Next up: `Occupy Congress'

[bigtree]

11/18/2011

___ A coalition of labor and progressive groups is about to unveil its answer to that question. Get ready for “Occupy Congress.”

The coalition — which includes unions like SEIU and CWA and groups like the Center for Community Change — is currently working on a plan to bus thousands of protesters from across the country to Washington, where they will congregate around the Capitol from December 5-9, SEIU president Mary Kay Henry tells me in an interview.

One idea under consideration — pending various permitting and other logistical issues — is to have a series of tents set up on the lawn outside the Capitol, each representing a state, with the number of unemployed in each state prominently displayed. But the optics are still being worked out.

One goal of the protests, Henry says, is to pressure Republicans to support Obama’s jobs creation proposals. More generally, the aim is to highlight Congress’s misguided obsession with the deficit and overall inaction on unemployment.

“We’re taking about it as an effort to take back the Capitol,” Henry says. “It would be great if we could build pressure that goes beyond the jobs act.”

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/next-up-occupy-congress/2011/11/18/gIQAGObiYN_blog.html

[bottomofthehill]

1. sounds like fun

hope to get the same space the tea party crowd got when they were there.

[rhett o rick]

2. k&r

[bottomofthehill]

3. they are all public buildings, lets put the public in them

[lonestarnot]

4. I gots miles! Woot!

[Response]

5. Too late, my friend. The corporations have already set up camp there.

[bigtree]

6. that's no excuse

As my old friend, Guy Washington used to say, 'Good always leaves, but bad comes to stay.'

We must care enough to involve ourselves in every instigation of democracy which confronts us. Our government is a reflection of everything we choose to neglect along with every cynical impulse we project. As the saying goes, "cynicism is a luxury."

Those in power who are motivated by greed will show up every day to collect their share, and ours as well. We cannot afford to turn away and let all of the negative influences have the floor to themselves. We have to come to grips with our individual responsibility to vigilance. We have to show up every day to make certain the government is representing all of the people; not just the corporate few who show up every day to collect our money. They will always fill the halls of Congress with their favors, bribes, and obstruction.

Through our virtue and our vigilance we must keep ourselves informed about those issues and concerns which we entrust to the bidding of those in Congress; and we must thoroughly involve ourselves in the process of resolving those issues and concerns in tandem with our legislators by challenging ourselves to read, watch and listen with a respect and a desire for understanding of differing views and opinions in our deliberation and debate. We shouldn't be discouraged or deterred from the essential exercise of our democracy by appeals to fear or cynicism.

[lindysalsagal]

7. Damn- I can't go!

Bad timing.