Occupy Winston-Salem

Next Friday March 29 @ 7:30 Come n watch the fun documentary “The Yes Men” and enjoy a Q&A w/ Artist/Activist and founding Yes Men animator Patrick Lichty!

Facebook RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/568008839884846/?fref=ts

Patrick Lichty is a technologically-based media artist, writer, independent curator, co-founder of the performance art group Second Front, animator for the activist group, The Yes Men, and Executive Editor of Intelligent Agent Magazine. He began showing technological media art in 1989, and deals with works and writing that explore the social relations between us and media. Venues in which Lichty has been involved with solo and collaborative works include the Whitney & Turin Biennials, Maribor Triennial, Performa Performance Biennial, Ars Electronica, and the International Symposium on the Electronic Arts (ISEA). He was recently a featured presenter at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin in a panel titled “Art, Activism & Augmented Reality”

NO HIKES FOR NUKE, DUKE!!

THIS THURSDAY FEB 28 IN CHARLOTTE - COME TO PROTEST & ATTEND DUKE ENERGY’S 20 YEAR PLAN FOR INSANE RATE HIKES, NUCLEAR POWER, AND ENVIRONMENTAL HAVOC!

LOCATION: Mecklenburg County Courthouse: Courtroom 5310, 832 E. 4th St. Charlotte, NC

CARS LEAVING WINSTON BEGINNING @ 3:30 (some may leave later) The meeting begins @ 7 however we’re gonna get there to protest outside!

Contact occupywinston@gmail.com OR 336-577-1421 (leave TEXT as well as message!) if you would need a ride or can offer a ride ASAP!

Duke/Progress, (now the LARGEST power monopoly in the country!) has grabbed tremendous political influence within the state of NC and is more confident than ever in presenting their 20 year IRP (Business/Resource Plan they are obligated to present to the Utilities Commision). Greenpeace Charlotte, the Statewide Energy Roundtable (including NCWARN and others) & The Environmental Working Group (essentially Occupy Charlotte lol) has done a fantastic job of demanding and securing a SECOND IRP meeting in Charlotte (the first one was in Raleigh on January 29) This plan is ultimately a recipe of more environmental destruction, destruction of jobs in mining areas with no plan forward, destruction of arable land via hydraulic natural gas extraction, and more nuclear power plants (Fukushima, anyone??)

http://www.consumersagainstratehikes.org/consumer-alliance-warns-of-a-doubling-of-electricity-rates-under-duke-energys-business-plan/

As many of you know, Gov. McCrory was a Duke Executive for almost 3 decades. (and essentially still is!) http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/watchdog-group-concerned-over-mccrory-regulating-d/nWQnj/ 

ALSO the chairman of the NC House Utilities Committee Mike Hager is a Duke Energy Employee (whaaat? YES.) http://greenpeaceblogs.org/tag/american-legislative-exchange-council/

ALSO Mike Hager & Duke Energy are big-time ALEC Members (WHAT? Yes.) http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/print-edition/2012/05/11/duke-buys-in-to-alec-meeting.html?page=all

Our response is:

• Make Renewable Energy A Global Right!

• Transform Communities devastated by Mountaintop removal into new centers of renewable energy for the region!

• NO more subsidizing Profit-mad Energy corps!

• NO to NC Senate Bill 10 which would effectively give Duke Energy and other corporate power in NC a mandate to take over all state regulatory commissions (as if they weren’t frightening enough already) This link is a wealth of info on the IRP (Integrated Resource Plan) from an environmental perspective including a webinar, etc: http://www.ncwarn.org/2012/12/irp-and-rate-hike-hearings/

Are you REALLY worried about the state of the Union? (not to mention the general state of unions?!) Come support us on Feb 12 Tues evening @ 6pm, City Hall 101 N Main as we the City Council Govt Cmte. discusses our resolution against Citizens United/Corporate Personhood!
ALSO.. Check out this EXCELLENT talk by Jeff Clements, author of Corporations Are Not People:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psJJRiazR78

Please join Occupy Winston-Salem will be joining hundreds of other local residents as we attend  the 7th Annual Historic Thousands on Jones St in Raleigh! 

Buses: Winston-Salem: Do you want to ride the bus? Leaving East Winston Food Lion Shopping Center at 7:00am on Feb. 9th. We will return by 4:00pm. Snacks will be provided. Please RSVP for your free seat by Feb. 2nd. Contact Linda Sutton at 870-2168 (ljsutton2000@hotmail.com) or Wayne Patterson at 995-3072 (swaynelaw@yahoo.com) Food Lion address is 1499 New Walkertown Rd. http://goo.gl/maps/xIoZl 

Occupy WS Carpool: There may be a carpool heading to Raleigh please check back on Fri! However we recommend the bus for a reliable bet! Please RSVP above!

Please click on these links for more info:  hkonj.com and http://occupywinstonsalem.org/events/7th-annual-hkonj-historic-thousands-on-jones/#.URB93aU818E

Our meeting time has changed to 2 – 4 pm (still the 3rd Sat of each month at Community Arts Cafe).

*UPDATE* SOLIDARITY ACTION TODAY FROM 1-3  @ HANES MILL WALMART 320 E Hanes Mill on sidewalk near Chic-fil-A!

The most IMPORTANT GA in months! COMMUNITY ARTS CAFE @ 3PM! (4th and Spruce St. downstairs!)

