Occupy Vermont: 10/9/11 Enormous Occupy Wall St Burlington Solidarity Rally

700-1000 Vermonters to Speak Out in Support of Occupy Wall St

10/9/11, Burlington, VT. Between 700-1000 concerned Burlington residents spoke out in support of the three week long Occupy Wall Street protest. During the march one Vermont described the reason for some many people coming together: "In the midst of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression -a crisis caused by the greed and recklessness of Wall Street- Vermonters are coming together calling for an economy that puts human need before corporate greed, and for the Wall Street bankers responsible to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We're calling for Vermont policy makers to put people first and stop balancing budgets on the backs of our most vulnerable friends and neighbors."

ANother rally participant said, "Wall Street bankers took $700 billion in bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses while they foreclose on the dreams of millions of Americans and sow the seeds of instability, joblessness and crisis. We're calling on Vermont to lead the way in creating a just alternative to Wall Street's unsustainable Too Big to Fail model."

Last Sunday, an estimated 200 concerned Vermonters met and marched in support of the occupation of Wall Street in order to show our solidarity and object to the increasingly brutal tactics being used by the police. After a march with chants of "they got bailed out, we got sold out," a speak was convened on the steps of Citizen's Banks where Vermonters shared stories of suffering through the worst economic crisis since the 1930's.

The rally will convened in City Hall Park at 12:30pm and held a General Assembly to provide updates about the situation on the ground in NYC, discuss effective ways of providing support, and plan actions to demonstrate our support locally.

The massive turnout was several times what protestors expected, and much larger than last week's two hundred person protest. Participants drew connections to local economic justice campaigns: UVM workers struggling to win fair contracts will former President Dan Fogel gets a $660,000 golden parachute; migrant farmers toiling for up to 80 hours a week without even close to livable wages; The Vermont Workers Center's Put People First campaign; the efforts of 11,000 Early Childhood Educators to win fair pay; and the efforts to stop Wisconsin-like budgetary slash and burn policies from taking root in the Statehouse and Burlington City Hall.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• Occupy Wall St
• Occupy Vermont
• Movement Building
• #OccupyWallSt
• #OccupyVT
• #OccupyBurlington