Occupy Underground
Related: About this forumhow to succeed in reoccupation without really trying
http://www.nationofchange.org/how-succeed-reoccupation-without-really-trying-1333804709Ive lately been getting the feeling that Occupy Wall Streets past successes are starting to go to the heads of some people in the movement. There were, of course, the glory days of Liberty Plaza, and now also the spurt of momentum during and following the brief March 17 six-month-anniversary reoccupation there. But as the NYPD and police departments across the country make it quite clear that occupations of any kind will not be tolerated, the mood has gotten sour. The good old days, it seems, are not coming back.
For lots of organizers, Ive noticed, the operating presumption is that occupation something comparable to last fall but somehow surely better constitutes a prerequisite to further political action. Consequently, a considerable amount of the energy of the most talented organizers in New York (as well as, evidently, in Oakland and San Francisco) has been directed toward failed reoccupation attempts. Or else the movement is celebrating its own anniversaries, not making occasions for new ones. The more conversations I have with listless, frustrated organizers, though, the more I start to feel that right now this occupation-first logic is exactly backwards.
This is a new time; the movement and peoples perspectives on it are in a totally different place than they were last fall. Potential allies expect more from the movement, Id say, and so they should. People I know who were wholeheartedly behind it a few months ago seem to think its over, or it should be. The encampments, which Occupiers know as well as anyone sometimes turned into rather unsafe spaces, lost much public support. YouTube clips and statistics of Occupiers behaving badly in them have become fodder for a right-wing smear campaign that is gearing up for any possible resurgence. This matters; in some sense, an occupation must always be earned with public support, support that makes the cost in legitimacy too high for the state to mount an eviction.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)With all due respect, a question for the author of the article, and for any "potential allies" that were referred to in the article:
You want it when?
And would you like free fries to go with that, also?
xchrom
(108,903 posts)There's plenty of room to get involved, to shape.
OWS is hardly institutionalized - it's still very easy to get in 'on the ground floor'.
Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)General Assembly requires a convergence of people in a public space, with or without the approval of the authorities. An open Forum, literally (in ancient Rome) or the Agora in Greece.
We could take a different sort of space and MAKE it a public space, but once you take it out of the parks, methinks most of the passive supporters won't really understand. And once their support wanes, it becomes a plaything of the institutional left.
What do people remember about protests in the WWI - Depression Era? The Bonus Army march. The Hoovervilles.
The Civil Rights era?
Resurrection City was Martin Luther King's final project before he died. We can't seem to recreate it, even now that a convergence is supposedly scheduled for DC in April. Everyone complained about the rats in Resurrection City (the Poor People's Campaign). They passed the Anti-Camping law to get rid of it after MLK's death.
Occupy, what do?
ellisonz
(27,739 posts)Media loves that shit.
Also, occupation can occur in parks, just not overnight and generally without tents. Get creative