A bold idea for boosting the Occupy movement:
The only way to regain the power of the protest, to eliminate any shred of pretense for police state action, is to sever occupying and camping.
So how do we do that? By enabling the Occupiers to camp with you, and occupy the square in shifts. If sleeping and all the biological needs of the occupiers–can be handled in your space, the Occupiers can stand vigil in our space. Can’t you see it? The afternoon shift giving way to the graveyard shift, sunrise greeting the morning shift as it arrives for its duty. Or maybe there’s just two shifts, day and night. Either way, shift work is very 99%, a tactic that’s on message…
… If we successfully separate occupation and camping, ALL action against the occupiers will be totally unjustifiable. The police state side loses.
Creative non-violence is always the best tactic. So don’t dry your hands with BRAWNY paper towels or wipe your ass with QUILTED NORTHERN toilet paper. Destroy the Koch brothers profit margin by refusing to buy any product made by Georgia-Pacific, a company that they own.
Add to that, ANGEL SOFT toilet tissue, recommended for homes with very old plumbing and/or septic tanks to reduce clumping and clogging. I’ve switched to a similar product sold under Publix Supermarket’s store brand but have been unable to find out their source in spite of an assistant store manager’s earnest promise to research the question and get back to me — weeks ago.
I like this idea — it work if they could find possible places for Occupiers to stay close to Zucotti Park, or at least in Manhattan. Fred Clark had an idea for churches to offer sanctuary to the protesters. And they could use the shift idea to cut down on the number of people in any one place.
Why is the movement so wedded to the idea of the real estate of some public place? Maybe it’s useful in certain places or at certain times, but I say now that they have evicted the movement, the movement should make them WISH it would sit still, in one place. Be everywhere and nowhere. A couple dozen cops can handle a crowd in one place. What do they do when the protest is widespread, diffuse, and constantly shifting and the cops are spread thin? How will their chemical weapons and deafness cannons work then?
I think they should make it personal. Identify a hundred or so of the worst villains and vilify them relentlessly, and also follow them around, make their lives as ugly as possible within legal limits.
The real estate was important to give a location to where things are happening. So people can join up.
When there is a real organization, with email trees, phone trees, etc., then a large number of people can be organized to appear at various actions, but until then and real space with real people can make things happen.
I think the “adopt an Occupier” would be fantastic, especially for the winter months.
Also, why is it so important to be in a specific place 24hrs every day? Why not be there from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Take camping out of the equation and they will just find another excuse to claim that the movement is a threat to health or order. End camping and they will take out the benches, then eventually they will ban sitting. Not that I even think the camping was important.
Like I said above, I think this needs to be a whole lot more personal and active. Besides vilifying the Koch brothers and Bloomberg, I really think the pressure should be on the Vichy Democrats. They are really the cause of this movement. Their failure to act in good faith and push back against the nastiness of the plutocrats over the last 20 or 30 years with the culmination of Preznit Barrack Hoover Obama has laid bare the uselessness of our so-called D/democratic institutions. Expose the complicity of Harry Ried, Patty Murray, Wyden, Carnahan, Cantwell, Feinstein, Durbin, etc. and hound them relentlessly and mercilessly. None of this mess could have happened without them. We can’t fight the plutocrats politically as long as they own the Democratic party.
guest, by “Vichy Democrats” you mean the Blue Dogs, right? That’s the Hillary and Bill Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. Obama? Not so much. The Clinton wing refuses to believe that their hero’s are warmongering, neo-con, Blue Dogs. That is especially true for Hillary. Until they see the light Obama will be forced to lean to the Right to satisfy the demands of HillBill.