A call for support from Occupiers, Friends, and Musicians from Philadelphia to New York City

The Occupy Guitarmy is spearheading #99MileMarch from Philadelphia to New York City from July 5 to July 11, 2012 in honor of Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday (July 14, 2012) and in celebration of the National Gathering of Occupy movement.

We call on Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York musicians, social justice activists, union members, and occupy supporters to help support our action. We actively seek: daily, overnight, and long haul marchers, daily location event organizers, street medics, guitar techs, kitchen staff, live-streamers, caravan vehicles, oral historians, and general volunteers. We ask that marchers, volunteers, and on-site supporters of our action visit our website (www.99milemarch.org) to engage with us in advance. Please contact us if you plan to march with us!

For more information and details on how to get involved, visit 99milemarch.org and @99MileMarch

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On Thursday, June 28th, between 10am and 11am, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision to uphold or strike down all or parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka “Obamacare.”

The same day from 11:30am to 1:30pm, workers and the community will rally against layoffs, healthcare cuts, and hospital closings at Downstate Hospital, a state hospital in Central Brooklyn that handled 75,000 ER visits last year and plays a vital role in the community.

What does the Supreme Court decision have to do with hospital closings in Brooklyn?

It’s quite simple. Both of these events were determined by policy written by and for the 1%.

Health Insurance Reform

Even if the ACA is upheld, and despite the best intentions of many advocates to defend it, the law was largely written by Liz Fowler, Vice President of Policy at the nation’s largest and most profitable health insurance company, WellPoint.

The law will deliver 20+ million new customers and $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies directly to the private health insurance companies, but leave at least 23 million uninsured, and millions more under-insured with inadequate health insurance coverage.

The cornerstone of the ACA is the individual mandate. This regressive policy requires that if you are not eligible for a public program (Medicare, Medicaid, the V.A.), you will then be forced to buy private health insurance, or remain uninsured and pay a fine. The 99% will have to pay a much higher percentage of their income than the affluent for their coverage, and older people pay more than younger people. A 43-year-old individual making 34,000 a year will pay $5,204 in premiums and deductibles before the insurance will kick in to only cover 60% of the cost of care.

Having insurance is no guarantee that you won’t go bankrupt should you have a serious illness or accident. Massachusetts implemented the individual mandate model in 2006, and their numbers still match the nation with 2/3 of all bankruptcies linked to medical debt, even though most people had insurance at the time of illness.

Massachusetts claims it has reduced the number of uninsured in the state by 60-80%, but the state safety net programs have been decimated. With pressure from the federal government, the law funneled public dollars at lightning speed to the private health insurance industry to subsidize their inadequate policies.

Healthcare suffers because these companies do not prioritize paying for care, but rather gobble up 30% of our healthcare dollar with shareholder profits, huge CEO salaries, marketing, high overhead and administrative costs (compared to Medicare with administrative costs of only 2%).

Lessons for New York State

As health reform Massachusetts tells us, health insurance does not equal healthcare. Our public programs will continue to pick up the slack while the free market diverts necessary funds to Wall Street.

In New York State, Governor Cuomo set up Brooklyn Hospitals to fail by cutting Medicaid reimbursements. Then he blamed hospitals for “inefficiency” therefore hospitals will be forced to layoff employees or close.

To make these hospital cuts, Cuomo appointed Wall Street financier Stephen Berger, the “Hospital Hatchet Man,” to head the Medicare Redesign Team (MRT). Berger released his plan in November 2011 calling for the closing and merging of hospitals throughout Brooklyn including closing in-patient services at Downstate and transferring out of the community to Long Island College Hospital.

The Brooklyn community was left out of these discussions while the 1% steamrolls their policies through the communities most impacted by cutting needed healthcare services.

Healthcare for the 99%

Healthcare for the 99% occupies Wall Street because Wall Street is occupying healthcare. In solidarity with community groups, Healthcare for the 99% calls on all people of conscience to join us to speak out at the upcoming actions this week in response to the Supreme Court decision and the layoffs and cuts at Downstate Hospital.

We believe that healthcare is a human right, not a commodity or a luxury for those who can afford it.

Together we will win a universal publicly funded system that guarantees affordable, comprehensive, high-quality healthcare for all – to many of us that means improved Medicare for All (a single-payer healthcare system), that brings everybody in, and kicks the corrupt health insurance industry out.

Join us!

SAVE DOWNSTATE HOSPITAL
Thursday, June 28th 11:30am – 1:30pm
Downstate Hospital 470 Clarkson Ave, Brooklyn

More details at owshealthcare.wordpress.com

THE DAY AFTER THE SUPREME COURT DECISION:
RALLY FOR MEDICARE FOR ALL!
Friday, June 29th
5-6:30 p.m
@ the closed St. Vincent's Hospital (West 13th St @ 7th Avenue, Manhattan)

www.pnhpnymetro.blogspot.com

Night of the Living Debt

Written by Nicholas Mirzoeff and originally published June 23 & 24 on his blog Occupy 2012

For a long time, Occupy was a combination of radical affect, method and principle. It did not have a central subject. Readers will have noticed that debt has increasingly become a key theme in this project. And now it’s perhaps becoming the theme in OWS as well. A growing consensus is emerging that the next major day of action will be orchestrated around debt. This will be Black Monday, or September 17, Occupy Wall Street Year One.

In a sense, this is overdue. After all, OWS’s own David Graeber is the author the global best-seller Debt. But just as the 2011 protest lagged behind the worst of the bailouts, it’s only now that the full extent of the debt crisis is becoming apparent.

