Occupy Las Vegas (abbreviated OLV) was an
occupation
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, th ...
and
peaceful protest
Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, const ...
that began on October 6, 2011. It is affiliated with the
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest Social movement, movement against economic inequality and the Campaign finance, influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, Manhattan, Wall S ...
movement that began in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and also with the
"Occupy" movement in the United States and around the world. A series of meetings that were titled "The General Assembly" or "GA" were held to plan the beginning of the event on October 6, 2011, and were held to create a consensus on policies and planning for the occupation.
Until April 2012, Occupy Las Vegas had continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions.
Background and history
The original intent of Occupy Las Vegas, as with many of the other Occupy movements, was to denounce the role that large corporations had in promulgating the financial crisis. The protesters in Las Vegas, as in other movements throughout the world, have described themselves as the "99 percent." This statement comes from the fact that 1% of the population owns 44% of the wealth in the United States.
One of the features the Occupy Las Vegas Event had at the beginning was that the occupation began progressing with little interference from the police and the city government. The organizers and occupiers had been mainly cooperative with the police, and some of the protesters had expressed appreciation for the role that the
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has played during the occupation.
Events related to the schism in Occupy Las Vegas
On November 3, a literal midnight meeting was held at "Area 99" which purported to create a
501(c)3 non-profit corporation named ''Opportunities Las Vegas'', and reduced the rules for voting in the General Assembly to a simple majority. On November 5, a member of the non-profit board of directors stated that because of differences of opinion amongst the group that he would refuse to recognize the General Assembly's authority to in any way affect the rules of the Non-Profit due to the legal requirements and ramifications of administrating a Non-Profit.
There was a theft of passwords off an unprotected computer, in which the passwords for the
Go Daddy domain nam
OccupyLasVegas.org was briefly pointed to an anti-Semitic hate site by an unknown party. In the aftermath of this incident, the owner of the server where the site data was stored obtained a new URL
OccupyLV.orgon his own initiative.
When the original domain was restored a new hosted site was attached to it, on the initiative of the domain name owner.
As of November 20, the two sides agreed on little, except that they were now separate organizations, both claiming to be "Occupy Las Vegas.".
Chronology of events
Week 1 (October 6–12)
On October 6, 2011, Occupy Las Vegas sponsored and led a march on the
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of ...
. It was estimated that 1000 people participated in this march.
Week 2 (October 13–19)
On October 15, 2011, a march was held in the
Fremont Street Experience. Over 1000 people participated in the march.
Week 3 (October 20–26)
On October 21, 2011, the group began occupying a 2.5-acre site near
UNLV
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes the S ...
, formerly used as an overflow parking lot by the nearby airport. The site has been informally dubbed "Area 99," a reference both to the "We are the 99%" slogan of the overall movement, and the infamous
Area 51 located in Nevada. It also has an alternate name of "Camp Peace."
Week 4 (October 27 – November 3)
On October 30, 2011, a zombie march was held on the Las Vegas Strip.
Week 5 (November 4 – November 10)
See section above on Schism
Week 6 (November 11 – November 17)
Members of both factions of OLV came together to assist a small business on the verge of being foreclosed upon, on November 13–14, 2011.
In conjunction with a call by
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest Social movement, movement against economic inequality and the Campaign finance, influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, Manhattan, Wall S ...
for a protest on November 17, members of the Occupy Las Vegas factions organized a protest at the
Lloyd George Federal Building. Protesters occupied the northbound lanes of Las Vegas Boulevard, resulting in 21 arrests. The arrests are a first among Occupy Las Vegas demonstrations.
See also
Occupy articles
*
List of global Occupy protest locations
*
"Occupy" protests
The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed prim ...
*
Timeline of Occupy Wall Street
The following is a timeline of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), a protest which began on September 17, 2011 on Wall Street, the financial district of New York City and included the occupation of Zuccotti Park, where protesters established a permane ...
*
We are the 99%
We are the 99% is a political slogan widely used and coined during the 2011 Occupy movement. The phrase directly refers to the income and wealth inequality in the United States, with a concentration of wealth among the top-earning 1%. It r ...
Related articles
*
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...
*
Bank Transfer Day
*
Corruption Perceptions Index
The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index which ranks countries "by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys." The CPI generally defines corruption as an "abuse of entru ...
*
Economic inequality
There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...
*
Grassroots movement
*
Income inequality in the United States
Income inequality in the United States is the extent to which income is distributed in differing amounts among the American population. It has fluctuated considerably since measurements began around 1915, moving in an arc between peaks in t ...
*
Lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...
the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
, most often
legislator
A legislator (also known as a deputy or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people of the state. Legislatures may be supra-national (for ex ...
s or members of
regulatory agencies
A regulatory agency (regulatory body, regulator) or independent agency (independent regulatory agency) is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous dominion over some area of human activity in a licensing and regulatin ...
*
Plutocracy
*
Tea Party protests
The Tea Party protests were a series of protests throughout the United States that began in early 2009. The protests were part of the larger political Tea Party movement. Most Tea Party activities have since been focused on opposing efforts ...
*
Wealth inequality in the United States
Wealth inequality in the United States is the unequal distribution of assets among residents of the United States. Wealth commonly includes the values of any homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments, as wel ...
Related portals:
References
External links
Official Website of the Occupy Las Vegas faction that meets at Area 99Official Website of the Occupy Las Vegas faction that meets at UNLVFacebookYouTube
{{Occupy movement
Occupy movement in the United States
History of Clark County, Nevada
Culture of the Las Vegas Valley