Occupy Poughkeepsie Spurs 99 Percent Fight-Back in New York’s Hudson Valley

December 19, 2011

The tents and sleeping bags belonging to Occupy Poughkeepsie in Hulme Park were evicted two weeks ago, but the Occupy movement is gaining momentum in New York’s Hudson Valley. “You cannot evict a movement whose time has come,” 1199SEIU Delegate Joy Lucky, an LPN at River Valley Care Center, told a crowd of over 125 people who came to support Occupy Poughkeepsie and celebrate its two-month anniversary.

The intermittent rain on a mid-December evening only served to energize the already spirited solidarity rally, attended by 1199SEIU members, clergy, and other supporters of the Occupy movement in the Hudson Valley.

Jesse Myerson, a progressive journalist who has been covering the Occupy movement across the country, gave rousing opening remarks. “History has shown there is one way to make change in this country and that is to make yourself a big inconvenience to those in power,” he said. “We will not move until the problems we are facing globally, nationally, and locally are solved.”

Liz Richardson, a worker at Vassar Brothers Medical Center for 38 years and a co-organizer and MC of the event, said, “In Poughkeepsie, just like all across America, the 99 percent are rising up and saying we want good jobs and a fair, democratic economy. People have lost their jobs and their homes.

“Now there are those politicians and corporations who are demanding massive cuts to healthcare, education and other social programs. Meanwhile, corporate profits are up and the richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million. That’s why we are standing strong with you.”

After two hours of music, prayer, uplifting remarks and rally cries, the crowd left the park and extemporaneously marched to the Chase Bank in downtown Poughkeepsie. Occupy Poughkeepsie protestors proudly held the 1199SEIU banner and chanted, “Banks got bailed out. We got sold out” and “Blame Wall Street, Not Main Street.”

“While our hard-earned tax dollars bailed out the banks in this country, they paid us back by foreclosing on our homes,” said Joy Lucky. “The Occupy movement is me and everyone I know—full and part-time working people, unemployed folks who can’t find jobs, students who have graduated from college with big loans to pay and are still unemployed--everyone I know is saying enough is enough! We are the 99 percent, We Are the Occupy movement.”