You can't evict an idea - # J17 Occupy Congress

January 17, a day  that is sure to make history as occupiers from everywhere descend upon Washington, DC to "Occupy Congress". In solidatity  and in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Occupy Congress stance is it's time for the American people to send a message to Congress. Ordinary citizens are not being represented by their elected leaders.

OccupyCongress is a part of the Occupy movement, which began with Occupy Wall Street on Sept. 17, 2011, in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District. #Occupy is a people powered movement that has spread to sustained occupations in hundreds of cities in the United States and actions in thousands of cities globally. #Occupy is fighting back against the corrosive power major banks and multinational corporations have over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest depression in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece, Italy and the UK, and aims to expose how the richest 1% are writing the rules of the global economy and the laws of the land, imposing an agenda of neoliberalism and economic inequality that is foreclosing on our future.

Why January 17th you ask? The U.S. House of Representatives convenes for the first time in 2012 on January 17th. What better way to welcome them back than to have a huge demonstration that will drive the conversation on the ground and in the media. It’s time we start holding their feet to the fire to get something done for the people. The Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

Americans from across the nation and the world will assemble in the shadows of a broken system to participate in real democracy.

At 9 am on the opening day of Congress, Occupy Congress will convene for a day of action against a corrupt political institution. Actions include a multi-occupational General Assembly, teach-ins, an OCCUParty, a pink slip for every congressional “representative” and a march on all three branches of a puppet government that sold our rights and our futures to the 1%.

We all know this is an illegitimate system. Around half of the nation’s population doesn’t participate in electoral politics. More than 6 million Americans who want to vote are disenfranchised, including the entire populace of the District of Columbia. There is consensus that we are on the wrong track and that our “leaders” do not have our interests at heart.

All “elected” officials bought their way into gerrymandered seats with Wall Street money. These bankers’ henchmen have shown themselves both unwilling and unable to take on the tremendous, systemic issues in our country, our place in this world.

In the face of this endemic corruption, the Occupy movement is about organizing locally to discuss and change these problems from the ground up. We came to show the 1%’s Congress what democracy looks like.

Our nation, and our world, is in crisis and our “elected” officials have failed us. They refused to hold their bankrollers—Wall Street—responsible for the financial crimes that bankrupted our nation and destroyed the global economy. This last legislative cycle was the least productive in recorded U.S. history; 90% of the country disapproves of these “elected” officials.

Event details can be found here  with people meeting up at the west front lawn at Capitol Hill starting at 9am.

#J17 Event Details

Schedule