HEADING TO PHILLY

I am on the train from Boston to Philadelphia where I will join the expected 10,000 people who will gather to breathe life back into the Occupy movement.

The photo above comes from Philly where last night this image was put onto the front wall of Independence Hall where things took shape during the first American revolution.  The second American revolution has come here to reclaim democracy which has now been drowned by the corporations that rule the roost these days.

According to an Occupy news release issued today:

The Occupy National Gathering kicked off on June 30^th, 2012 with a myriad of workshops, speakers, and a peaceful march against corporate personhood, making stops at Wells Fargo [Bank] to protest racist predatory lending, Fox News to confront corporate profit at the expense of the peoples' airwaves, and ended with an attempt to set up a space away from Independence Mall - in a park behind the Second Bank of the United States, located at 4^th and Chestnut. This was promptly -- and brutally -- followed by a National Park Service raid, which included the assistance of the Philadelphia police department, on approximately 150--200 people peacefully assembled for a redress of political grievances. The raid resulted in one arrest.

I will be staying at the home of a Global Network friend who lives near the center of the city.  Early in the morning the Veterans for Peace Team will meet and from there it should be a busy and exciting time.  One reporter wrote that "I don't know that I've ever seen so many different varieties of police at an action-- local park police, USA Park Rangers, US Marshals, Philly Police-- even someone wearing a Department of Justice cap."

It was the same story in Chicago - they brought in tons of federal, state, and local police.  That appears to be the strategy every time we gather to protest these days.  Massive police presence and early assaults on protesters that gets big media coverage all intended to frighten the public and keep them away from the "rabble".