The streets are alive with energy and outrage from Ferguson, Missouri to Lima, Peru. Our demands are clear. We want justice — for people, and for the planet. We’re organized, we’re energized, and we won’t stop until we win.
So, we have just one question for you… Are you ready to change everything?

GX_BlueBarSloganAs a Global Exchange supporter, you know that we can’t tinker around the edges — we’re going to have to build entirely new economies, a livable environment, and rebuild our democracy if we’re going to continue to thrive and survive.

 We’re going to need to change everything, and we’re going to need you with us to win! With the New Year just around the corner, there’s no better time to stand together. We need your support now, more than ever.GX_BookGraphic

Please, make your year end gift to Global Exchange today. Your gift is vital to our success in 2015.

Donate $100 or more before midnight on Dec. 31, 2014, and we’ll send you a copy of Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything.

If we’re going to make the progress we need, we’re going to have to work together. With the New Year around the corner, there’s no better time than now to make your commitment. 

The world is ready for change. Are you ready to make it happen?

UPDATE (Oct 14 9:05am pst): The ‘cleaning’ of Zuccotti Park has been postponed! Thanks to everyone who made calls last night!

UPDATE (Oct 13 6:30pm pst): It is now being widely reported that the New York Police Department, under orders from Mayor Bloomberg, will attempt to evict Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park tomorrow for a ‘cleaning’ at 7am est. TAKE ACTION!

1. Sign the MoveOn. org petition here.

2. Call Mayor Bloomberg 1-212-772-1081 ext 12006 and demand that the eviction be stopped. Avaaz.org asks that you post a message about what happened here.

3. If you are in the New York City area, find out about the direct action being planned for tomorrow at 6am est here.

 

Say what?

At noon on Thurs Oct 13, the occupytogether.org website listed 1599 cities with Occupy Wall Street protests from Iceland to New Zealand. This online hub of the movement represents a huge number of the events in solidarity with OWS concentrated in North America, and growing internationally. Other online sources include united for #globalchange and the powerful video rallying us to take action.

This leaderless, politically neutral movement is big, and growing and if you are part of the 99%, it includes you.

This Saturday October 15 join a local occupation – big or small, together we are powerful together as we raise our voices to say Enough is Enough! Enough of the bank bailouts by the taxpayers! Enough of the cuts to social welfare programs, schools and hospitals to sustain the cost of wars! Enough of non-action in Congress to address the climate crisis! Enough of the unlimited election campaign contributions by corporations thanks to Citizens United, enough of the attack on worker rights!

Endorsements and messages of support to the movement surface daily – from major labor unions, celebrities, social justice organizations, activists such as Naomi Klein, and international leaders including Lech Walesa.

Even progressive companies have expressed support. The board of directors at Ben and Jerry’s stated “… we realize that Occupy Wall Street is calling for systemic change. We support this call to action and are honored to join you in this call to take back our nation and democracy.”

Alternative media outlets such as Democracy Now! are producing amazing comprehensive reports of what is happening in this country. Initially ignored by the corporate media, the sheer number of people engaged for change has become the most important domestic story.

Through daily general assemblies, workshops and internet organizing our demands are coalescing. The folks in Freedom Plaza in Washington DC will spend the next week defining a vision on 15 key issues impacting our ‘system’ and encourage everyone to join. Go outside or go online, talk to your friends, family, neighbors and even strangers, we are the 99%.

Start here – check out this photo blog and join the 99%. Then sign the World vs Wall St petition and stand will a million others.

As GX and CodePINK co-founder Medea Benjamin stated on Democracy Now!:

“We are here to stay. We are here just like we were here yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before that. It really doesn’t matter to us that our permit has run out. We feel like this is a public square, we are the public, and we are occupying this square, so we will stay here” (the Freedom Plaza permit has now been extended for 4 months).

And although New York Mayor Bloomberg stated, “The bottom line is, people want to express themselves, and as long as they obey the laws, we’ll allow them to” plans are under way to remove the encampment at Zuccotti Park, sign this petition now!

Perhaps Reverend Billy says it best:

The change that is in the air, that we all feel. No-one really knows why we are blessed with the common feeling. This same slaughter of the innocents has gone on for so long. This same mystical financing of poisoned farms, of dead oceans, of cancerous children and national false emotions – all this comes at us now as a bad surprise. We have a fresh rage. We have a shout that is honest, thousands of us. We are occupying our civic institutions stolen so long ago by men in suits, and surrounded by confused police. All at once, we want a better life and don’t want to wait. Then this discovery: It is a better life to demand a better life! Revolujah!

At Global Exchange we’ve taken action locally and joined 2 of the Occupy SF marches and look forward to Saturday. Join us here!

In Oakland: MoveOn and its allies stand together, WORKERS and COMMUNITY UNITED for JOBS not CUTS, PROSPERITY not AUSTERITY! Hands Off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid! End the Wars! Invest in Our Communities!
1:00 PM Assemble at Laney College (1 block from Lake Merritt BART)
1:00 PM Pre-March Program
2:30 PM March Downtown
3:30 PM Rally in Frank Ogawa Plaza (12th Street Oakland BART stop)
http://www.jobs-not-cuts.org

In San Francisco:
1:00 PM Meet at Embarcadero BART

Enough is Enough!

Global Exchange spent this past spring in Cochabamba, Bolivia at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights. The conference was called by Bolivian President, Evo Morales in response to the disappointing failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009. The goal was to gather input from people all over the world and shape that input into a plan that can effectively address climate change.

At the conference, Global Exchangers met with heads of state and several social movement representatives in working groups to discuss adaptation, migration, climate debt, action strategies and a host of other issues. The Director of our Rights-Based Organizing Campaign, Shannon Biggs even spoke on the main stage about our Rights of Nature work, like the work she has been doing with the community of Mt. Shasta, California.

In meeting different groups of social movements and speaking with people directly affected by climate change, Global Exchange was able to produce this latest video, Planet and People First, as a report back from Cochabamba. The video features interviews with Conference participants from around the globe including Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow, as they share some of the hope and energy that came out of Bolivia.

Watch the must-see film for you and your community on the vital work of Global Exchange and communities around the world to end addiction to oil and ensure real action is taken globally towards climate equity.

Planet and People First: A Global Exchange report Cochabamba, Bolivia 2010 from Global Exchange on Vimeo.

After watching the film, check out Global Exchange’s Top Ten List of Ways to Save the Climate.