By Chloe Hunt, cthunt@dailycal.org
Monday, October 3, 2011
Occupy Colleges — a movement that stemmed from Occupy Wall Street — is calling for a national campus walkout Wednesday at 12 p.m. to protest rising college debt and a lack of jobs for graduates.
“Do not go to school. Go fight for yours and everybody elses rights at Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Los Angeles or your nearest Occupation. The time is now to join our fellow %99!” stated Occupy College on its Facebook page.
Occupy Berkeley is one of the many groups joining the Occupy Wall Street network. According to the website of Occupy Together — an unofficial hub for all of the events springing up across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street — there are more than 130 cities forming protests in the United States alone.
It is not clear if Occupy Berkeley plans to join the college walkout planned for Wednesday. However, the group has a scheduled meeting Saturday to discuss the proposal to occupy the area around Berkeley’s Bank of America to promote democracy, according to the Facebook event.
According to the organization’s Facebook page, “Occupy Berkeley exists to help organize, publicize, and support the growing number of communities that are showing support for the Occupy Wall Street movement.”
Occupy Wall Street generated international publicity when it asked for 20,000 people to flood lower Manhattan and occupy Wall Street starting on Sept. 17 to support “people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world,” according to the Occupy Wall Street Facebook event page.
“The goal is to create a public forum for direct democracy here on the ground,” said Ryan Androla, a member of the communications working group for the organization Occupy SF. “This is in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.”
