MoveOn chapter participates in Occupy day of action

On Occupy Wall Street's two month anniversary and day of action Nov. 17, the Guilford County MoveOn.org chapter organized a demonstration on the Summit Ave bridge over Murrow Boulevard near downtown.

Guilford County MoveOn organizer Ken Knight said the national organization asked its 500 local chapters to hold rallies at bridges or schools that were crumbling to highlight the negative effects of decreased public funding. Knight said 40 people participated.

"It’s a direct cause of the rich people in this country not being taxed and supporting the repair of infrastructure," Knight said. "We could put a lot of people to work doing useful work if we had a government that would actually support taxing the rich to maintain safe infrastructure for all of us."

MoveOn organizes separately from the Occupy movement but has acted in connected and complimentary ways before, including a nationwide call to switch money out of big banks to local ones or credit unions on Nov. 5.

"There’s been some debate in Occupy Greensboro and other Occupy councils about whether MoveOn wants to take over," Knight said, "and the local group realized correctly that we aren’t trying to take over anything, but that we have the same interests. We very much support it."

The protest was the only action in Greensboro that day, though large protests happened throughout the country, particularly in New York City where anywhere from 32,000 to 50,000 people took part in the day of action, Occupy Wall Street's biggest yet.

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