On February 15th, Occupy Chicago activists who were arrested trying to establish an encampment in October will go to court in an attempt to have their cases dismissed. In response to this Occupy Chicago will be hosting a day of action, culminating with a 6pm rally at the Daley Center. We ask that you and your organization join us not only in demanding the cases against the Occupiers be dropped, but also in demanding economic justice.
Civil Rights are under attack in Chicago because the 99% are fighting back and demanding economic justice. Over the past four months we have seen the increasingly selective enforcement of minor ordinances to harass and arrest protesters and activists. Mayor 1% took it to the next level when using the NATO/G8 summits as an excuse to further suppress the growing dissent with his "Sit Down and Shut Up" ordinances. While the applied political pressure of Occupy Chicago, Labor Unions, Community Organizations, and the People of Chicago did help to scale back the most blatant violations of free speech proposed in those ordinances, they still passed.
The new ordinances cannot go unchallenged; they must not become the new normal, building up the base for the ongoing disenfranchisement of whole generations. We must not allow the rights of free speech and assembly to be taken away from the 99% and to be made luxuries exclusively for the 1%. Unless we anticipate the immediate withdrawal of corporate influence on politics and our education system, unless we anticipate easy concessions by management in favor of labor during contract negotiations, unless our money is immediately diverted away from the coffers of the 1% and toward the needs of the 99%, unless local corporations refuse to use the money they saved in tax breaks to help fund the police crackdown on protesters during the NATO/G8 summits, these ordinances will only benefit those who have profited from our sweat and broken dreams.
We must continue the fight. We must go on the offensive, continuing to stand up and speak out against economic injustice.
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