Show your support this afternoon around 5 by coming to Broad and High or city hall as we present a petition to Columbus City council for a long-term site for what would be essentially a tent city for Occupy Columbus. If you can't make it to that, help out in any other way you can in the fight to defeat corporate rule, making our government more accountable to We the People. A better world is possible. We will graciously accept however much money or time you can spare, whatever talents you may have to share, and whatever else you can donate such as food, water---you name it. Showing up in-person is best, but you can visit our site at occupycolumbus.org or find us on Facebook.

October2011.org movement denounces the pollution of money from concentrated wealth.
Washington, DC: The October2011.org Movement that is occupying Freedom Plaza, led an impromptu march of 250 people up Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S.Supreme Court where Dr. Cornel West climbed on the steps of the Supreme Court and denounced court decisions that have produced money-based elections that empower corporations. Dr. West was holding a sign that said "Poverty is the Greatest Violence of All." He was arrested because holding political signs on the Supreme Court steps is illegal.

Dr. West spoke to more than 500 people on Freedom Plaza where he said that "if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he would be on Freedom Plaza." West described how the struggle against, poverty, war and injustice continues and confidence that the people will succeed. He applauded the occupation as "an inclusive social revolution for all of us" and a "leaderless-leader-filled movement" where people are "finding their own political voices rather than echoing others."

More music at our gatherings would help move the movement, as would bigger signs enable more people in passing autos to be able to read what we have to say. But on this blustery vivid fall afternoon, we at least had Steve Schoonover come down here from Michigan and sing something by Coner Oberst of Bright Eyes.

Schoonover said people are waking up, realizing the power of moral ideas.

“We need to have some moral respect for people in a way we haven’t in a long time.”

Schoonover said building a movement requires clarity about tactics, strategy, and specific goals, as well as set of values and attitudes on which to base that sort of planning.

Dozens of people who are part of Occupy DC, camping out in Freedom Plaza and McPhearson Square, packed the line to get into the House Armed Services Committee where Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was testifying. Only 15 people were allowed in and none were allowed to even quietly hold up signs—a clear violation of their free speech

One by one, seven people who managed to get inside got up to protest the wars. CODEPINK Alli McCracken, 22, held up a sign saying “Fund My Education, Not Your Wars.” “My generation only knows war and a bankrupt country. We deserve better,” she yelled, as she was yanked out and handcuffed by Capitol Police. Also arrested was 21-year-old Iraq veteran Michael Patterson, who was sent—at the age of 18—to be an interrogator in Iraq. “You are murdering people; I saw what you do to people in Iraq!” he shouted. “Then you refuse to even take care of our veterans when they return.” Nancy Brennan, 63, asked “How many lives will be sacrificed? How many lies will be told?” as she was arrested.

The protesters who were left in the hallway and not allowed inside chanted, “We are the 99 percent and we don’t support these wars.”

Ann Bell, an economist by trade, draws those conclusions from her experience with fighting back against the attacks on collective bargaining in Wisconsin. She spoke with the Columbus Free Press last weekend at Freedom Plaza, one of the sites of the ongoing occupations in DC. Like her counterparts in Occupy Columbus, Bell is part of a national movement to make government and corporations more accountable to the majority of ordinary people.

“As we were illegally kicked out of the capital and moved more to focusing on the recall elections, we really kind of saw the weakness of the progressive movement (in terms of ) not building long term organizations and umbrella groups that we can use independent of who wins elections and independent of what exactly the issue is that we’re being confronted with.”

Bell said the fundamental issue to base a mass movement on is income inequality.