People power is BACK with a vengeance and we are planning several actions, including Walmart BLACK FRIDAY solidarity actions, our anniversary date with the Winston-Salem City Council on Dec 17 to petition a resolution against Corporate Personhood/Citizens United (and an ANTI-PAPA ANNIVERSARY PIZZA PARTY afterwards???) and a brand new sexy Reynolds American campaign for early 2013! BTW if you haven’t been to a GA a in a while we’ve relaxed the structure a lot so it’s a much more circular discussion! SEE YOU THERE!

Monday 6PM City Council Meeting!!

75 West Side Apartments families, many of them elderly and disabled, are facing eviction. Let’s show up at the City Council meeting tomorrow at 6pm to support these families. We can make it easy for our city leaders to stick to their responsibility to ensure that these residents are not made homeless and are not negatively impacted by their votes to allow the property owner to rezone these homes.

http://yesweeklyblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/winston-salem-council-pauses-on_2.html

We will update this site when we have a date to present

DUE TO #S17, we will skip the GA, see you all Oct. 21^st!!

OUR TIME HAS ARRIVED

Join us for the March on Wall Street South in Charlotte on Sunday 9/2

We previously announced that we would have vans leaving, but that plan was foiled by the evil overlords of the corporatized private transportation industry.  Instead, we will carpool from Thruway (meet in front of the new Trader Joe’s, formerly Border’s).  We need to leave promptly at 9, the rally begins at 11 and parking is going to be a BITCH.  Please e-mail debdemske@gmail.com if you plan to carpool with us.

There could be up to 10,000 people at this march.

This event promises to be the biggest protest in North Carolina’s history.  DON’T MISS IT, MAKE HISTORY

Here are the contingents that will be marching with us:

• Unemployed workers
• Organize the South! Workers Rights are Human Rights!
• No Papers No Fear/Sin Papeles y Sin Miedo (Undocumented/Immigrants Rights organized by the Undocubus)
• LGBTQ
• Housing is a Right! Stop home foreclosures!
• Youth and Students
  • Including Stop the School to Prison Pipeline section
• Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad
  • Including No War/No Warming, anti-drone,  and Free All Political Prisoners sections

There are 2 changes to our General Assemblies.

First, we are thrilled that the Community Arts Café at 411 West 4th Street  Winston-Salem, NC 27101 (Downstairs) has kindly agreed to host our GA’s on a regular basis.  We really like getting out to other places, and may occasionally do that, but for now, we don’t want to spend a lot of time finding spaces to schedule the GA’s.

Secondly, we seem to have developed into a group that is constantly in a whirlwind of motion!!  OW-S is EVERYWHERE!!!  We wanted to try having just one GA a month, 3^rd Sunday of each month, to give ourselves time to participate in more activities.

So, until it’s changed at a future GA,

we will meet the 3^rd Sunday of every month from 3-5 pm downstairs at the Community Arts Café.

Hope to see you there in August!!

Join us Thursday, July 12 at 6:30 pm at the Parkway United Church of Christ for an expert panel discussion on the state of health care in our nation and how it is affecting us. Topics of this panel discussion should include Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, contraception, health care as a business, the financial status of non-profit hospitals and how community investment is monitored. Scheduled speakers include Dr. Johnathan Kotch, award-winning and distinguished professor of the UNC Chapel Hill Dept. of Public Health , and Dr. Gus Montana, both members of Health Care for All, NC

http://www.healthcareforallnc.org/index.cfm?temp_id=99999.
Meet with us at 6:30 for refreshment – discussion will begin at 7:00.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on health care per capita ($7,146), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (15.2%), than any other nation in 2008. The USA pays twice as much on health care. Currently, the USA has a higher infant mortality rate than most of the world’s industrialized nations, and in the United States life expectancy is 42nd in the world, after Chile (35th) and Cuba (37th). The World Health Organization (WHO), in 2000, ranked the U.S. health care system as the highest in cost, first in responsiveness, 37th in overall performance, and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study). 49.9 million residents, 16.3% of the population, were uninsured in 2010. A 2004 OECD report said: “With the exception of Mexico, Turkey, and the United States, all OECD countries had achieved universal or near-universal (at least 98.4% insured) coverage of their populations by 1990. The 2004 IOM report observed “lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States.”]while a 2009 Harvard study estimated that 44,800 excess deaths occurred annually due to lack of health. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

Civic Park at 4^th & Trade St. Friday July 6th, 6:00pm.  The Citizens United Supreme Court Decision from 2010 has unleashed unprecedented amounts of money into the political landscape, eroding our election process, and making human people less important than corporate “people” to our political system.  Join OCCUPIERS and members of Democracy NC (non-partisan group  working against the Citizens United decision) in sharing all the reasons why money is NOT speech and corporations are NOT people.   Democracy NC will share a video with us.  Our petition asks the City Council of Winston Salem to pass a resolution to call on Congress for a constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens United decision.

https://www.change.org/petitions/city-of-winston-salem-stand-up-for-the-rights-of-natural-persons

YES WEEKLY Blog reporter Jordan Green wrote an article about Occupy Winston Salem’s protest against the Novant layoffs on Wednesday June 6.  Occupy Winston Salem is asking all OCCUPIERS to visit this blog post and comment about your feelings about these layoffs.  https://vimeo.com/43576335

Click on the picture to enlarge!

Then check out these less-amusing-but-essential links for more info on ALEC:

www.alecexposed.org

http://www.vltp.net/alec/alecs-spring-agenda

TONIGHT @ 6:30PM TUES MARCH 27 VIGIL & FORUM FOR TRAYVON MARTIN UNION BAPTIST CHURCH 1200 N. TRADE STREET W-S, see info: http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2012/mar/27/winston-salem-vigil-and-forum-on-trayvon-martin-sh-ar-2094096/