Don't forget: CD training this Monday

Hello good people of the Valley,

I hope this email finds you all safe and warm.  This has certainly been a trying week and I know that some of you may not be out of the woods just yet.  Please do not hesitate to call on your comrades if you are in need of a hot shower, a warm meal, or a heated place to sleep!  I hope I do not speak alone when I say that the outpouring of generosity from friends and family over the last several days has been a beautiful reminder that we are all in this together.

Despite the fact that this is a difficult time for many of us, we are moving forward with the Civil Disobedience Clinic that has been planned for November 7th at 6:30 pm at the Western Mass Jobs with Justice office at 640 Page Boulevard in Springfield. The clinic is designed to give demonstrators a general overview of what civil disobedience is, what the legal and practical consequences of engaging in civil disobedience are, and what demonstrators' rights are if they are arrested. Attorneys Jeff Feuer and Lee Goldstein of the NLG Massachusetts Chapter's Mass Defense Committee will be conducting the clinic.  For more information on the amazing work these guys do, please check out their website at http://www.goldsteinandfeuer.com/. They have been fighting for people's rights in Boston for over 30 years and have generously offered to come to Springfield to share their expertise and knowledge with our chapter, as well as the community activist groups we work with.

The clinic is free and open to all who are interested in attending, including community activists, students, professors, attorneys, and legal workers. We are especially encouraging local NLG attorneys and attorney friends of the Guild to attend the clinic, as it will be considered an official training for those who are willing to help the WNE Chapter conduct Civil Disobedience Clinics in the future.  As the only Guild presence in Western Mass, WNE Chapter student members are doing our best to provide Occupiers and other local community activists with the legal support they need to carry their movement forward, but as law students, there is only so much we can do. We are relying on long-time Guild attorneys and supporters to rise up to this momentous occasion in history to help us, the next generation of progressive lawyers, as we strive to meet the legal needs of our local activist community at this time.

If you plan to attend the clinic, please RSVP to wne.nlg@gmail.com.  You may also contact us at that email with questions about the Civil Disobedience Clinic or to let us know that you are interested in becoming more involved.

I hope to see many new and familiar faces in attendance!

In solidarity, Lauren Marcous,Student Representative,National Lawyers Guild, Western New England University Chapter

Graphic from Deviant Art

Occupy Wall St. - if you can't be there, you can still be counted

An Occupy Wall Street meeting

During the last couple of weeks, the possibilities of an Occupy Springfield have been floating around on email.  The sentiment at the moment seems to be that the timing's not quite right for community organizations: lots of projects already committed to, like the No One Leaves Campaign, and major outreach to the area's homeless people.  But conditions may change; who knows?

In the meantime, you can go here, to Avaaz.org, where by clicking on a petition, your support will register on  a giant counter erected on Wall St.  The tally's gone up by nearly a thousand just since I started this post.

Lots of readers of this blog will be pretty savvy about Occupy Wall St, and where to get up to date information, but for others who are not, here's some starting points.

First, the group that started it all-- Adbusters Media Foundation.  "“We basically floated the idea in mid July into our [email list] and it was spontaneously taken up by all the people of the world,” said Adbusters senior editor Micah White.  Live streaming, live Twitters.

Occupy Wall St. -- Describing itself as the unofficial organizing site, it has latest news, streaming video, minutes of every assembly meeting, and much more.

Occupy Together is tracking and coordinating Occupy movements across the country-- and world!

Check out We Are the 99% -- a photo essay you can contribute to.

Daily Kos has a comprehensive list of more than 200 cities where Occupy actions are taking place. 

More to come.

Photo from Mat McDermott's photostream at Flickr.

Buffy Sainte Marie - No No Keshagesh

Buffy Saint-Marie - No No Keshagesh, taken from the album "Running For The Drum" Out now on Cooking Vinyl Records, http://cookingvinyl.com/