(NEW YORK) MintPress — The headlines may scream that New York’s Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the grass roots movement it has spawned across the country is running out of money, but that is not what key organizers tell MintPress.
According to recent reports, Occupy Wall Street has warned that it could be broke by the end of the month, raising questions about the future of the movement that sparked nationwide protests against economic injustice last year.
Much of the media coverage was based on a release by OWS’ accounting group for the week ending March 2, which showed it had $44,828 in a general fund, in addition to $90,000 set aside to bail protesters out of jail during planned protests in the spring. “At our current rate of expenditure,” said the report, “We will be out of money in THREE WEEKS.”
Occupy DC strikes back
Yet according to Kevin Zeese, one of the leading organizers of the OccupyDC movement, OWS intentionally stopped raising money several months ago, saying it wanted to “spend down what it had.”
In an exclusive interview, Zeese reveals to MintPress that “There are hangers on in Occupy, people who want free food or free Metro Fare cards.” He continues, “We need to develop a funding base that combines grass roots funding with larger donors.”
That effort, contends Zeese, has been successful. “The Movement Resource Group has announced its first round of financing,” he says. “These grants for a maximum of $5,000 are a welcome addition to the movement. And shows that even among the 1% we have allies.”
Funding fundamentals
Zeese claims that the movement received an abundance of financial support from unlikely sources at its inception.
“A lot of the funding for OWS and other occupations came because of the sudden excitement of people getting organized,” he says. “Often, spurts of funding came in reaction to law enforcement violence against non-violent occupy activities.”
“We had lots of people on Freedom Plaza as part of the Occupation of Washington, DC, who came onto the Plaza, saw what we were doing and put money in our donation box,” he maintains. “This included government officials….. law enforcement officials.”
Occupy’s Spring forward
Zeese says that contrary to popular perception, the movement has big plans for the future. Every week, in fact, the Occupied Wall Street Journal publishes a roundup of activities, while there continue to be local working groups in cities around the country.
In addition, says Zeese, the National Occupation of Washington (NOW) campaign is building momentum. The first direct action will be Occupy the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on March 31.
“More is being planned,” he acknowledges to MintPress. “That is just a start.”
Source: MintPress