: stopping the obscene war in Viet Nam; pushing the Civil Rights Movement; promoting the Women’s Movement and fighting for Freedom of Speech on our own campus.

These struggles were, most often, tedious and thankless since a majority of our fellow citizens seemed not to care or even approve of our efforts. It usually felt as if nothing was happening or changing, and it seemed to many of us, at the time, that “this isn’t working.”

The “Establishment” seemed to control everything: all the levers of power, all important institutions and, of course, the lamestream press which was just as lame then as now.

When push came to shove violence was routinely used to discourage and frighten us, i.e. when we were literally surrounded by bayonet wielding National Guard troops the Governor of CA threatened a “blood bath.”

On one occasion, a helicopter was used to spray military strength teargas (really vomiting gas) over the campus plazas to disperse a peaceful sit-in.

We had only a few weapons: the truth, the goodwill of the best people, and an unshakeable, stubborn commitment to justice.

Sounds hopeless. And yet…
Look around you now. The horror of Viet Nam is now just a shameful memory and a permanent stain on the honor of this country.

Not only is Jim Crow gone forever, even in its most ignorant strongholds, but millions of people who could not vote or go to a public university now barely remember their routine humiliation. Indeed some of these people are professors in those universities.

As for the women’s issues, today the majority of university students in this country are women, and in the workplace have reached near parity with their brothers.

All in all, not bad results from what seemed then to be a struggle against hopeless odds.

We will never know for certain how much our efforts contributed to this progress, but I am certain that we mattered a lot.

When you are making history it is not possible to actually see or feel “history being made.” You can’t ascertain how effective your efforts are (or are not). But, the super-wealthy oligarchs of this nation and their political puppets are working 24 hours a day 7 days a week for total control of our future. And if they succeed, greed, corruption and poverty will sink us all.

As far as we know, each of us has just one human lifespan on this planet.

Lets make our lives matter.

L. W. Jones

P.S. I am amazed that the talking heads of major media keep asking, “What do the occupiers want?” Tell them what we told them: We want Justice.

Eric Rogers Auction Action

This is an Occupy Foreclosure Action Committee event. We are attending to support Eric Rogers to help him stop the auction sale of his Marcola, OR property.

He has a letter which states he is offering to pay off the mortgage in full. If this letter does not work, we will ask Eric for permission to sing a song to disrupt the auction and prevent the sale of his home.

When: Monday, April 9, 10 am sharp!   …this is not an event to show up 5 minutes late….

Where: Lane County Courthouse, 125 East 8th ave. Eugene, OR

Contact person: Reid Kimball, reid@rbkdesign.com
415-632-9982