Occupy Jersey City Journal Square Videos

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OccupyJerseyCity Journal Square Gains Momentum

POLL: Do you support the 'Occupy Jersey City' demonstrators?

http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index.ssf/2011/10/daily_poll_do_you_support_the_2.html



http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/index.ssf/2011/10/occupy_wall_street_supporters.html
Occupy Wall Street supporters announce plan for occupation of Journal Square in Jersey City to run indefinitely
By Kate Kowsh
Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Following the example of the Occupy Wall Street movement, demonstrators took to the Grove Street PATH Station and later to Journal Square last night for what they said was a “general assembly” to plan their indefinite occupation of Journal Square.

Roughly 50 members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, along with members of the Jersey City Peace Movement, last night organized volunteers into teams responsible for different aspects of a long stay including medical, media, kitchen and comfort arts and crafts.

They plan to begin their latest protest in Journal Square tonight at 7 o’clock, according to Alexander, 24, a Newark-area resident who helped organize protesters both last night and last week on the Jersey City waterfront.

“We will have a lawyer coming to speak for us, and represent us,” Alexander said of tonight’s protest. “We’re really trying to influence people’s minds . . . we dream about having a world where everybody’s equal and working together. Well, let’s do it right now.”

Alexander added that he doesn’t believe the group needs permission to assemble in the public area overnight. “They’re (officers) saying that if they see sleeping bags spread out, they’re going to start arresting (demonstrators.)”

This movement is a culmination of many different groups with many different goals, said Erik-Anders Nilsson, director of the Jersey City Peace Movement.

“We have many goals,” said Nilsson. “We hope to spread the word that we have the power, we are the 99 percent.”

OccupyJerseyCity Videos

OccupyNewJersey Decides On JSQ As Home Base

www.jerseycityindependent.com/2011/10/11/after-first-general-assembly-occupy-new-jersey-decides-to-launch-occupy-jersey-city-at-journal-square/
After First General Assembly, Occupy New Jersey Decides to Launch Occupy Jersey City at Journal Square
By Adam Robb
Oct 11th, 2011

Monday’s first Occupy New Jersey general assembly at the Grove Street PATH plaza was more subdued and more productive than last week’s attempt at an occupation of the Goldman Sachs building at 30 Hudson Street, which brought out hundreds of police, private security, protestors, and media, and ended the same day with a brief march on City Hall. Yesterday’s gathering attracted none of the media and less than a dozen Jersey City and Port Authority police officers, who observed the 40 protesters from an area cordoned off between the PATH station entrance and farmers’ market.

There were no public statements, no orchestrated sign waving or proclamations from racing scooters. Instead it was an opportunity for the protestors to turn inward – but with total transparency in the public eye – and work out the logistics of implementing their agenda, the who, what, when, where and how; the why could wait.

In many ways it was a success.

The crowd expanded rather than contracted, benefiting from curious passersby waiting for a bus or exiting the train station. Charles O’Keefe, Sherry Johnson, and John Turlington ascended from the PATH on their return from Zuccotti Park, home of the Occupy Wall Street protest, shouting their support for the protesters and receiving applause in return as they crossed the plaza. The three Scotch Plains postal workers used their work holiday to lend their voice to the union workers at the park.

“I’m glad to see people coming out in droves like they are,” O’Keefe, a resident of South Plainfield, told us. “We didn’t support the bailout of Wall Street, but then all of a sudden Congress gave them all this money, and they’re up to the same old crap.”

“They want to privatize us,” O’Keefe said, listing his fears for the future of the postal service. “Cutting out Saturday service will hurt a lot of jobs. They want a part-time workforce with no benefits, to pay them minimum wage,” he added, describing the direction in which he already sees the postal service moving.

They shared their feelings with Alexander Waight as well. Waight, who created the @OccupyNJ Twitter feed which ultimately led to the Goldman Sachs protest, ran from his gathering as the postal workers passed by, engaging them in discussion, as the Cinnamon Snail truck attempted to back up past them, into the farmers’ market, and through the fleet of police patrol cars and trucks flanking the north side of Christopher Columbus, filling the bus stop and lining the sidewalk from Grove Street to Marin Boulevard.

Shortly after parking he tweeted his support to the protesters, offering them free organic fair trade coffee while they were gathered there.

