Occupy Miami Ignites The Torch of Friendship

Introducing Occupy Miami – Nearly 200 activists, artists, and organizers made clear their intentions last Saturday, at the first #OccupyMiami organizational meeting. The new collaboration assembled to discuss problems facing the community at a local and national level- and subsequently global level- democratically deciding how to address such issues through direct action. The event was the first official meeting, after many of its members spent the previous days conceptualizing how to bring Miami into the effort in conversations that spanned ad-hoc video conferences, Facebook chats, and IRC.

The nationwide Occupy movement was inspired by the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests which took over New York’s Zuccotti Park, aka “Liberty Square”, on September 17th. The idea, with heavy support from Adbusters, spread to cities from Boston, to Chicago, to LA and around the world, springing up with unprecedented velocity. The message is multifaceted, touching upon common grievances: money’s corrupting influence on politics and the resulting breakdown of hallowed democratic institutions. The symptoms become evident when we observe one of the highest income gaps in the developed world, and extended tax cuts for the wealthy forcing public services to face austerity measures and downsizing.