On November 3rd occupiers amassed in an Oakland “general strike,” shutting down the entire port of Oakland for several hours. Over 3,000 people have been arrested in association with the Occupy protests since they began in New York on September 17th. Inspired by the citizen revolutions that unfolded this past spring across the Middle East and North Africa, occupations have spread to nearly every state in the United States, and gained traction in cities across the globe from London to Athens to Madrid to Bogotá. The occupations have succeeded in galvanizing a conversation—unseen since the 1970s—about equity, inequality, opportunity, the influence of money in politics, and the outsized power of corporations and financial institutions.
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