A huge turnout last night in Philadelphia to plan Occupy Philly’s sit-in in City Hall’s courtyard, and attendees decided it will begin at 9am this Thursday. I’m so thrilled that this is finally happening in the city that was the birthplace of our nation – and I’m pretty sure they’re going to need pizza:

“This is what democracy looks like.”

That was the thunderous chant of about 1,000 protesters who packed the Arch Street United Methodist Church Tuesday night as they voted to begin Occupy Philadelphia at City Hall at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Supporters young and old turned out for the meeting to plan the next steps for Philadelphia’s extension of New York City’s Occupy Wall Street protests. Some said they foresee the movement catching on across the nation.

“This is the first time in my adult life I feel there’s some hope,” said Carol Finkle, 69, of Philadelphia. “This will grow. Watch what’s gonna happen, in [young people’s] lifetime and in mine.”

Like some of New York’s protesters, many of Philadelphia’s plan to occupy City Hall 24/7 for its duration, pitching tents and camping there.

Here’s an interview with Justin Harrison, an Occupy Philly organizer who works at Verizon as a splicing technician, and is a unit secretary for Communications Workers of America (CWA), Local 1300:

In New York, they’re occupying Wall Street. In DC, they plan to occupy the the infamously lobbyist-ridden K Street. Will Occupy Philly be Philadelphian in some particular way?

[…] I think that Philly vs. New York, Philly is overwhelmingly a working class town. There’s been a strong consciousness to reach out into the communities. North, south, east, west, it’s the same stuff: jobs, housing, food and education. We don’t have Wall Street to occupy, but Philadelphia has a special flavor of its own.

Is Occupy Wall Street a progressive response to the right-wing Tea Party? Or is it something completely different?

I think that Occupy Wall Street is filling a vacuum that could have and should have been filled by the left. For example, the AFL-CIO. A lot of us feel that they dropped the ball in Wisconsin this spring [when there were weeks of mass protests against Governor Scott Walker’s attack on collective bargaining rights]. People came out in the streets and occupied the capitol, but AFL-CIO put it into the Democratic Party and elections.

I’ve been saying look, we need to pay attention to this. They’re doing stuff that we could have been doing and should have been doing. And we should help out, and we can learn from it.
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