Another observer, a retired local resident, stopping to lean on the gate as he listened to the gathering, supported their actions though admitted he was too old to protest.

“I save my fight for my disability check,” he said. He told us he couldn’t understand why the protesters chose to occupy Goldman Sachs or Grove Street. “They should be down in Journal Square where no one has a dollar in their pocket.”

A common theme among occupations around the country is how protesters see themselves as the 99% making their voices heard to the 1% who have the most wealth in the country. As the main goal of Monday’s meeting was to determine a meeting place, a majority of the debate focused on where the voice of the Occupy New Jersey protest could make the greatest impact.

“One of the advantages of Journal Square is that people there aren’t doing well economically,” one protester said. “There are cities without a 1%, where people have never met a one percenter in their life, but they are still occupying those cities.” Another noted how it offered greater potential for growing the movement fast and strong as they wouldn’t experience the apathy they faced Downtown at Grove Street and Exchange Place.

The debate, which shifted between occupying outside an army recruiting station to using Grove Street as a base of operations and protesting daily at different locations throughout town, ended with Kat Odenthal, a protester who led much of Monday’s meeting, taking a headcount. Twenty-six votes, the majority, raised their hands for a continuous occupation of Journal Square. Four votes went to Grove Street.

It was a decision that had the vocal support of Erik-Anders Nilsson, the founder of the Jersey City Peace Movement, who saw Journal Square as their best bet for a place to use the restroom at 3 am and which had accessible electric outlets for charging phones and laptops.

Then it was only a matter of when they would occupy.

The first suggestion was October 15, a day scheduled for a planned International Call to Action, but Odenthal disagreed.

“Personally, we should occupy as soon as we possibly can, and have a strong showing on the 15th, rather than occupy then and have people wandering by asking if this is the same occupation that didn’t work last time,” she said.

Another protester suggested they don’t wait any longer to act on their enthusiasm. “Let’s not waste the opportunity, let’s go to Journal Square after the meeting.”

The group then voted again, this time agreeing to hold their general assembly tonight, Tuesday at 7pm, at the Freedom Fountain at Journal Square. Then, after discussing the division of responsibilities, from media outreach to kitchen duty, and to create a new Facebook page specifically for the occupation of Jersey City, more than two dozen protestors decamped for Journal Square.

Waight set up the Occupy Jersey City Facebook group last night, and produced a video to explain the new direction deeper into town.

In the video, Waight revealed a particular drama from earlier in the afternoon that appeared in stark contrast to the majority vote the group easily made for a move to Journal Square.

“I had a person come up to me today saying that at the farmers’ market area, a lot of businesses that have the tents felt they didn’t want us there because of the cops being there, and they’re afraid it’s going to deter customers from wanting to step in that area because they think something bad is going to happen,” Waight spoke into the camera.

Unconvinced of this, he asked for signatures from the vendors indicating that sentiment, concerned it may have been one person’s tactic to get them to vacate what could have been an ideal occupation area. Only then did he add: “we did a consensus that people wanted to occupy Journal Square so that’s why we picked it.”

OccupyNewJersey Does It Right

#OccupyNJ Begins Journal Square Occupation

Official OccupyNJ Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/OccupyNewJersey

Official Occupy Jersey City Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/occupyjournalsquare



http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2011/10/occupy_new_jersey_demonstrator.html
Occupy New Jersey demonstrators move protest of corporate greed to Journal Square in Jersey City
Monday, October 10, 2011
Ron Zeitlinger
Jersey Journal

The "Occupy New Jersey" demonstrators who protested outside the Goldman Sachs building on the Jersey City waterfront late last week have moved their rally to Journal Square tonight.

Leaders of the group, which numbered roughly 50 people this afternoon on the Jersey City waterfront, said they were going to call the group "Occupy Journal Square" in the social media.

About 25 to 30 people have gathered in Journal Square at the moment, congregating near the fountain, just outside the entrance to the PATH station. The demonstrators are standing near the fenced in vacant lot where developers have proposed to building two 50-plus story towers with residential and commercial tenants as well as an onsite parking deck.

The plan was proposed more than three years ago and never got off the ground, except for condemning the buildings that were there, scattering the businesses there and demolishing the buildings.

Earlier today the demonstrators said they planned on camping out in Journal Square, much like the Occupy Wall Street crowd has planted itself in Lower Manhattan.