– David Elkin-Ginnetti, member of Occupy New Haven

[Editor’s note: Occupy New Haven has maintained its encampment on the upper Green since October 15, 2011. Visit its website www.occupynewhaven.org]

Tents have been put up on New Haven Green since early on in the Occupy movement in 2011.

It is vital for Occupy New Haven not to get sidelined by recent talks with New Haven city government. At meetings with Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts and other top Yale and New Haven officials, delegates from Occupy New Haven were repeatedly shown that the city would love to relocate our encampment to a quiet outpost at a less conspicuous location in the city.

We have many things to be grateful for- namely, that the city even invited us to talk with them in the first place. Most other cities have simply evicted their occupations, no questions asked. So this is a good chance for dialogue. But we absolutely cannot give the city the privilege of pushing us around. The purpose of our physical occupation is to liberate public space, reclaiming it for its original function as a center of free speech. In this way the New Haven Green is unique: it’s the center of downtown, a space passed by thousands of people daily, and center for movements throughout history. Through direct action, people in Occupy New Haven are getting the chance for their voices to be heard, often for the first time. This is why our occupation of the Green is so important. The chance for dialogue with the city is great, but let’s make it actual dialogue, instead of an essentially one-sided call to get off the Green.

This movement lives in the abstract. It is represented by a set of vague ideals, like horizontal democracy, transparency, equality, and mutual respect. This vagueness can sometimes be advantageous. Anyone can be part of Occupy if s/he says s/he is. But how do we boil down the abstractions into real life- something more than idealism? The answer is the occupation itself- it grounds the movement. This is why staying on the Green is vital for Occupy New Haven. Let’s not let negotiation take our values away from us. We need to fight for our right to be heard, no matter what. That’s why I occupy.

Tags: Occupy New Haven

– OccupyShorelineCT.org

We are protesting in order to raise the public’s awareness of the harm done by one of Connecticut’s major corporations, Pfizer Inc., and to draw attention to the way in which Pfizer cooperates with other corporations through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to serve corporate and elite 1% interests while ignoring the health and well-being of people, animals and the earth itself.

As a pharmaceutical company, Pfizer should be using the marvelous power of modern science for the betterment of human and animal health. Instead, Pfizer has tormented animals, overdosed children with dangerous medications, conducted inhumane experiments in this country and abroad, and created massive pollution in Groton and other towns where it has operated.

Pfizer executives deceived the people of New London and Connecticut into granting the company huge tax advantages to locate a facility near Fort Trumbull. As soon as the tax advantages expired, Pfizer closed the doors to this facility and transferred its work force out of state. In their greedy whimsy, Pfizer executives demanded the demolition of an entire neighborhood near Fort Trumbull so that their executives could have lavish accommodations and shopping there. The neighborhood was leveled, but Pfizer simply abandoned New London and its people. Where a neighborhood once lived, an empty field now stands!

Pfizer and ALEC serve their own interests rather than the interests of the people. Through ALEC, Pfizer and other corporations make unfair “model laws” in secret and then force them through state legislatures. These laws are written for the corporations by ALEC for a fee and receive no debate and no inspection by the people or their elected representatives. Laws are meant to be made in public, not by corporations and the pet legislators who work with them in secret through ALEC.

Tags: Occupy New Haven