FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 3, 2011 #OccupyCleveland Media Coordinator: Shelly Gracon-Nagy P: 216.374.2367 Email: sgncreative@gmail.

com #OccupyCleveland Press Contact: Jacob Wagner P: 440.231.6323 Email: jxw434@case.edu www.occupycleveland.com

#occupycleveland To Begin Thursday, October 6 at Noon, Willard Park

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Desmond Tutu Cleveland October 3 Clevelanders will act in solidarity with the current Occupy Wall Street movement taking place in NYC and across the nation beginning on Thursday, October 6th at noon in Willard Park (under the Free Stamp). That afternoon they will march to their final occupation destination where protestors will set up their community camp and maintain an occupation indefinitely. Various working groups that have been formed will facilitate daily General Assembly meetings, direct actions, performances and other various activities. The event is free and open to the public. Willard Park is located at the corners of Lakeside and E. 9th next to the courthouse. Look for the Free Stamp! #OccupyCleveland Statement of Purpose We invite Cleveland to join in our democratic process. We are the 99%. We are the Americans who wake up every day and go to work in the worst economy since the Great Depression. We have witnessed the slow erosion of America and it's promises of equal opportunity and equal rights under law. Individuals and corporations whose extraordinary wealth ordinary citizens cannot even begin to comprehend have abused their positions in society and have shown through their actions a complete disregard for the welfare, safety, and stability of their fellow-citizens throughout the United States. Our city, Cleveland, has seen the effects of this disregard. Our factories are closed because their owners would rather draw their labor from brutalized populations living under dictatorships halfway across the world than pay an American a fair wage for a fair day's work. Our neighborhoods are crumbling as banks file foreclosures on the same sub-prime mortgages they offered with full knowledge to people who could not afford them. Using legal smoke and mirrors these institutions have sought to avoid any accountability for their negligence, fraud, and unethical behavior.

We have seen the effects of "regulation" written by lobbyists, drafted with enough loopholes to make the law look like a piece of Swiss cheese. We have seen these wealthy elites flex their economic power to create laws that protect their wealth at the expense of the more than 200 million American citizens who struggle every day to make ends meet and provide for themselves and their families. We stand today where so many Americans have stood throughout our history, to exercise our inalienable rights to demand change here, in our city. In doing so we honor those who gave their lives that we might stand here today and defend the spirit of liberty and justice for all that is slowly being silenced. We are the 99% and we have had enough. About Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants. General Assembly Principles of Solidarity (from NYC) On September 17, 2011, people from all across the United States of America and the world came to protest the blatant injustices of our times perpetuated by the economic and political elites. On the 17th we as individuals rose up against political disenfranchisement and social and economic injustice. We spoke out, resisted, and successfully occupied Wall Street. Today, we proudly remain in Liberty Square constituting ourselves as autonomous political beings engaged in non-violent civil disobedience and building solidarity based on mutual respect, acceptance, and love. It is from these reclaimed grounds that we say to all Americans and to the world, Enough! How many crises does it take? We are the 99% and we have moved to reclaim our mortgaged future. Through a direct democratic process, we have come together as individuals and crafted these principles of solidarity, which are points of unity that include but are not limited to:

Engaging in direct and transparent participatory democracy; Exercising personal and collective responsibility; Recognizing individuals inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions; Empowering one another against all forms of oppression; Redefining how labor is valued; The sanctity of individual privacy; The belief that education is human right; and Endeavoring to practice and support wide application of open source.

We are daring to imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality. For more information or an interview, please contact Jacob Wagner at 440.231.6323 or jxw434@case.edu. Also, visit us on the web at www.occupycleveland.com.