ReOccupy

After last year’s collapse at the hand of harsh treatment by local police and cities, aided by the unrelenting coldness of winter, the Occupy movement appeared to leave the national spotlight. But despite what many thought, they didn’t die.

For starters, the main Occupy Wall Street movement is starting a new campaign, a “Rolling Jubilee“, to raise money in order to buy up people’s debt. Instead of perpetually hounding them like creditors are wont to do, they plan to just forgive that debt. So far, they’ve raised enough money to buy up $5.7 million worth of debt.

Elsewhere, the movement is raising support for Wal-Mart workers strike planned for Black Friday. They are trying to raise money to help provide some food for those workers that go on strike. This effort is not going quite as well, with only $7,500 raised so far. But the strike itself is the more important.

While 1,000 strikes are planned at this point it is unclear how successful they will be. Wal-mart has a history of suppressing their workers who show an interest in striking. If they succeed in intimidating people into not participating or the commitment turns out to be less than expected, it will be ignored and go no where. But, if 1,000 strikes occur on Black Friday of all days, that could begin to raise awareness that unions still have a purpose and that people aren’t going to sit by and take whatever corporations dish out.

It will be interesting to watch. You can show your support by boycotting Wal-Mart on Black Friday. Show them (and everyone other retailer doing this) that it’s not fair to start their sales on Thanksgiving, forcing their workers to miss the holiday.