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.

That's what we chanted, passing groups of male cops. Some of them appeared to respond or react by squinting and tightening their shoulders and jaws. Don't know who among the 60 of us marchers started the chant, but it seems to have been a playful, taste-of-your-own-medicine challenge to patriarchy. What role does feminism play in the occupations going on around the country ?

The majority of the organizers for the October 2011 occupation of Freedom Plaza are women. And women seem to have played a leading role in opposing our nation's militarism by way of--among other means--Code Pink, an organization named in defiance of post-9/11 color-coded terrorism threat levels.