There are three main factors at work here. One is the exemplary resistance in Montreal to the privatization of higher education and the refusal of endebted futures. Here is a direct challenge to the idea that morality means debt. Quebecois consider that they have already paid for education via direct and indirect taxation, one. And, two, they see a moral society as one that educates its citizens as a public good.

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'We are the 99%' was a prescient slogan that captured one version of reality - that those who drove our country off a cliff with criminal financial speculation represent a very small group, and that their actions harmed everyone else.

But since then, a new kind of reality has emerged, one where groups are focusing on their core issues, constituencies and competencies. Students are organizing around student debt, foreclosure victims are organizing to stop evictions, etc.

Let’s remember though, that the birth of #Occupy was when we all came together. It happened then, it happened on May Day, and it will happen again.

-- from the ‘Your Inbox: Occupied’ team

Occupy These Upcoming Events

Wednesday, June 27th, 8:00am
Occupy The Citi
Citigroup Building - One Court Square- Long Island City
Occupy Astoria LIC invites everyone for a day of public outrage and education, with special guests, as we #OccupyTheCiti. Four years ago, Citigroup and the Wall Street banks crashed the world economy. We will gather, hold teach-ins, and speak truth to power.

Wednesday, June 27th, 6:30pm
OWS Labor Alliance Forum on Closing of Post Offices & Firing of Postal Workers
PSC Office at 61 Broadway, 16th Floor (you’ll need photo ID to get in)
Join us for a program about how it is not the internet, not the recession, not private competition, but Congress that is killing the US postal service. Hear from Chuck Zlatkin, the Legislative and Political Director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union, APWU, AFL-CIO, about how we can fight the union busting!

Thursday, June 28th, 11:30am
Save Downstate Hospital
Downstate Hospital 470 Clarkson Ave, Brooklyn
Join Healthcare for the 99% and the Brooklyn Community to Rally and Speak Out! Governor Cuomo wants to balance the budget by layoffs, hospital closings, and severe pension reductions. Join us to work for better healthcare and more jobs. Reclaim Healthcare for the 99%!

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The following speech was given by Justin Warren of Occupy The Stage. Justin is currently behind bars for making this speech on the steps of the Louisiana state capitol without purchasing a permit. See below for more information and find out how you can lend your support!

Ladies and Gentlemen, my fellow free peoples of the world. Our governing bodies in their current state have proven themselves ineffective within regards to the interests of the common man. The beautiful ideal that was Democracy has been perverted and totally replaced by the repugnant and relentless pursuit of the almighty dollar, Capitalism. For our entire lives we have been fed lies that lead us to assume such absurdities as the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and there is simply nothing to be done about it. We are told our fates will be better off in the hands of soulless, faceless, and socially irresponsible corporations.

We're told cutting education and expanding our prison systems are the sure fire treatments of our social ills. The heart of Democracy now has more people in prison per capita than any other nation in the world. And we are told this is the land of the free.

Through the lobbying system, corporations have been able to not just influence, but completely hijack our government. We have been stripped of our liberties, we have been stripped of our property, we have been robbed of our freedom.

Now, a growing number of people around the world are waking up to the realization that we simply have nothing left to lose. All over the world people are standing up and shrugging of the authority of their oppressors.

We are bearing witness the single greatest social correction the world has ever known, and it's about damned time.

All throughout history the ebb and flow of elitist tyranny, and the social correction of massive upheaval has been a constant. This time however we have the ingredients to get it right. At this height of our technological advancement, we must, for the sake of our own prosperity, get it right.

To all the social parasites and those that hold dear the absurd and repugnant: There is a really big storm coming, and your god may be the only one to forgive your transgressions.

Occupy The Stage founder, Justin Warren is being held at Orleans Parish Prison on a warrant he didn't know existed and today faces impending transfer to Baton Rouge. Justin Warren has a voice that can carry and be heard over the din of city streets. His key voice at assemblies and protests in the occupy community has demonstrated his dedication as an advocate of freedom of speech. The charges he is facing are for allegedly disturbing the peace on the steps of the capitol building in Baton Rouge. On the 12th of March, he was in Baton Rouge with Occupy The Stage, Occupy NOLA and Occupy Baton Rouge for the opening of the 2012 session of the Louisiana Legislature that included a protest against budget cuts in education.

He was making a speech when an officer approached him and attempted to silence him. He continued exercising his First Amendment rights and was then approached by several officers who attempted to grab him from behind. However, he slipped out of his jacket and left the steps of the State Capitol.

After he departed, Officer Holman (badge # 6071) said on camera that Justin was no longer disturbing the peace and would not be arrested. (see min 1:40 here: http://youtu.be/86OSs6YmM8s)

When questioned as to why Louisiana State Police were interfering with Justin's First Amendment rights, Officer Holman replied that he was speaking without a permit. Apparently, The Tea Party had scheduled a separate event in the same area, and they were not approached by the police because they had bought said permit. The New Orleans protesters did not have a permit, nor did they need one according to The Bill of Rights. Occupy movements across the country continue to battle relentless attacks on free speech and assembly, which are assured to all citizens by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The warrant and the ensuing transfer to Baton Rouge are obviously a ridiculous waste of taxpayers' money. No citizen should need a permit to exercise freedom of speech in the State of Louisiana. Public spaces, including the steps of the capitol building, are protest points where free speech has been exercised for decades.

It appears that the steps of the State Capitol are currently off limits to free speech unless you are able to buy your way onto them.

Justin Warren needs to be released and compensated for his loss of income while being held for no justifiable reason.

In Solidarity,

Occupy NOLA
www.occupynola.net